the scrawling nomad

Two Cents

2011-10-31T18:25:00.000-07:00

Just be on time, don't be afraid to fail, and when you get thrown off your horse, just learn how to land well, dust yourself off, and climb back on. If you learn nothing else in life, learn how to handle the rough landings. If you know how to get back up, you're never going to suffer for too long.

You'll only have a handful of people you can really trust by the time you die. Don't wait too long hoping people turn around. They never do. Know the difference from friends who change and friends who just grow apart. Its a two way street, and your interests just aren't there. It doesn't mean you did anything wrong.

I don't know what happens when you die, but I've never bought into the scare-mongering. You know what the right thing to do is. Do it. That being said, there is no premium on your own happiness. Money, looks, and status won't make you feel any better - if you're not happy, make moves.

Politics will depress you once or twice in your life time, but as one famous politician said "There's no Republican way to clean up garbage." When all else fails, figure out how to help your community because its probably where your kids will grow up, or where you grew up, or where your friends kids will grow up.

There are two styles (for men) that are timeless. I refer to them as the Sinatra and the Springsteen: suits or t-shirts, jeans, and sneakers (chucks more so than nikes). If you don't want to look back 30 years on and think you're an asshole, stick to those two. And by the way, don't let people tell you dressing a certain way matters for shit, if you wear your personality on your sleeve expect someone to spill something on it. I don't know what that means, but who wants juice on their personality? I sure don't.

I used to think guys who worked out all the time were brainless and had some terrible priorities. The truth is, few things matter in the end. Read books and work out. Fitness, both mental and physical, are going to be the only things that matter at some point. Through them almost everything is possible, without them, you're going to pay a lot of money for the same damn thing.

Get a passion. There's nothing worse than a person who likes nothing. They're boring to talk to and they don't make for good party guests. Always be a good party guest.

At some point you're going to try to be something you're not. You're going to look back and hate yourself, I promise. There's nothing else I can say about that except everyone has to learn that lesson by doing it and feeling the agony of selling out and getting nothing for it.

A smarter person than myself once said "Solitude without peace is loneliness." If you know what you need, I'd suggest you go for it and apologize after the fact.

Grow your hair long before you're 21. Grow your beard out before 25. Its probably not going to look good, but if you do it before then, you won't appear to be completely clueless.

Sugar really is that bad for you. Its (and laziness)killed off enough of my teeth that I can tell you honestly.

Good luck. Believe in yourself. And keep your shoulders back, you're not greeting people at Frankenstein's castle.*

*Jack Francis Donaghy

Honoring the Dead

2011-09-13T21:00:00.001-07:00

I get the impression from speaking with people that I think a lot more than is average. And one of the things I constantly do is think of moments in time or scenes or people that I haven't seen in a great many years, or who've shuffled off this mortal coil. Tonight I thought I'd write about the later.

Her name was Helene (pronounced Hel-en) and I met her when I was roughly 16. It feels weird to say this about someone who's no longer with us, but it was normal to say then I thought she was beautiful. For the next few years, she and I had an intermitent-at-best friendship. This was partly do to our mutual attraction to one another and mostly do to me being sort of an asshole about that. I've made countless mistakes in my romantic life but I never really held on to them as long as the ones I made with her. Maybe it was because I attempted to be logical about a passionate situation and screwed up royally.

I can't say we were serious or that, at the time I'd found out she had died that we were close. I would often think about her and wonder if she ever did the same. In the near recent past, living in the town she had grown up in, I attmpted to track her down. I found her on Facebook and her profile was sparce. I assumed it was one of those "tried it and hated it" profiles. In fact, it wouldn't even let me post or message her. I was told (by the computer) that what I could do was write a message and tag her in it. I did and wished her a Merry Christmas and hoped things were well.

Then I got a message from a mutal friends (who I was better friends with). I remember the weight on my chest when I read she had died. As these things tend to do, I think I'd lost touch with normality - I googled her to find news articles, rememberence pages, and some page that let me know she was working to educate inner city youth. I was sad and numb at the same time. I went back to that Facebook page to check on one thing: Most folks with even the tightest security settings for some reason don't lock up their profile photos. I always assume that they don't understand locking your profile pictures doesn't mean hiding your current profile photo. To whatever end this was luck, who ever had locked up her page post-mortem failed to make the same move, even though her current profile picture was the default silhouette.

It was deep in the month of Decemeber and had to be around midnight when I saw the 4 old profile photos. I mention this because it added to the haunting I felt; two of the photos were her, staring into a webcam presumably to try it out. I'm sure it was the situation, but she seemed sad and empty. And I must have just looked for around 10 minutes, thinking of all the wrongs and missed opportunities. It wasn't sadness or loss. It was something beyond emotion where I felt like she would always be a part of me.

So here I am tonight, writing a tribute to a woman that I barely knew in reality but still think about on a regular basis. I can't help but think that for a passing romance, she's shaped my life in innumerate ways, and the least I could do was honor her memory in a never-read Blog on the internet. It makes me sad to think we lost her early when its clear her intent was to make an impact on the lifes on many more with less advantages and to whom she would help more.

Such is life though. Her memory should carry on in those she managed to touch by the young age of 25. And it would be my hope that, in her continued presense in my mind, I should attempt to reach even half as far as she did in a small attempt to honor the dead.

Old Hat Rabbit Tricks Dog New

2011-09-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

The Sonnet of Fading Friendship

Tea leaves are worn as a shifting mask,
Truth lingers beneath our social mores.
Disciplines unruly task
Diplomacy's unending chore

That stability should silently ask
Civilities grip, utmost, endures.
When our culture mirrors the Pyrenees' basque
Patience hand is all that cures.

The bull it stomps and billows smoke
It kicks up dust and draws its line
Mistaken for its confidence

Against its lingering pains did poke
Like a gaping wound to meet the brine
Charges headlong against insignificance

When did folks get boring?

2011-05-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

"The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
— John F. Kennedy

I remember a time when the weekend was uncharted territory. Before I got a smartphone and had a calendar on it to keep track of plans. Back when I knew 15 people who'd be up for anything this weekend. They have shuffled off to Europe or California. Some got married or committed themselves to an eternity of work because of their jobs.

I seem to remember my early-to-mid 20's as nothing but carnival rides and fireworks. Even the bad times were at least interesting. When I overdrew an account, it was by $800. When someone broke up with me, it was seemingly the most ruthless ay to do it you could imagine. These days I never overdraw my accounts; I'm in a stable relationship. Its not lamentable, but its leading me to some new places and I'm not sure I understand the rules here.

It seems when you hit (or approach) 30, everyone wants to conduct themselves as if they're bloodless WASPs around whom everyone ought to conduct themselves as if it were a tea party, regardless of how endreged your current position is. And if anything about Marriage bothers me, its the unspoken cultural dictum that we need to whitewash our past. That who we were is just how we coped with the misery of singledom and now that its gone, we should all disregard our inner impulses and just be pleasant. If I have to bear witness to another smiley introduction that is the mimetic equivalent of a curtsey I'm going to drink myself into a coma.

For the record, I'm fine with marriage and civility. But it doesn't equate to boring. Or at least it doesn't have to. There's a regular occurrence whenever I'm out where people make this face as if I've offended them. The problem is I'm almost never speaking about them. Their being offended, in my opinion, because I refuse to conduct myself like royalty and I'm removing the image of the tea party. Whenever it happens, I can imagine the conversation when I'm gone. "oh thats just Brow."

I don't intend to make this a rant on the falsehood that takes place between people. We all know what fake is, and we can generally tell when people are it. But if you've got a job, you're likely fake the entire week. I have to pretend I'm interested in stories, problems, other peoples families, and feelings. Thats just how the game is played if you want to pay rent. But when we punch-out and the quitting whistle has blown, why continue? And if you have a reason, don't you fear for the impending mental breakdown? Have people not seen American Beauty?

I like to think of myself as a people person. I engage strangers and old friends in the exact same way: like I'm playing a Rugby match in the rain. I get messy, I'm not afraid of sliding around or full contact, and I never lose sight of the goal - lets have a decent time. Because at some point soon, I'll be wearing a tie and shaking hands with clients who's money I need. I'd prefer to not sit around and wait to get back there, so for this short period, while we're young and insouciant, why don't we agree to have a drink more than we should, to roll with a few more punches, and try to remember that regrettable past for just a couple hours. Because you've got an eternity to act old, be miserable, and play it safe.

tears of a clown

2011-04-07T17:56:00.001-07:00

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." - Steve Jobs

"I want you to know that you haven't lived until you've fought back, that you haven't won until you've lost, that you can't understand what it's like to relish something until you've suffered, and that some mistakes you never stop paying for"- Roy Hobbs

Remembering Reagan

2011-02-02T20:04:00.000-08:00

I've curbed much of my political ranting for a shorter, more frequent Twitter posting (@lowbrowpolitics) but if this blog is going to be what I'm thinking, I can't quit politicing for good. This month, Time Magazine is remembering Reagan. The cover would have you believe its a big comparison between He and President Obama, but its only one article. The rest is in reference to the centennial.

While most of the writing is political, his Daughters piece is deeply personal, and whatever you think of the man, its worth a read...

Several years into my father's journey down the narrowing road of Alzheimer's, when he was still going out for walks, I looped my arm through his one afternoon and walked with him along a leafy street near my parents' home. A few people recognized him, waved and called out, "Hello, Mr. President" and "God bless you." He smiled and waved back. Then he looked at me, confused, and asked, "Do I know them?"

No, Dad, I said. "They recognized you and wanted to say hello." He looked even more perplexed. "But how do they know me?"

I already knew his memory of being President had been extinguished. He remembered ice skating as a boy and swimming in the Rock River in summer but not his impact on the country and the world. I didn't want to add to his confusion. "They've seen you walking here," I told him. He smiled, and his eyes lit up. "That's very sweet of them," he said. "They're nice people."

Moments like that revealed what was most essential about my father — his graciousness, his kindness toward others, his gratitude and his humility. Even at the end, Alzheimer's didn't kill those qualities, although it killed a lot.

I often imagine what it would be like if my father were still here to mark his 100th birthday, if Alzheimer's hadn't clawed away years, possibilities, hopes. What would he think of all the commemorations and celebrations?

Basically a humble man, he'd be embarrassed, I suspect, although certainly flattered. He would cover his emotions with a joke — probably something about George Burns' living to 100 and how he just couldn't let George get all the glory for making it that far. I'm sure he'd be disappointed in the meanness of politics these days yet amused by all the politicians trying to adhere themselves to his legacy, even aiming to be "the next Ronald Reagan." He'd probably suggest, with a twinkle in his eye, that they should figure out who they are as individuals and be the best at that.

But most of all, I imagine spending time with him as a daughter — and his allowing the residue of my rebellious years and the hurt I caused him to blow away like dust, maybe with a bit of humor, since I did manage to snag his attention by being the bad girl. I'd like to ask him if he was ever really fooled by me.

I'd also like to ask him about the nearsighted boy he once was, whose father frequently disappeared on drinking binges so severe he'd pass out, often miles from home. Maybe my father would finally open up to me about the uncertainty and the waiting ... and the fear.

Yet he had no fear, and I wish more than anything I could sit with him by a window in the dying light of day and ask him about that. How did you come from where you came from and learn to be so confident? How did you learn to trust so completely in your faith that fear didn't stand a chance? I want to tell him I remember the nights when I was a child and he traced the constellations for me, showing me Pegasus and Orion. I want to tell him that even though light-years came between us later on, I never stopped believing he hung the moon.

My father's body lies in a stone tomb high on a hill. People walk by, pause, think their own thoughts about him and move on, back to their own lives. I can never move on. He is everywhere. I know you think I mean publicly, especially now that he would have been 100 years old. And in part, I do mean that. But what I really mean is, he lives in me on the edge of dreams. He lives in the regrets that burden me and the sweet memories that keep me afloat. There was a moment, midway through the Alzheimer's years, when I was leaving my parents' house and I said to him, "Bye. I love you." His eyes opened wide in surprise and he said, "Well, thank you. Thank you so much." He had no idea who I was. He was startled and typically gracious about another human being's telling him she loved him. I don't know if I will ever reach that level of grace, but I'm grateful for having been born to a man who did.

Until the last three years of his life, when he became bedridden, he carried in his pocket a coin that says "Let go and let God." I keep it now in a box on my dresser. I don't know where he got it, but I'm guessing someone handed it to him when he was out walking and he looked at the message on it and thought of how lovely it was and how he related to it. Every day after that, he put it in his pocket — as a talisman, perhaps, but also to remind him of a stranger's kindness.

He was not a perfect man. He was not a perfect father. But he tried to reach higher, to understand what God wanted of him. He was a unique person who carved out a unique place in history. I sat beside him as he died. And now he sits inside my heart as I live my life, without him but with him.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2044468,00.html#ixzz1CosN8T5Z

A father is an interesting thing in America. You often here that people weren't close to their father, and the relationship was never close. But they have a way of loving after they're gone, as if their echo in history lingers, holding us best through a post mortem example, as if their presence is an heirloom which is handed down and carried on until we pass on ourselves, and pass along our small spin on an otherwise enduring legacy.

The narrative of feel...

2011-01-26T10:39:00.000-08:00

To parry rhetorical idiocy, lets not use a genre here, but instead I’m just going to put 5 songs down, and say that sound equals genre X, where X = a word I will make up soon.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Down Boy
Arcade Fire – Ready to Start
TV on the Radio – Blues from Down here
The National – Blood Buzz Ohio
Decemberists – And here I dreamt I was an architect

This genre, which I’ll attempt to put into words, should be called (for the sake of this article) Menthol-Indie because I feel like it. Moving on.

Maybe its because I live in a city known for lobster and sub-arctic wind chill. Or maybe its because I’m keen on lament, but this style of music creates an environment, so closely resembling abandoned city streets in winter, I can’t help myself but try and draw the parallel.

I think Phil Spector is over-hyped and what he contributed was, at best, benign to the times. But his philosophy, while boring in concept is amazing in practice. The wall of sound with the least amount of instruments possible (Somewhere in here, Andy Warhol becomes the creator, but I’m not entirely sure where, and its not essential for this ramble) essentially creates white noise, and with some percussion, melody, and narrative in front of it, makes it the backdrop of a person lost in the world, contemplating the finer details of “why the hell am I here?”

What we get in life is often background noise, car horns, engines rumbling, trains roaring by, planes, dogs, one-sided cell phone conversation and any number of small ticks; insects, clocks, technologies constant reminders that they’re waiting for us. This serves no purpose to the individual, and in a musical sense, it would not effect (or shouldn’t, outside the schizophrenic mind, a purpose to narrative.) If it hasn’t been made obvious yet, I’m making the connection between the individual and the narrative, which should be clear to begin with, but its being pitched differently here.

What this white noise may come to represent, if it wasn’t the intention to begin with is the innumerate life teeming beyond the individual which, when already in a position of indirection, may only further the idea that life goes on without, therefore, what’s your purpose?

But beyond our teen angst and depression, these instances are less an overall characteristic of the individual, and more a characteristic of an event: a break-up, a parent dying, rejection, and unemployment. Could white noise, in the adult mind (or narrative) be the chaos that comes with the myriad of responsibilities throw into havoc when something like this comes? Ignore for a minute whether or not it does. Hear me out…

The device (Wall of Sound), when viewed as a device, seems to suggest to us the interpreter that the chaos marches in a lock-step uniformity; that chaos must represent “the other” by virtue of its consistency, and lack of relationship to the listener. When applied to any narrative, this follows a logical literary pattern of Person v. Environment, which is a traditional Antagonist. Traditionally, this is found in Drama not Comedy (literal sense) but music, and especially that which could be considered post-industrial (society, not music) seems to suggest a comedic effect in so far as there is no resolution. The white-noise, chaos of the Wall of Sound is a constant, something the Protagonist lives with and grows increasingly familiar with. Have you ever heard the Wall of Sound used in a staccato capacity? Neither have I, and I’m not even sure how you would pull it off, but lets forget that for a second.

What this style says about chaos, which was traditionally considered the opposite of self (the other) , is that it becomes a familiarity. If we look to the alternative of the post-industrial society, its generally rural, where all noises come with nature, and therefore has a very logical connection to a given person. People hunt, fish, farm, and live in the environment, which are at least a few degrees away from direct relations. But in the city, too much “environmental” factors have little or nothing to do with anyone else. The consumer order is sharply divided. I saw 3 news helicopters today. While the argument for benefiting the individual could be there, if it wasn’t our lives wouldn’t be so much different (do we really need to know about a traffic jam after the fact?).

A few paragraphs back I wondered if the familiarity with noise is the immediate stress of the responsibility and it’s new found immediacy. What I think we’ve tripped over in between is that its less the immediacy, but the presence of all things that must exist in order for a City-Society to function. That is, theres a butterfly effect that occurs to me if the Traffic-Copter isn’t out that day, even if its effects are not felt directly. In finality, the wall of sound seems to operate within the narrative as a sort of societal feedback. One that doesn’t suggest a wish to return to a rural life, but the pressure cooker of demands in a metropolitan lifestyle, and beyond this, the ever growing coldness that comes with or all too familiar relationship with it.

Its said of New York City, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. If we funnel this through out musical filters, I think Menthol musicians would argue its because a grave disinterested attitude is not created by a personal interest, but a necessary interest in survival. Essentially, the Menthol guitarist, with his reverbed out instrument asks us, “Do you really think Deluth would have recovered from 9/11 as quickly as NYC did?” For too many albums, they’ve been telling us the answer is “no.”

Growing Old in Boston

2011-01-26T07:57:00.000-08:00

I love this city, but is a bitch socially.

First of all, its a college town. Sometimes thats a great thing, and sometimes its an atrocity, but once you've graduated, you've got 2 years before you start feeling like a skeezy old man who's just hung around too long. You know the guys. Graduated UMass Amherst in 2001, and made the big move to North Hampton for the rest of their lives. I'm never bothered by it but now that I get the feeling its what I'm doing, I keep getting depressed.

What was local about Boston is being gerrymandered and overpriced out of town. The Big Dig took a chunk out of too many neighborhoods, and whats left is condo's full of Yuppies. To imagine what sort of hell this takes like, imagine an old city forced to be Manhattan by a bunch of genetic researchers. Sounds like the worst dinner party you've ever been invited to, right? Yeah well it is. Search Stuff @ Night Boston to get photos of what vapid feels like when everyones got a Masters Degree.

I also despise the sampled attitude many former residents have if they'd gone to college here. "Oh Boston, yeah I lived there when I went to BU. Its nice but its just too small for me." Did you live here? Is is too small?

Hot tip to the once and future students of Boston. Getting ripped at a house party in brighton that someones parents were paying for, then talking loudly about how s/he never called you back, and throwing up on the B line does not constitute living here. Get off my god damned lawn.

With all this, I still hold out hope, that someday someones going to throw off the wet-carpet of progress this city is under and start making us a functional city. One with post-bar transit systems and a unique personality. With real bike lanes, a less shitty Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony and maybe some new traditions that put us on the map. Oh and maybe a landmark better than a PVC pipe bridge and a Gas Station sign. And maybe put JP on the map. Can ANYONE find that thing?

Fuck it, I'm running for Mayor.

Pride in the Name of Love

2010-11-19T20:09:00.000-08:00

When I was 13, I walked from school along route 140 up to the train-tracks, turning down them behind a handful of nearly bankrupt businesses and those working class houses, cramped together and separated by only chain-link.

We'd sold a car to one of the auto-body shops there once, and my father paced anxiously for a week because he'd left a house key tucked behind the dome light. He always thought we were going to be burgled. We lived in the depths of the woods, 6 miles from town, and had 2 dogs. I remember once, when my mother had french doors installed in the back of the house, he told me how a good criminal would just kick them in the center where neither supported the other enough to stop a decent impact. They'd just walk around the house, drop-kick the doors in, and walk off with all of our things. I can't imagine what they've had taken, but still here we were, trying to explain to him that a bunch of mechanics at some podunk Mineke weren't bothered to come out here and try and take a TV they probably had in their own home.

Walking the tracks one day I'd seen the car sitting there in the back of the parking lot, peering over the hill. I'd snuck up to the lot and heard a few folks in the bay, quickly grabbed the key and headed out. Later that night I'd told him of what I'd done and produced the key.

He was an odd man anyway. Once, I got screamed at for a good 3 hours for leaving beard trimmings in the sink in the same week my brother was picked up by the police in the town over for several violations, one of which was trespassing. I've made the deans list, been promoted, made successful career changes, worked on successful political campaigns, and completed triathlons and marathons.

Nothing has yet to top that god damned house key.

A Review of Tom Wait's Bone Machine

2010-11-04T13:10:00.000-07:00

Released September 8, 1992
Recorded Prairie Sun Recording, Cotati, California
Genre: Rock, Experimental
Length: 53:30
Label: Island
Producer: Tom Waits

In some ways, Waits is like Dickens or Shakespeare in that his catalogue is long enough, and large enough to have phases, style changes, and growth. In the burgeoning subcultures of artist-followings that wax and wane with the tumult of generational changes; the slothing off of the old and the induction of the new, and the cultural changes that form the prism through which we view things, albums, novels, plays, and films often see their own peaks and valleys over the coarse of time. Certain works age well, some don’t. There are innumerate factors as to why something falls out of fashion and why it comes back into favor but nothing is better than the debates about the value of these albums among the faithful. This leads me to Bone Machine.

Bone Machine is what many regard as the 1992 masterpiece of Waits, often cited as inspiration by acts (though without expression in their music) and heralded as a top 3 in the overall timeline. It also happened to be an album I never quite understood. Why its critical acclaim was so high, especially in hindsight, never jived with me. Its not to say that Bone Machine isn’t good, but, well lets start from the top…

If you’re standing at the bottom of 2010, reflecting back on a careers worth of music from Tom Waits, its hard to see how Bone Machine trumps his Big 3; The Heart of Saturday Night, Raindogs, and Mule Variations. That isn’t my opinion, that’s generally the critical worlds analysis save for those few institutions that pay their bills on contrarian’s smugness.

For one thing, its got one of the stronger consistencies of any album. The deviations on Bone Machine appear at the end, and you need to check back in with reality to make sure you haven’t immersed yourself too deeply in the album. One finds the difference of songs on albums like Bone Machine to be akin to that of the difference between bands in some tiny, “underderground” movement of a subgenre that enjoys its glory in the mouths of social renegades only to be relegated to the barging bins of ailing records stores in the far reaches of a nation, where big commercialism has yet to strangle the last vestiges of small business from the region. In short, only when it becomes all you listen to can you accurately sparse A from B.

Bone Machine also has the distinction of being a transitional record. Like Swordfishtrombones, Bone Machine stands on the cusp of an ethos redraft from the euro-centric vaudeville of the 80’s albums to the bitter and ragged Americana that came to embody the new century.

And forgetting all of this, it plays like the demo version of Mule Variations before it got cleaned up, rewritten, and had its plotlines revisited and sharpened.

At this point it probably looks like I hate the album, and think it sucks. Its understandable, but understand this is a preliminary vision, and if anything, a warning against approaching the album incorrectly. As I said at the top, albums are often reborn with new cultural understanding.

What Bone Machine does very well, and is its strongest attribute, is that it builds a world for its listener. Earlier I cited Dickens and Shakespeare, but for Bone Machine it might be more appropriate to cite Faulkner. Waits albums are often full of a cast of characters sprawling across the world; Raindogs has Sailors in Singapore, Soldiers in World War 2, and a bunch of guys hanging out in Union Square (presumably New York’s US). Heart of Saturday Night finds people in Wisconsin, San Diego, and the Moon. But Bone Machine is Faulkner because these characters are all in the same little town, if not in words, than certainly in musical accompaniment.

Where it is can be hard to tell, but as critics are want to do, we can look at the first track, “The Earth Died Screaming”, and surmise that towns might be irrelevant in the post-apocalyptic universe that these characters inhabit. And in this world, the music is lower than backwoods, in many ways its scrap yard. I use that word to help us understand, but to the characters, music might have to come from what you find laying in the rubble, organized scrap yards might be a thing of the past.

The music is coarser and darker than anything prior, and even Mule Variations only matched it in moments. The only album able to match wits (or scraping metal as it were) with Bone Machine is Real Gone, and at least that album has a map associated with it. The lumbering stomp of In the Coliseum and the coconut trot of Earth Died Screaming seem to approach the idea of on coming doom with the slow torture of wait in different capacities. It suggest that it may come on us as a mob of society agreeing we should all be slaughtered for enjoyment, or that it will greet us at our lowest, when the world seems desolate, and for no one to find our corpse.

Even when Bone Machine does manage to dust itself off and make itself presentable to polite society, it busies itself by foraging in the dark recesses behind closed doors where culture is gone, and people are the real, raw monsters that hide behind corsets and makeup, suits and toupees. On Murder in the Red Barn, Waits visits the silence of rural inclusiveness, even in the face of unspeakable horror and goes so far to relate its culture to being numb to such trivialities (“there’s nothing strange about an axe with blood stains in the barn, there’s always some killin’ you got to do around the farm”). On Going out West, it would seem our protagonist was headed for LA, but given the album, we might wonder if his overall delusions allow him to believe there was an LA left.

In each, the production is expertly woven into the plot. Every piano bench creek, blown-out speaker, and missed noted remains in, giving the album all the character flaws that come with humanity, to the elements those instruments represent.

Bone Machine, in the end, is a strong album, albeit alien in concept to the overall discography and certainly to the albums preceding it. I can’t say where I rank, in fact, many consider my ranking outright backward to begin with, but lists are for the simple-minded. If we cannot explore each element, down to the note and see how it balances with the world around it, we will lose sight of what truly matters, that we are few things more than the world we place ourselves in, and the characteristics the world places on us.

To that end, maybe we shouldn’t review Bone Machine as an album in time, but a soliloquy in an act, within a play, describing not the person but an ethos on the creation of how Waits makes his overall albums. One dark and murky rant through a rusted out megaphone, about how if we don’t all pay attention, the oceans going to swallow us up whole. Then again, there are days where that’s a blessing, and sometimes the ocean doesn’t want you that day.

Unmarked Gravestone

2010-09-28T18:59:00.000-07:00

Kate's really into her Irish roots. I didn't really know how to take that because I've got a long history of dealing with my "Irish-ness" thats a mixed bag. Primarily, I never flaunt it too heavily for two reasons:

1. When I was a child, maybe 9, I asked my dad what my nationalities were.

"Irish, Spanish, and English"

"Yeah but we're more Irish right?"

I had yet to figure out that what I was wasn't necessarily what my parents were, or in this case specifically what my father was. To call a spade a spade, at 9 I was displaying an ignorance that surfaced as unintentional racism. What I knew of being "Spanish" was kids in separate classrooms who couldn't speak English well, and who I, not knowing any other Spanish people in my classes, wanted to distance myself from. I knew some Irish kids, they were my friends. The Spanish kids were weird, and I wanted nothing to do with them. I can still remember being in the cab of my fathers pick up and hearing the hurt in his voice.

2. The other point is identity-less assholes who find a large population here in Boston and hop on the Irish bandwagon as if it was a conversation piece. Even if it is, people here who wear it on their sleeve and tell you about it through a megaphone know very little about their heritage and it ends up being a conversation something like this...

"you irish?"

"yeah well my mom's 75% ir..."

"Fuck yeah man! me too!"

"...cool"

So for these reason and a few other minor ones, its something I've carried as an issue of pride and pain. Maybe that's the Catholic in me.

But as I've grown up and read more, I've refined who I was and moreover what I was interested in and what I should be proud of. I'll never escape the fact that I've got a name and a face like a pale, paddy fuck. Going home once in 3rd grade I remember a teacher asking if I was Irish. She told me I looked more Irish than Paddy Murphy's pig.

But in the end I'm not Irish, and I never will be. My last name isn't and neither is my father. I'd never really squared with being "American" for much of my life until recently either. For one thing, I'd never really left the country (Montreal sorta counts) and therefore I was always surrounded my other Americans. The other reason is that I always saw people touting their American heritage as a token of elitism. You know the routine. Somehow America was better than other countries because we loved freedom or something like that. I always saw America's praise-singers as people who always tried to make it worse.

But as I've grown up and had my share of debate from each side of the political spectrum, I've realized that both the Left and Right are correct: America is a deeply flawed country with a not so honorable past, and yet we're still the only place I'd ever want to be.

For whatever it is, the horrors of America are why its great. They aren't to be ignored or admonished as the aisles would tell you, but to be embraced as a true and honest heritage that all groups must journey through when they come here. They came for a dream, existed in a nightmare, and their offspring came to be born in the fire that was the United States. I saw a shirt recently that probably didn't intend to be this deep, but it summed up my feelings very succinctly.

I was in Urban Outfitters and I saw this t-shirt with a Notorious B.I.G. picture on it. It was white with a screened on photo of the man as a child, sitting in a folding chair on this fallow patch of dirt somewhere in New York (most likely Brooklyn) and all it said, scrawled over the photo, was "it was all a dream." Lord knows how that was intended but as Ian has told me countless times, authors intent was irrelevant.

I took it as the very thing I've come to experience in my time of growing in America. That this country cares very little for its new groups, and its poor and maligned. For all we compared the Soviet Union to Sparta, and the U.S. to Athens, we're still a very Spartan nation. If America teaches anyone anything its that one must pry not only his wants, but his needs from the death grip of its ruling class. Failure to unify, to move together and dream will only be met with more of the brutal same.

I wrote awhile back in Immigrant Waves about how the current immigration debate mirrors the debates we've had since the country started. I think we should recall the point where our grandfathers came to America in search of gold roads and raining money and found collapsing tenements and an infant mortality rate of nearly 20% for people of their ancestry. But for the Chinese, the Irish, the Italians, the Poles, Jews, and Middle Easterners, the Nation has come to be far more welcoming. Need not Apply Signs, Sacco & Vanzetti, Phrenology, and even Jim Crow are now a memory we've crushed beneath the bootheels of progress on the March.

America dances with a double-edged sword. Our freedom and fear of Tyranny makes anything here possible. That's part of the "it was all a dream" portion of the t-shirt. But in our insistence, we often leaves those who are new to fend for themselves. In some respects, its a hazing ritual that would be barbaric if we were more selective in its application. In others its the realization that the dream is pragmatic, and like so many scholars before us, we realized that a Utopia is not a lack of need but a lack of must. Where options prevail, where freedom is always hunted, progress cannot be stopped. I think when people show up here, and move past the idea that we're the promised land, it becomes everything they ever wanted, if not everything they ever dreamed.

To all our new brothers still chasing the Fairytales of America, I hope that you come to find America everything we've all found here eventually ourselves.

God Bless,
The Brow

Never go to D.C. before you’re elected.

2010-08-26T06:31:00.000-07:00

As someone who sits a good 6 to 8 hours outside of the beltway, I listen to some of the gut-check predictions taking place down there, and I can’t help but wonder how much their all drinking down there.

Today’s politico is reporting that the Democratic Majority in the House, and possibly the Senate, is toast. Where? By what force? I get the idea that insiders have allowed their own instincts to congeal into facts, but just because the politically savvy believe the Tea Party Movement is Republican support, doesn’t mean they actually are. Like all internal movements, they are fully prepared to depose their own “leaders” for corruption. Big Government Spending is part of the narrative for Democrats, the Tea Party feels it has become so too for the Republicans – this is what they are looking to change.

Say what you will about optics but here’s how the Mid-Terms should be scored.

Republicans are on the comeback trail, or at least on course correction, if the following happens:

1. Michele Bachman keeps her seat.
2. Rubio wins Florida’s Senate seat.
3. Angle takes Nevada.
4. Boxer loses California (this is not a high hurdle)
5. Ensign/Vitter manages to hold on.

Everything else can boil down to normality outside of the Presidential Fervor. The Democrats were lucky to grab some of the seats they did in 2008. We can’t assume, for an example, that many of these states and seats will go blue forever.

Can Republicans unseat Democratic Leadership? Its looking like a tough sell in the Senate and only in the House if they pick up 39 seats. (I don’t think anyone assumes they can unseat Pelosi).

If you want my political 45 cents, Obama is letting the Congress hang out to dry. Show them as a do-nothing group and retake 2012. He keeps citing Reagan, but this is a move straight out of the Tip O’Neill playbook. Allow the economy to be the Republican’s again and savage them for a second time. It’s a big gamble, we’ll see how it turns out.

Pop

2010-08-17T08:27:00.000-07:00

I’ve been told that my musical taste is eclectic bordering on indiscriminate. In seemingly unrelated news, I’ve also been told I’m very hard to watch movies, television shows, or listen to the radio with. The inference in tone and fits proximity to my own statements suggest its because I’m highly critical of most everything to do with art. I refute nothing.

Having said that it might be slightly vexing to know that I not only listen to pop music, but enjoy it to a large degree and will often prefer it to music I generally own. This audience isn’t something I’ve procured through romantic entanglement or occupational hazard.

I’d once known a man who claimed that Xanax was like a “reset button” for life. Similarly, I find pop music a sort of respite for a critical mind, which is no disparaging commentary but rather a compliment to its clear philosophical vision; The veritable post-wine cracker at the tasting. Where many make the mistake of seeing compliment become insult is in believing that there is no virtue in striving for simple goals (which much of pop most certainly does) and that without risk, music can’t simply be worth the listen.

While a good deal of the flack is given for the genres fan base, this is more of a lesson in psychology and sociology which no one has neither the time to listen, nor the patience to put up with my lecturing. While its certainly a large and valid topic, for the purposes of explaining myself, lets suffice with the idea that any disgruntled attitude toward anyone who listens to the music has no bearing on, nor should be calculated into the worth of the genre.

But just as in life where we cannot all be chemical engineers, neither, too, can all music push the very bounds of what is collective commonplace in the world of Western Popular Music. The tiny gears of the world are as vital to the machine as the engine or the fuel, and any value found in one or the other is nothing more than rationalization created to suit ones own vision of the economy of things.

At this point it might be hard to discern how this is a favorable comment (or how it was intended to be) at all. It has to do with, I suppose, my own vision of how things ought to be. Do we view music as a finished masterpiece to be reviewed plainly without the assumption changes were possible? A sort of divined and unwavering truth that was born in tact? Or do we conclude what I believe most would have found themselves bereft of the linguitical baggage that would come with this topic and conversation, that music is an ever-flowing muse, created to inspire rather than to be evaluated? The suppression fire that allows advancement; the felled tree that fertilizes the fallow earth?

President Kennedy once said, “Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride.” I find pop music to occupy that same position. Just a simple machine, whose operations learned in youth allow the complications of the adult world to be dismissed to the subconscious where all brilliance springs from, while the conscious mind unravels and heals from all the vexing bulwarks of a life with responsibilities.
In short: without simplicity now and again, there is no hope for the complexity that would satisfy our more critical thirst.

This position and its logic are obviously not airtight. Room for interpretation is till to soil. But the alternatives should always be presented if only to strengthen the opposition through the questioning that comes with debate. While many who relish the higher register complexities of progressive pieces might begrudgingly give pop its place, those willing to move in new directions will always be ready to start back at the bottom. Even if it means relearning those lessons of youth, as basic as they are, as frustrating as it might be to have to learn them again.

To take a line from Caddyshack: “The world always needs ditch-diggers too.”

Immigrant Waves

2010-08-13T07:12:00.000-07:00

Is history repeating itself on the other side of the country?

In 1845, about 15 years prior to the Civil War, a potato famine hit Ireland so badly that anyone who had the ability left for greener shores. In many, many cases that meant New York and Boston.

The civil war had yet to be fought, so there were no immigration laws, the radical republicans had not yet taken the Congress, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments weren’t proposed yet. For all intents and purposes they’d become Americans by showing up here, but the WASP Ascendancy barely recognized them. They were not considered white; their Infant Mortality Rate was astronomical leading one Census worker to comment, “The Irish were literally born to die.” Signs reading “No Irish Need Apply” were regularly hung, and they lived, in most cases, in tenement housing; cramped, poorly built, structurally dangerous, and lacked maintenance.

But that was 165 years ago. Today we don’t question any man of Irish decendency as to whether or not he’s white. This may or may not have to do with an influx of other, darker races, but probably has more to do with how wide spread they’ve become. Today, give or take a few thousand, roughly 36 million Americans can trace their heritage back to Ireland.

And while they clung to their own cultural identity, they embraced with open arms (politically if not literally) the other immigrants waves of Italians and Eastern Europeans to form a permanent political majority for their political party. I am purposely not saying “Democrats” there because history shows their choice was less platform and more reaction. The Protestant Establishment in the former colonies was fierce, ruthless, and apathetic to the plight of the new immigrant classes. They forged themselves with a then dormant party and used it like a shield to take up the problems and struggles of the class. They did so then because the Republican Party then gave them no options to join their ranks.

In a seemingly “bizarre-o” world turn of events, Phoenix is the new Boston.

Ignore the conditions listed before. I don’t know that its wise to try and compare how the Irish lived then (two centuries ago) and how Latino’s live today. The Country is different, the regulations on housing, medical care, the social programs are, well first of all they exist. There was no such philosophy let alone law in the 1840’s that dictated how anything really had to be done. But politics isn’t figures on a spreadsheet, its perception.

The growing perception is, through talk of walls, mandated English, “anchor babies”, and SB1070 – as well as Amending the 14th Amendment – that the Republican Party are the WASPs to the Latino’s Irish.

If you’re following this furor, then I’m sure you’ve heard about the numbers. Fastest growing demographic, a birthrate that’s set to dislodge white people as being larger than all other minorities combined. (Note: Whites will still be a majority, they just won’t beat, as a group, all other races combined). But those are logic-tactics. You can almost hear, in a very avuncular tone, the father figure saying, “you’d better be careful now.”

The problem is not votes; the problem is dignity. And it isn’t American, its global and historical. Nations and peoples can be defeated, but if they are humiliated, they will tell their children of the vicious opression that faced them as they came to America, passed down like camp-fire horror stories that become a cemented reality unified with cultural identity.

Ask any eastern Frenchmen about the Nazi’s. As any Jewish Immigrant for that matter. Ask Southerners how they feel about General Sherman, or Iranians how they felt about the Shah. Civility and Diplomacy cannot be measured in the safety it provides the future.

Last night I watched Charlie Wilson’s War. If you haven’t seen it, you should do yourself the favor. But in it, the Afghani’s make a point to tell the Western World that they do not want food, or medicine. They want weapons. They want to defeat the Imperial Soviets and they want their land back. Its hard to imagine a better illustration of what dignity is than to mention a people who have almost nothing, living in rocks, and tribal villages and showing how all they want is to be left to their own devices. It’s saddening on a level one can’t imagine to have so little and be deprived of it still.

The Latino Community, prior to the dust up over SB1070, had two major concerns when it came to politics; Jobs and Education. Say what you will but those could go to either party, and it suggests that they came here not for themselves but for their children. Marco Rubio was on television two days ago echoing that sentiment when he responded to the recent moronic comments by Sen. Harry Reid.

The Latino community wants to be here, and they want to be American. The Irish still have their parades, the Italians, Polish, and the Portuguese their festivals. They still hand their language down to children. Mexican’s, Guatemalans, Cubans, et. al are doing nothing no less different than what the immigrant classes of the past have done, and unfortunately for them, that means engaging in the same struggles and legislative battles of every class before them.

Attoning for Sin

2010-07-30T09:25:00.001-07:00

I guess I'm an attention whore. I was thinking the other day as I walked around that I hadn't been writing much because I had no focus anymore. I mean I guess I did, I love writing about politics, but the truth is I don't because I really like comments, and no one comments on the snooze-fest that is my electoral prognostication.

But in this confession I think I'm going back. Because I'd rather write than not, and I'd rather have no one following, and have all my comments be ads for male enhancement than hope I have an audience. Its a shameful thing to realize you're a shill, but at least the healing can being.

Who?

2010-07-18T17:26:00.000-07:00

I feel awkward talking about my intent to pursue a political career someday. It sounds childish to me; equivalent to wanting to be a famous dancer or movie star. Not that I think either are necessarily comparable in obligation, but they seem to share an arrogance. I cringe a little when I hear myself say it because I know subconsciously I'm thinking "who do you think you are?"

Thankfully, at the end of the day I don't need to think I'm good enough. I think for me its good enough to say at the day's end that I went at it with the best intentions. To that end, I read this quote the other day and it struck me fairly hard...

He was no saint. Win or lose, there would be no canonization of Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. In a lifetime in politics he'd gouged eyes, thrown elbows, bent the law and befriended rogues and thieves. He could be mean and small-minded. But at his core there lay a magnificence of spirit, deep compassion and a rock-hard set of beliefs. He had a sense of duty that he refused to abandon for those whom Heaven's grace forgot - and he would sooner die on the floor of the House, or watch his party be vanquished and dispersed, than desert them. "You know you're right?" Millie would ask him, as he adjusted his tie at the door in the morning. "Yes," he would say, and he knew it -knew it- knew it like he knew the streets of Cambridge, the liturgy of Sunday Mass or how to stack a conference committee. "then do your best," she would say, and off he would go.

- Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century...

We've all read that quote or passage or something where a confluence of ideas we've had become clear, like the forged grains of our own constitution. For me, this passage might have summed up my political intentions and in those political intentions, a lifetime's worth of feelings, philosophies, and visions. We're never the product our grand ideals would call for us to be, but its good to know that great men before have achieved that greatness while falling short as well.

I don't need to make it a sap's story here, but I've been on the losing side of plenty of battles in my lifetime. Too poor, too ugly, too late, too unaware, or too bad - you sit there awake at night sometimes and wonder what you did to make something that shitty happen to you. I'm lucky enough to be able to bounce back, but I still burn up when I see it happen to someone else. That socially awkward kid who just wants someone to talk to them, or that poor son of a bitch who just can't seem to get some momentum going.

I didn't really get into politics until I was 17. Before that it was just my mother and my uncle reciting diametrically opposed platform planks while we went to get pizza, or for Christmas shopping. But politics to me is a cause you know before you understand it can be addressed in politics. So maybe I have my flawed days where I can be small-minded. God knows I can be vain and lazy. But for every moment I cringe at some social function when I tell people what I'd like to do, there are countless other times where I come around to find someone down and out, needing a job or struggling to get help moving out of their place and I remember that its a pretty shitty place out there sometimes. I can't say if I'll be a pol some day, and if I am what sort I'll be but I do know I've seen the face of Alzheimer's, and of single-motherhood and I know that I can at least do my best for those Heaven's grace forgot.

That justice is done, that mercy prevails. - Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr.

And again I tried to explain distance

2010-06-01T11:34:00.000-07:00

Writers attempt to express emotions in innovative ways we've all felt before. If I die tomorrow, it could be said that I spent my life trying to express distance but never really could. Like all writers, trying to has been the most fun I've had with a pen.

What I think most of us strive to do is draw from memories that we've come to obsess over. I've been there when I was furious and starving and devastated and used up. Those times you don't have a choice but to focus on your emotions like a hawk on a field mouse. There’s nothing pleasant about it. As those instance fade, there’s a warmness to them that you never see up close. They're badges and hallmarks of the road you've been on. The distance from those memories softens the blow, enhances the worth, and strengthens bond. But this is a distance of time. We can't help but end up there.

I mean to speak about the distance of emotion, that proverb that says it makes the heart grow fonder. Bobby Kennedy was fond of quoting Aeschylus: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God." And that’s where I mean to be. Not describe the action, which the ancient Greek did well, but what stirs in the soul and mind when that happens. When the bodys pain becomes the souls wisdom, there isn't another time I can think of when that happens; a perfect marriage of the animal and the spirit.

In distance the hurt is not erased, but the wisdom of the entire providence shows us why there was pain to begin with. It is an overly articulate emotion that I've never been able to express. it might be the some emotions are inexplicable with the tools of English. It might be that in that pain, we still find a lack of wisdom and I'm more inclined to believe the latter.

In the past there was color, and a goal. Things seemed virtuous because our emotions were clear and raw. We could drive toward the end without concern about the small things. There was no responsibility or duty there, it was a satisfaction for the id of two people and when emotions can be legally satisfied, there is an intoxicated effect unattainable in chemistry.

Somehow, in all the distance of emotion, there seems to be a magnified distance of everything. The world has seemed distant, and there were no dead ends. The world seemed like it went on forever.

I have, in my mind, an imagine of what seems like a merging of multiple places. the rotten-wood fences that divide dune from grass on those Cape Cod beaches that always seem abandoned come 3 pm on an August afternoon. And as you drive out along that dying peninsula, the world seems to climb, and the entangling growth of some berry bush covers the land in the girl doodled swirls of overgrowth that tells you you're alone; no one comes here and no one cares enough to clean it out. And the wind is always singing and it makes it hard to breath and on the best days it still rains with ocean mist. In the distance, someone’s created a camp fire in their own world, and the flames lash out of a makeshift pit and the seagulls cling to stay in flight.

Every now and again I'm there, inadvertently, the world just throws one at me and I'm there. Its not scene perfect as I've seen it before, but I can't help but thinking about everyone I've lost. Those winds, on the beaches and the highways at 3 am, they close in around me and my emotions become remote, there in front of me to explore in fine detail like an ape searching for insects on the back of another. Meticulous and with an intensity of hunger, and survival, and love.

And then its all gone again. We've moved on, or it was a passing scene on the horizon or someone calls me back to reality and I'm in the here and the now. I can feel things again as they are, and the cold clammy distance is gone. I'll never catch what I see there again, just as I'll never explain distance as acutely as I see it, and feel it. Its as defined by what I feel as what I can't feel when I'm there. There are no smells in a fading memory, I can't tell when you touch my arm. There’s just the numb sensation that two objects have collided into one another. Unable to breath. Off in a place the worlds forgotten.

2010-05-24T08:45:00.000-07:00

I wrote this off the cuff in a deabte we were having on MusicBanter. Theres a link at the bottom if you want more context but I thought I'd just put it here and see if there were any other Tools out there who enjoy them as much as I do...

Tool has, for me, always been something of an anomaly. Because while every other shit band out there was writing the same old things with the same distorted power chords, TOOL was out on Mars. The topics might have been bumper sticker politics, but the lyrics were such a massive diversion from the same stupid "i'm going to be politically active by yelling angrily as a name-less 'you'." lets take Stinkfist for example:

Every band was warning us about oversaturation, about letting the television tell us what to do, how we're all just becoming whatever, and then Tool, who takes that concept and marries it with an even more meathead topic, anal sex, makes a masterpiece by never really mentioning either. I'm not going to call MJK a poet because I don't think thats what he does on albums (he may be privately, who knows) but he's got a poets eye for the world. This device that he uses in Stinkfist, take a character doing activity X and basically talking about Y (and X i guess) at the same time is exactly what Adrienne Rich and Sylvia Plath were doing while writing poetry.

Beyond this, while other bands were out there following a formula well treaded by everyone else, TOOL was trailblazing through uncharted territory, making music that was more identifiable by its erratic "mistakes" than its solos or riffs. Who doesn't always remember Sober's feedback at the beginning, or Eulogys highhat work around the end of the song (minute 5 maybe?). TOOL was strange as an entity back in 1996. The bridged the gap between Distrubed and Soundgarden, between Korn and Primus, Between Ozzfest and Lollapalooza and the art gallery opening down the street. TOOL's most major and underrated accomplishment to me was that the showed everyone what was really possible if you just did what you loved. Loved enough to really learn it, and put effort into it.

They followed no trend, and while they weren't an end point (I wouldn't say TOOL is the final stop on anyones musical progression) they certainly were a boarding pass to destinations previously seen as well beyond the reach of many young nu-metal heads. To leave them out of the best of the 90's is inexcusable and ignorant. its not a question of whether or not you like them, its a question of whether or not we need them, and if any act was the rope thrown to a man drowning in a well of fecal matter, TOOL is that rope.

Read more: http://www.musicbanter.com/rock-metal/43681-official-tool-thread-31.html#post871090#ixzz0orW0rAzG

I prefer my founding fathers to be elitist.

2010-05-19T10:14:00.000-07:00

Is it me, or were politics more enjoyable before Joe Dipshit got involved? Now I have to listen to someone who gets his U.S. History from a cereal box and every would-be king cry about term limits. There are exactly two things you should know about Term Limits; they prevent you from voting for people, and no one who ever said they believed in term limits and would stopping running after 2 terms ever has...Lindsay Graham, Bob Bennett.

Somewhere along the line, people got the idea that everything is political. And the right co-opted the Lefties "The personal is political." It isn't. It never was. And when people try to make the personal political I have to listen to diatribes about the subversive adminstration, liberal media, and imperialism to rule an oil empire. If you've said any of this, for what its worth, I think you're an idiot. And I think you're an idiot empirically.

This country needs to start looking at policy like a math problem. Does it work? What doesn't work? What do we need to make this happen. There are, by and large, far too many emotions in politics and it turns everyone into a would be Jesus on the Mount. It should be said that I wouldn't outlaw sensititivties to plight. We have always operated on good moral principles. But if I seen another Presidential Candidate cry on stage, and I mean cry literally, about how they just love their country/religion/family/ et. all I promise to spread every filthy rumor about them and their families. Yes I think that makes me a horrible person. Yes, I think it would save lives. Watching a Kennedy documentry one time they said that before JFK, politicians were boring, sexless. They wore gray suits. I want that back. At least in part.

Having passions has even ruinined the way government works. With everyone a full-throated partisan, even deal making has become a dirty word. DEAL MAKING. How can everything get without making deals? When you condem deal making you essentially ask for a room full of grown men and woman screaming at one another until eletion time when maybe the otherside gets a majority. This is why I think you're an idiot. For the record, I like what Rush Limbaugh does, despite not agreeing with him ever. ever. The only thing I don't like about him is that he's so successful that he's spawned a bunhc of know-nothing morons who cry abotu family values.

You know what I think is a good family vlue? Basic cable 24 hour uncensored porn channel. It isn't liberal, its a parental litmus test. If you're such a god damn idiot that you can stop a 5 year old from watching television then you ought to have your children taken away from you. And not for a little bit, for good. I'm all for putting into place permits for breeding. Christ, yesterday we had a guy in Northhampton try to trade his child for beer.

And another thing. I know a lot of you went out and got liberal arts degrees, but somethings just are what they are. Like science. There isn't a liberal bias in science. You think that because you haven't met scientists. This is obviosuly a generalization but they aren't the most empathetic group. Unless by empathy you meant autistic. Rules matter. Physics matter. Just because Al Gore works for a party you don't like doesn't mean we can start challenging the laws of the universe. Admit that you got a C in chemistry abck in highschool, that you don't know shit about science, and that you just don't like certain people or policies.

And before you scream about jobs, let me remind you that its Economics that deals with that. Not Sociology...which is what your degree is.

Politics is a job. Like most jobs, it requires people to put in effort and thought. We don't let joe six pack up in a space shuttle, we shouldn't let him into the Senate either. it leads to terrible, terrible things. We had a Senator in our state, repping my district and he was the biggest scum bag you've ever met. So we voted him out against a guy with the political skills of a garden slug. And he cost us countless dollars in government funding because he spent his time saying and doing what he thought was popular. He passed out countless times on the chamber floor.

This is what we get when we elect your neighbor. Too often people think the Founders wanted every man to serve his time. This isn't Jury Duty, there is a great deal of long term responsibility. The founders assumed we'd pick from an upper crust until Andrew Jackson shattered that notion. And now Joe the Plumber, who embodies the worst of everything we have to offer, is an elected official. We congratulations Ohio. At least he doesn't need a permit he won't get for that job. If you ask me, we need to start tossing out every idiot with an agenda. You want to elect Farmers, fine, elect them. But only elect the ones who've never voted before because those are the only guys willing to listen to reason. The rest of these assholes are just waiting to be Majority Leader.

Going to Museums in Boston

2010-04-26T21:09:00.000-07:00

its Sunday and with the power still being out, I somehow figured myself into going to a museum. I'm not sure what came over me, because if theres any city you shouldn't go to a museum in, its Boston, Massachusetts.

Some guy wrote in the paper once that he'd never go see a Woody Allen film in Cambridge because people can't laugh loud enough. It lets everyone know that they got the joke and that they thought it was a riot. Same goes for museums in Boston.

No one really laughs, but everyones so fascinated, and they all stand in positions that suggest that interest; arms folded with their hands on their chin, and an index finger running up the sides of their faces. They'd argue to hot hell that I was wrong, but all that feigned interst ruins it for everyone else.

The walk to the museum only drives this issue home. The city itself is one big posture. The walk along the Fenway is filled with females-only college and their high fences, telling me I'm excluded because my morale compass is questionable. I catch the patchwork conversations of the women on the front stoops as I pass by, sitting 10 steps up and conversing about god knows what, but they've all got a tone.

The problem with a city full of college kids is that they all think they've seen the light. They know the truth and the rest of us are ignorant. Theres a truth alright, and its sitting on the otherside of those cast-iron gothic fences. But what there isn't is a light. The reality of struggle exists out here, down off the steps and out on the bus route, and the freeways. I take a deep breath and tell myself they'll all come down from that cloud someday.

The Gardner museum is a collection of works from Isabella herself, mainly untouched since 1924. Years before the depression, and Roosevelt, when Boston was dominated by Brahmin Yankees. The ghosts of old aristrocacy still linger here, where all the mansions became galleries and historical societies. Their upper cicrcles of society never left, they just became more unattainable. These days everyones chasing them.

The reality here is that everyones lying about their station. The old money trust funds exist for very few, still too many people vacation in the south of france, and take in shows at Tremont - or at least claim to. I wouldn't bother me if I thought it was a few people, but this is what Bostons become. Theres no middle ground here. We're all still looking to rehash 1949, the upper crust against the waves of immigrants. Boston has become an affectation of reactionism. Everything is hammed up. Your diction is sharpened or dulled depending on which group you hate more.

A brief respite comes from a New York man who speaks loudly about something he likes, and laments its lack of lighting. You can almost hear the aghastment as people begin to rattle off how it would damage the work, or how gawdy it would be. You get the idea he hasn't said this about every piece in the museum and its refreshing to see, amongst the professors and the doctors, a middle class man on vacation, confident in his skin, apprecaiting something for its inherent value.

My fun is shattered when i come acorss a woman, speaking to a viola player who'd just performed in the concert hall, "it must be so intersting..." she says before I exit and she fades.

Right before the gift shop I come across a bust of John the Baptist. The wall says that prior to aquisition, the piece had been painted over more than once, and its vibrant colors are not reflective of its creation. In fact we can only be certain its john the baptist because he's wearing an animal pelt beneath his robes and his mouth is open to signify testification.

Such is Boston.

I grab a postcard of the garden and head for home, hoping the electricity is back together. The trolley darts out toward the leafy suburbs and I've had my fill of memories for the day.

I saw this; I thought I'd share

2010-04-19T19:53:00.000-07:00

I saw this on Bronx Banter Blog. I hope you like it as much as I do.

From E.B. White’s Here is New York:

There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter–the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these trembling cities the greatest is the last–the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh yes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company. . . .

The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now; in the sounds of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest editions.

All dwellers in cities must live with the stubborn fact of annihilation; in New York the fact is somewhat more concentrated because of the concentration of the city itself, and because, of all targets, New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm.

Letters to my later years

2010-03-16T07:16:00.000-07:00

I sometimes look back on the things I thought as a child, teen, or 20-something and I'm slightly embarassed. That being said I really wonder where a 35 year old version of myself will stand in relation to myself now. At 27 have I finally latched onto a respectable track?

Its not a grave concern, but I always try to take it a little slower. I watch most of my friends sacrafice time and socilization to go after master's degrees and doctorates. I don't know what they're thinking. Maybe its some sort of artists temperment, but I'm always watching life from the third person. And so now when I'm thinking of what life will look like now from 8 years on, everythings little specs in a sprawling city of bright lights. When I think back to my life as, say, a 23 year old, its from a distance, theres just people riding in train cars and busese. I can watch the successes and rejections from a lunar-distance and pretend it was all a story. I'm not the same person now as I was then, and maybe it helps to distance myself.

I seem to review everything floating high above the city, watching where I was and where the large picture was headed. What went on downtown that New Years Eve I spent making sure you didn't puke on the floor. When we watched bad netflix choices and ate leftovers that wouldn't upset your stomach. I never know who these women are, but I've got a bad feeling their all placeholders in a narritive I've written for myself. I'd guess I date the ones that come closest to fitting the mold, but like an old literary idol of mine, I'm still trying to close a West Egg gap that I can never find a bridge for.

Last night I couldn't sleep, and I thought of all the conversations I would have if I ever ran into the ex's of mine. Who would get the ire I'd promised when it was freshly ended, who I never really stopped thinking about and what i'd tell them. I'm less angry as an older man, and less paraoid; fewer things really bother me. I'm wondering if its all the narration I'm using when I watch the world these days. As a reactionary teen, everything was immediate. Post-grad I'm adjusting. At 35 will I be world apart?

Maybe I'll just become one with nature like the Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong, fading into the landscape and all that crap. I never did like Jewett anyhow.

Where my dreams lay dead.

2010-03-10T05:59:00.000-08:00

If you're looking to write there are a few go to sources that always help and one of those is Ranier Maria Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet." Its a fairly large piece of work, as instructionals go, but the one thing that struck me while reading it was this line (that I didn't memorize, I went back and dug it up):

And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world's sounds - wouldn't you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories?

He obviously couldn't go into every detail about how you ought to utalize you're memories, but for me it always works best when I meet those thoughts with the new, raw current reality of the situation.

Take for example: Caldor.

A buddy of mine I met back in college, who I should mention has a penchant for odd things, recently made his Facebook photo the old Caldor Rainbow (which had 3 of the ugliest colors you could think of put together; looked like Thanksgiving year round). I went to Google and poked around in the results for "caldor" and what I found was a little jarring.

If I had to make something up off of the top of my head, I'd imagine there are memories you have with prolonged traditions: Christmas at your Mothers house, The Town 4th of July Parade, friends backyard cookouts. And then there are memories you have because somethings gone like, say, old department stores, friends/family who've passed away, ect.

The thing about the latter is that you don't really conciously record that things are going away. Generally (as the topic here is Caldor) you wouldn't be shopping at a business right before its closing down(this is why its closing down). So generally, it has to come flooding back years later because something tripped that memory. Today I found tons of information on the chains successes and failures but the most striking were these photos.

Caldor wasn't the only game in town where I grew up, but it was the closets game to my house, and our end of the city so it held some fairly solid memories for me. It was always where my dad would take my brother and I for Valentines Day to get my mother earings, or perfume, or something foolish. I remember once I ran into my Little League coach doing the same thing there. That was the norm, everyone did that as far as I knew. Whenever my mother and my grandmother would go shopping, it was the best place because at least they had a toy section we could go play in while they shopped around.

When I look at these photos now I see two things: The first being a place that vanished overnight and came up too late, like a childhood friend you remember after reaing the obituary. The second is what that must feel like to towns and cities who haven't been as lucky. Taunton is pretty resiliant and financially strong. Where our Caldor was other businesses have opened up and its thriving. But to anyone who saw the 56 jobs a stroe held vanish only to be replaced by the wind-swept barron parkinglots full of nothing is a little heartbreaking.

I look at those photos and know that there are children out there in dying communities that don't get to buy cheap-o gifts for their families, and couldn't if the store was still there. Money's tight these days, and jobs are scare. I don't think I needed the cadavar of some long-lost memory to tell me that, but I can't help thinking about it when the crime scene shows up in the local paper.

Army of Wasps

2010-02-19T09:35:00.001-08:00

I always wished i lived a wasp lifestyle. Not because I want to own a yatch or drink at lunch (though it would be nice) but because family was a lot tighter. And its tightness led to power.

In a discussion over a David Brooks article, I sent the above lines to my father. it was odd in a way because our family, comparitivly, has been fairly fractured.But family, regardless of bloodline, has always been a tremendous source of power by virtue of their indispensiblity. Which is not to say they're valuable, just unshakeable.

I'm about to finish up Kennedy & Nixion which, if you're into this sort of thing, is phenominal in its informational overload. But for all the money the Kennedy's had, and for all of their political connections, what served them best, longest was that there were 3 or 4 guys who always looked out for the best interests of the family. In a world where few can rely on much, having an expansive family drive toward the same mission might make you more successful than much else.

I think I respect the frugality of the WASP, too, because of the long term vision it held. If you read the Brooks article, he notes that company owners hadned businesses down to their blood. It lead to long term thinking. So too did the tightness of the wallet. Ensuring the financial independance of your own children, but instilling them with the hardened, Yankee-hillside discipline and social resolve meant they could drive like an arrow at intended goals with an alarming success rate.

I use to end journal entries with some form of closing position that today I feel gave it an overdramatic gravity I'm too aware of to use anymore. For my own dignity, and maybe another offspring of an old brahman dream i'm still waiting to realize.

Recession Fury

2010-01-20T10:33:00.000-08:00

Let me be a bit selfish here. The economy is screwing me because I can't change jobs.

"But you're still getting an income?!?!?!"

Thats dandy but I'm also trapped in a hell hole. The only thing left to do is to try and get fired for the income and the stress reduction. Upper management could care less. HR thinks asking how you are in the hallway as you pass constitutes a "reiew of staff morale," and I'm still getting paid piss money wasting away in non-profit land.

The pay's the worst part, not because its low, but because the sit-on-their-ass failures that outrank me have their head int he clouds. Its a slap in the face. I'm forced to either clean up their overpaid messes for nothing, or quit and live on the streets.

Our's likes to think their overly progressive. On the cutting edge and the forefront of american small business. Its the most old school oligarchy save for its female rather than male networks, but trust me. In this regard there exists no disparity between the genders.

Why is it so hard to do something? Because we all want to pretend we're experts. Who gives a fuck about the GDP and the inflation rates and the...just fucking make things. Its not hard to make things people need. Not new. Not flashy. Not innovative.

For example, heres a list of things I need:
Car
House
Clothes
Food
Bicycle
Shoes
Jacket

No one can make this shit? And by the way, you can't cut costs and reap reward if you just built a train that went places. I wouldn't even need the car! I just don't get it America. Make jobs. I know people want them. I know people want to run them.

I don't care about much, just send in the choppers and the relief aid and airlift me out of this nightmare of a wrong decision that my life has become.

Thanks,
Brow

Contemporary politics is lacking an instinct

2009-12-02T08:27:00.000-08:00

I've you've ever heard someone say politics is boring, they're refering to policy.

If they say its too loud, mean, or rough, thats politics.

Today I feel like a Roman, reimagining a Greece that was everything I wanted it to be. Despite my political leanings, I've never been soemone to be partisan. I love Nixon. I think if theres any figure in American politics we can go to, well-like and constantly come back with great things to discuss and debate, he's the man we should look to.

Today everythings grade school insults and whisper campaigns. The arguments aren't logical to the adults in the room. Obama was a secret Muslim? McCain would die in office? Its not the ruthlessness of it all that upsets me, I encourage that. What bothers me is the lack of effort, the unrealisticness of it all. Today's political strategy is energize the marginalized fringe of your base. And hope what? That they purify the party so people ask to be included?

Theres no back room deals or run up to the convention any more. 2008 was the best election cycle we've seen in quite sometime. Upsets all over the map. McCain delared DoA until people actually voted. Huckabee coming out of no where in Iowa. Obama takes Iowa, loses NH, picks up SC, loses super tuesday, comes back with 11 strait victories on a sleeping Clinton.

The bloodbath was phenominal. And now we're dead in the water. Glen Beck has a succesful show. And he's just rambling.

Yes.

He's just rambling. I can't tell if the SNL parody's are a direct lift.

I want a superstar. I want to be impressed again. Some one call up the ghost of FDR, and get me megaphone. I need to get to Washington soon. I used to want to go because I loved the city and the sport. Now I think it just needs me.

CNN - Wake Up

2009-11-12T06:31:00.001-08:00

from The New York Times

I don't know if CNN is asleep at the wheel or what but in a NYT's article about Lou Dobb's abrupt departure Jonathan Klein, president of CNN, said the following...

“Lou has now decided to carry the banner of advocacy journalism elsewhere.” This comes directly after an offer the NYT's is reporting as "Mr. Dobbs could vent his opinions on radio and anchor an objective newscast on television, or he could leave CNN."

My bone to pick here isn't with the supposed objectivity of CNN, but what they consider objective. Its as if their following the Larry King model for the entire network; don't cover stories or hold people accountable, but just ask questions and say nothing to avoid being accused of partisanship.

My big issue with CNN on the whole is that its nothing more than fluff stories we're used to from local news on a National level, and a constant citing of opinions from Facebook, Twitter, and e-mails. I love Jack Cafferty, but he can't be the game plan for an entire 24 hour news network.

I think Lou Dobbs is a moron. It was formulaic journalism at its best; immigration issues + angry journalist = ratings. He was an oppertunistic hack and the worst kind but he was at least an opinion on a network where Wolf Blitzer is the most aggressive journalist, and where Anderson Cooper is ritualistically lampooned by the Daily Show for ignoring issues to cut away to stories about dogs. Whether you like the leftist comedy news or not, you have to agree that stories of that nature are best suited for the late night talk show circuit and shouldn't be on Cable News before midnight.

Why CNN continues to go to the well of social media is beyond me. The only rational, albeit bad, idea I can come up with is that when all the fabricated or inflated talk was written the epitath of "dinosaur media," CNN must have come to the idea that drafting off social media would save it...

As President Reagan used to say - work the difference. For those counting, the difference will never be the internet. Every idiot with a keyboard (indlucing myself) has an opinion and an outlet. I don't want to watch CNN to see whats on the internet, thats why I have an internet subscription.

The reason I watch Hardball as my source of news is because I learn things, and Matthews is someone who, with the backing of history and policy, doesn't allow people to get away with bullshit. So why is this such a foreign concept to the top office at CNN? Even Bill O'Reilly at Fox is an example of what CNN should be looking for. In short, theres nothing wrong with an opinion. In fact, CNN showcases them all the time from guys like Crazyhair13 and SnoopDogFanboi, but why not have someone on air, with a spine and a brain who can challenge people.

Because at the end of the day, the news shouldn't be about sharing gossip, it ought to be about clearing the air so people can form their own opinions. Watching MSNBC I've become more of a conservative than I have if I'd ahve watched Fox. I needed something to bounce my opinions off of, and when you have someone who's willing to go to the mat to get to the root of an issue, you can only benefit.

Now if only there was a "like" button for cable news shows...

Healthcare Again

2009-11-06T07:16:00.001-08:00

As I read another article on how, in the developed world, America finishes last again. I'm sure this is called America hating but you need to work to make something the best, not just sit on your ass and say you're great. I've worked with too many people who operated that way, its just not me.

So I had to wonder why the republicans would sit by and not attempt to fix anything. 9 months after screaming "no" the republicans finally cook up a bill that covers less people and costs more. Why they thought, in 9 months they could build something as good as a bill 60 years in the making I don't know, but thats neither here nor there.

I think the reason this bill was opposed so heavily is because in 1994, the destruction of such a bill lead to a 12 year dominance for Republicans. Except John Boehner is no Newt Gingrich, and theres nothing close to the "Contract with America" on the table - that every republican can run on. Actually, the Republican party now is not only ununified, its in open rebellion.

I think Cantor probably went behind clsoed doors and did the historical math and realiezed 1 and 1 isn't 3, the republican party isn't going to duplicate its success in '94 with the exact opposite stratagy. And looking at where it was, what it does, and where its going the conservatieves, not the republicans, are winning the party.

For one thing Republicans are generally unparalleled on discipline. They don't get off message, they have a sort of hive-mind that allows small gaffes and missteps to be exploited to a maximum capacity. This, obviously, it right out the window in 2009. For one reason or another, this leftist mentality of party purity like we experienced in the 60's has come, in full force to the republican party. We've also seen a tremendous amount of "front group" use by the neo-cons who are simultaneously ousted from power but who remain the loudest voices in the public eye. Something Ellesworth Tooey would have been proud of (or pissed about because of plagerism).

Secondly, the republican party has, very appropriatly, had a long memory on many things. Not least of which is the 40th president of the U.S. But today their forgetting his 11th commandment, his revolution that lead to the '94 victory, and the unity that Gingrich brought to the table with universal position on policy through his contract with America.

Healthcare, it was said by Roger Ailes (i think), cannot be allowed to pass because it will forever hand the democrats votes from the impoversed. He's kinda right. It would forever give them the votes of a generation, but with a National Policy on healthcare, the impoversed would at least have the same economic oppertunities and thusly few would remain impoversed for long.

As a conservative who wants Healthcare, I had to go down to the crossroads and figure out why I was so passionate about it in my gut, even if it didn't make sense with regard to liberties. But ultimatly it makes the world a more hands off place, one in which everyone can afford the same oppertunities because the cost of ailments born or aquired are no longer a hunderence.

And ultimatly thats the point I'm going for. I don't care where people start or finish economically - I'm a man born fighting and can only respect those ruthless enough to take what they want. I believe thats only valid if the oppertunity to fight is there. If you can't afford your bills because you bought a $30,000 car then thats your problem.

If you can't afford your bills because you have cancer and in the end it costs $30,000 then thats unamerican. Keep fighting the good fight friends. We'll have the power soon enough.

Heavyweight Fight

2009-11-04T09:11:00.000-08:00

I'm not much for how people "feel." Thats what Compassionate Conservatism has never appealed to me. Its also why religion has no place in politics. Jesus makes everyone too touchy feely. If you don't like something, bitch about it at your pancake breakfast.

I incorrectly called Prop 1 in Maine, but Maine has incorrectly chossen a side of history. Like Alabama before it, hopping on the supressive side of liberty never fares well for a national reputation and as a New Englander, this is gravely disappointing.

Its not disappointing because gay people want to love each other. Its not disappointing because as a society we're saying thats wrong. As I say, I don't really care much for how people feel emotionally. Its disappointing because equal protection under the law (the 14th amendment...of the U.S. Constitution) is being spit on.

No state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Either you're an American, and you get the rights, or you don't get the rights. Its fair to say that in many cases - there is no equal protection under the law.

Let's be direct about this - the 14th doesn't allow gay marriage. If you want to deny marriage to homosexual couples feel free, but you then must deny rights to all marriage couples. That is after all equal.

So why aren't the pro-equality forces playing hardball? Why aren't we calling out the Maine folks for being as hateful as segregationalist southerns 50 years back? Why aren't we making the claim that they have garner themselves and this nation with a black mark?

As MLK once said "all we say to America is be true to what ya said on paper. If I lived in China, or even Russia or any totalitarian country maybe I could understand...[denial of right] (the rights denied in each situation are different)...because they haven't committed themselves to that over there. but somewhere I read about the Freedom of Assembly, somewhere I read about the Freedom of Speech, somewhere I read about the Freedom of Press, somewhere I read that the "greatness of America is the right to protest the right."

Some of those are directly appopriate (obviously) but the spirit of his message is exactly on point. If the Constitution means something, then this will not stand. Maine has decided today that the American Constitution doesn't work for them, and they've denied it. I hope the pro-equality forces will keep in mind the next portion of that final speech as they carry on..."And just as I say we aren't gunna let any Dogs or Firehoses turn us around, we aren't gunna let any In-junction turn us around."

The man gave that speech with a fever and stomach pains. The things he spoke out against were vicious and vulgar. Our fight is cleaner, but our want should be no less. The civility of this nation has come along way. We can't give up on its founding documents now just because no ones being picked off in the street. Pro-equality forces had better start sharpening their elbows and learn a thing or two about hardball because if you play clean in politics you're just waiting for someone to come do your work for you.

Follow Up:

And this is exactly what I'm talking about. As taken from the website of the National Organization for Marriage.

"Language to avoid at all costs: "Ban same-sex marriage." Our base loves this wording. So do supporters of SSM. They know it causes us to lose about ten percentage points in polls. Don’t use it. Say we’re against “redefining marriage” or in favor or “marriage as the union of husband and wife” NEVER “banning same-sex marriage.”"

Click the link, read the "talking points." They know they can't call what they are asking for by its true function because they loose votes.

a rapidly expanding universe

2009-11-03T21:43:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure where I'm going in many aspects of my life, and therefore its almost impossible for me to know if I'm in the right place currently, doing the right things, or moving at the right speed.

I'd like to believe I fight as hard and, for better or worse, fairly ruthlessly in all aspects of whatever it is I'm doing, but I've got quite some time on my hands when I ride the bus home at night, staring out the windows to avoid eye contact with the disgruntled white-collars and out into that day-light savings time darkness that still seems too early to me.

I'm running down a few paths right now. School this spring (1 econ class but whatever), i'm still taking the MTEL's, and I'd really like to get a few certs in some tech crap that sounds nice on resumes. Another political season has come to a close (my candidate lost so I'm 1 and 1 now) but the big run up to 2010 is all but here. Time to go scout that field again.

I guess I'm writing to say I'm lost and by this paragraph I assumed I'd find something out but I didn't. I'm half thinking it might be a good idea to just roll the dice, start from scratch and call it a life. Too much of what I'm doing now is because I believe I'm on track to all the success I've always wanted.

I don't want to take up this pie-in-the-sky ideology as if I was cast in American Beauty, but maybe i'd be happier being myself again. Maybe I'm still pretending I'm not home whenever the idea of loneliness comes knocking.

I don't generally quote Billy Joel, but I think I need to forget about life for awhile.

Thomas Jefferson; Renegade Genius

2009-10-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

Reddit has me digesting quotes faster than I can refresh the page but I thought I'd post some of my favorites...

"Shake off all the fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1787. ME 6:258 Papers 12:15

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. -Thomas Jefferson, 1812

"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment... laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind... as that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, institutions must advance also, to keep pace with the times.... We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

"I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:23

"An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens."

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."

Real Yankee Fury: Rebellion comes to the Motherland

2009-10-21T07:42:00.000-07:00

The same forces responsible for Proposition 8 in California in 2008 have made their way into the very depths of Vactionland and are now trying to repeal the rights of homosexual unions by way of referendum. I'll make my call up front. The bright spot that was Prop 8 in 2008 is going to be eclipsed in 2009 and its highly likely that the backlash starts in Maine.

For one thing, anti-gay forces have used the same consulting firm, and the same message they did in California - which explicitly cites "the homosexual agenda already being taught in Massachusetts."

For obvious reasons, that plays differently in CA than it will in ME because I'm betting these west coast foreigners don't realize how tightly knit New England is. I suspect they also don't know how vicious the gay community is going to be over what they saw as a sandbagging in California, and if you don't think money won't pour in from all over the country think again.

Homosexuals have often been refered to as D.I.N.K.s - Double Income, No Kids. They stereotypically are big city liberals with at least one member of the house hold occupying a 6 figure income. This is now being presented in direct competition with heartland values, and more pointedly heartland paychecks. The chances that Maine will overturn their vote are growing increasingly slimmer. The Media likes to use the term “galvanized” for what Prop 8 did to the LGBT community, but that’s a “safe for television, objective” word, and what’s closer to the truth is they’ve furious for the past 11 months that they are being devalued as humans and Americans.

So what else doesn’t Schubert Flint Public Affairs, the firm representing the anti-gay proposition, understand about where they are doing battle? Politics.

California might be an exposed state, on camera, high profile, exciting. But Maine is, as Mark Steyn always refers to them, crotchety (he would, he’s a NH resident). They vote for who they want, and what they want, and they very much don’t like outsiders sticking their nose in its business. Just to give you an idea of who Mainers are; Lower 3 plates (Ma, Ri, and Ct) are routinely pulled over, the locals find us arrogant, mean, and we’re within 1 border. They also use the term “from away” to refer to anyone who’s ever had residency outside of the State. Meaning if you weren’t born there, you’re “from away” and no length of time repeals that idea. Maine also refers to some of their own as “Down Easters” (not sure if it’s one word) to denote where the rich folks of the state live.

They are, for the most part, highly resistant to outside influence. And unlike in MA (correct me if I’m wrong), in Maine Gay Marriage was a bill presented to the state legislature. It was signed by an elected Governor. There was no unilateral move to “force” gay marriage on the people of Maine. If its going to be repealed they want that to be up to them and I can put hard money on the fact that these outsiders are going to been shown to be the same crop from California, and that’s going to go horribly wrong for the anti-gay forces out there.

As it stands, I believe only 1 New England state does not allow Gay Marriage to happen, and that’s Rhode Island. The walls are coming down fairly consistently for a couple of reasons.

For one thing, Big City conservatives tend to be fiscal conservatives with more of a libertarian streak than a social/compassionate conservative bent. They don’t feel “saving” marriage is a big issue, and as die-hard free market people, the monetary output of legal gay marriage is both lucrative and befitting their deregulatory philosophies.

Secondly, all sides are on board now. This seems like a Liberal issue, but the reality is, on this one at least, Liberals are holding fast to Constitutional precedents, and how this mess began was Big Government Republicans attempting to regulate Morality.

It doesn’t fit Reagan-ites to use the government to regulate things like morals, and you know damned well the democrats didn’t do this.

The fight is going to be filthy. I don’t think, even if I’ve presented it that way, that it’s going to be a cake walk. But the homosexual community is more than likely seething, prepped for battle against the exact same group who made them second class citizens in, of all places, California.

Best of Luck to my Yankee brothers up in North Country. We always did know how to throw a revolution, I hope and expect that won't change now.

My review of Knockemstiff

2009-10-15T06:35:00.000-07:00

“if I wanted to read books I liked I’d have been a math major, and I’d have read at home.”

Ian was a man made for books, and like everyone I’ve known, he had a piece of him I admired. His was a patience and a discipline to read through the worst of novels with an analytic mind, giving a more due credit to books than I ever could.

Life can be about overcoming obstacles, and how you go about doing it. Mine, in this case, is the bus. Required for transit, good for little else save for being a roving flu box that spreads a pandemic like gas on a fire. But it does force me to read. There’s no one to speak to, and it prevents me from being approached by vagrants and street-corner salesman.

I’m a man of non-fiction. I love reading political material or at the very least analytical pieces. But I force myself into fiction because it’s good to tackle something from all angles, even if one of those angles is only 10% of your total. Fast forward to me reading Knockemstiff. I wanted to finish it so badly so that my review would pack more of a punch, that maybe I could cite decent strokes of the pen, or great plot directions…

But Knockemstiff for all its many sub-stories, for its umbrellas reach over a small county in Southern Ohio can be summed up thusly: Faulkner’s first book from 8th grade, when he realized he could write profanity and still get an A.

Downtrodden people, dead end lives, and the assumed correlation between grotesque situations and good writing. That’s the only theme I can see marching down Pollock’s deranged Main Street. That somehow, if we have some physical representation of something horrible and revolting, then we’ve perfectly summed up a character and thusly have written well.

Before you assume I just can’t handle the heat, let me explain why I took such issue with it, and moreover why I don’t recommend you buy it.

For one thing the vulgar discourse is on just about every page. It’s so ever present that by the time you get past the last trucker/hitchhiker tranny rape scene, you’re knee deep in a man marching in his own diarrhea by some dick-headed cops in some rich snobby town. And that’s, I assume, a subtle outlier as well. This is social commentary at its most inexperienced and juvenile. You can almost hear the inner teenager complain about some social ill, but do nothing but drag it out to hyperbole to prove a point, and never look in the direction of a solution.

The other issue is I’m not sure if he wants to be Faulkner (he does) or Salinger. Scenes where a newly homeless man takes refuge in a rusted-out landmark of a car, and for an ending to this story, he finds in the car the small skull of a mouse that an owl, who is thought to inhabit the car, has likely killed. The scene closes with this man putting the skull in his mouth.

I’m sure if you liked Knockemstiff you’re offended that I’m painting all of this out of context. If so, you’re probably smarter than I am, please explain this to me. I think if anything, the book serves to keep people out of Southern Ohio which, having never been, doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

Thank God for Ctrl + F

2009-10-14T07:14:00.000-07:00

Sorry. I was locked up for a bit there because I needed to keep the internet snoops out of my business. The situation should have been rectified, and having driven off enough of them, I ought to be back writing sooner and more frequently.

All the best,
Brow

A plead to reason

2009-10-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

Dear WFNX,

I grew up on the South Coast in Taunton, MA. Being a child of 1982, we didn't see the sunny shore of your radio station until maybe 2001, give or take a year or two. In fact the fact the first time I heard you guys was your late night techno slot when I was driving up to Methuan to meet up with friends. So you can imagine my excitement when Jaxon and the Pharmacist hit Rhode Island and we could get the station. I've since moved up to the Boston area and get to enjoy FNX on its traditional 101.7 setting and until WBCN went under, I couldn't have been happier with you guys.

But its fairly apparent you bought their playlists whole sale and threw them into constant rotation. I don't know if you have Cruise as your program director again or picked up Edipus somewhere along the lines, but for the love of God, stop playing the BCN 1997 playlist. I finally finagled a radio for my office and what am I met with? Linkin Park? Lenny Kravitz? LENNY KRAVITZ? Lenny wasn't cool when his shit was new. I really don't know whats stopping you from whipping out the Kid Rock and Trapt catalogue.

I don't mean in any way to disparige Julie Kramer or the Sandbox, which I love equally, but honestly what the hell? I remember a time when Storm Zbel played the Detroit Grand Pumba's "Sandwiches." That song still disturbs me to this day, but you know what? I don't listen to FNX because its safe when my grandmothers around, I listen to FNX so i can be a snarky douche at parties with phrases like "I like their first EP better" or "their ripping off [obscure useless band]." But I can't do that because if I try that crap with Green Day and the Red Hot Chili Peppers (has no one learned antyhing from BCN's death or are you drafting off of BOS) i get lumped in with the oldies in the corner talking about how Nirvana saved them from 80's power ballads.

To be fair, you're playing Owl City and Matt & Kim so I know your soul's still there, but for gods sake, if it costs to much to hire a DJ for portions of your day, I'll come down there and play songs for free. Please help us out. I left the South Coast to be closer, and now I'm too far away to get WBRU in.

In Loving Snark,
[Me]

Is Wikipedia good for the National psyche?

2009-10-01T07:39:00.000-07:00

I get to spend a lot of time with people. Not always speaking with them, but as a commuter, you're just around them constantly. In this situation, you can't forget people all have their pet interests, and they're going to tell you about them whether you're listening or not.

In this regard, Wikipedia might be the e-zanax this country needs.

The site takes its knocks for being unreliable, constantly changeable by any fringe group of nuts with an agenda. That true, but if you're going to Wikipedia for information on World War II, presidential administrations in the last 100 years, or science thats your own damn fault.

Wikipedia was made for the pet topic. Lets just look at the possible sales pitch, "debate the minutia of semi-colons, sea chantys from pre-1880, and the darning of socks with others who are prepared to get into the historial blood match that is [your pet topic]."

And there it is. The outlet to blather your insignificant interests into. And I have to believe the site knows this. Drop by the front page and you'll have riveting topics handed to you such as...

The Byzantine navy

Japanese settlement in Palau

or

Wilfred Buckland

And because of this, it bothers me when people say its unreliable.

"people can just go in and EDIT!"

I can't imagine how bored you'd need to be to edit anything related to the Byzantine Navy, but who am I to say. Maybe someones pet issue is complaining about how unrealiable Wikipedia is, and maybe they engage in self-preservation.

Novels have been written about stranger characters.

thoughts on life # 7621

2009-08-26T07:30:00.000-07:00

it should be known, before you think the worst of me, that I've never been a woman, and therefore cannot comment on them in the same way

There comes a time in everyone’s man's life when chaos envelops everything. You believe people see you as crazy or inept from some occurrence of events, you believe other people are lying or crazy because their telling you they don't know what you mean.

I couldn't tell you what the answer to those moments are, but what’s always served me best is to come to the table and give every side something. Yes, you made mistakes and exposed a weakness in the armor, but don't always give your opponents credit. More often than not they aren't even looking. If you think about it, we're all running around like mad, hiding our own exposures or chasing our own goals and making opportunities to achieve them.

Its only in the mad grip of obsession when we can start to smell the blood of those who've wronged us. And more often than not, those people will expose themselves as wounded by their own hands or admission. In these cases, silence will never serve you better, even if the accusations or slander is in our face. Sometimes, letting them say what you are shows who they are. People will hear, in the absence of truth and reason, the cutting words of a bitter man who couldn't take his lumps in life, and instead blamed everyone else. It’s been my experience that people see, at those times, attacks and think of themselves and their own interests and can reason that any man who'd say that to someone is capable of saying it to them.

Part of running a tight ship, be it an actual ship or a business, is walking the delicate line between knowing when to address something, when to let it address itself, and when to admit defeat but carry on. In all things though, if a man cannot be honest with himself, if he rationalizes, then his ship will go down in flames while he convinces himself that there’s a draft in his cabin.

Nixon, Rudy, and the Rebirth and Rise of a smarter GOP.

2009-08-25T05:03:00.001-07:00

The New York Times reports today that Rudy Guiliani is considering a strong run for the Governorship of New York State, and while Cathy's probably going to kick me in the mouth for saying so, I couldn't be more thrilled.

One of the more fun things about getting good at the political game is seeing how things in the background are being set-up to shape the future 5 to 10 years on. And while most of the pundits are crowing about an increasingly neo-con right wing, they’re only focusing on the Legislature. Its true there aren’t many republicans left in the Upper Right states, but with the moderation of national Republican figures the GOP is poised for a nationwide rebirth 5 to 10 years down the line. That is to say, if the Republican’s get obliterated in 2012 like they are on course to, the party will fall to Charlie Christ, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and, if he wins, Rudy Giuliani.

Say what you will about his hard stance on foreign policy and his alignment with the Hawks – that’s never stopped a young voter from choosing the GOP. Most people can understand through the lens of history that war is ugly, but certainly necessary at times. Despite what lasting image the 60’s peace movement has left, the ugly specter of Hitler casts a longer shadow and Giuliani won’t be penalized for a war he thought was needed. No, Rudy will take rank on two things that happened well before 9/11 – his stance on crime, and his stance on homosexuals.

The one thing the legislators can’t really do in the House of Congress is be results based. The New York City crime rate, according to the most consistent statistic, dropped a mythic 69% under the Giuliani Administration at a time when it (the city) was considered ungovernable. This is, in modern political trade, on par with the feats of Hercules in that its one of the few times a politician actually fulfilled the good-time promises of the euphoria of campaign season. For those not fortunate enough to be in the Upper Right, NYC – where Giuliani was elected twice – is the most Liberal portion of the state. If not for Manhattan, New York might be a swing state. And given the Democrats recently…”follies” its not very hard to see how Rudy might start taking on some Rudy qualities.

But some of you may be thinking, “Hey, Brow, I don’t live in NY. Who cares?” Fair point, but Giuliani’s win, should it come, would mean while the numbers in the Congress dwindle, the parties standing within the country starts to improve. And nowhere is this more important than outside of the Bible Belt where over the course of the last few years the GOP has been taking a beating, dropping long held Republican bastions to the Democratic Party. In the 90’s it was California, this decade it seems to be Florida.

In case that sounds crazy to you, and for someone like me who was born in 1982, it should. Lets take a look at California, long considered “Liberal Land” by many of the far rights biggest voices. Prior to Clinton, the GOP lost California in 1964 only when the social climate and a weak opponent (Goldwater) allowed LBJ to carry something like 42 of the 50 states. Its hard to say which state gave in quickest. California stuck with Ford when Florida voted Carter. Florida stuck with Bush, when CA finally went a permanent shade of blue. Either way – it’s a certainty they’ve been Republican Strong holds. But in the 2000 election, Florida faltered and the election results still aren’t agreed upon by the ideological extreme wings. 2004’s results we’re likely a result of the last being uncertain, but in 2008 Florida went, and given its demographic its tough to say if it won’t revert. If its going to, the question is: Who in the GOP is going to take it? As of right now, that seems to be directed at the GOP, as in who amongst you will take up the gauntlet?

But don’t be surprised if the Democrats have their flanks turned on them. While the whole country is waiting for the results of the Palin/Romney death match, with a possible Jindal or Pawlenty emerging from that ruckus as the Dark Horse candidate. But if Giuliani takes the Governorship up in New York, Florida may be taken by a future Republican Party of a more Moderate flavor. In short – Eisenhower, not Reagan, may be the key to a continued dominance of the Sunshine State.

Lets look ahead at some of the math, as it stands now. Depending on the health care debate, the 2010 elections could go either way, but as is customary in the mid-terms, the Republicans will probably pick up some seats. By the time 2012 comes, the economy will be the biggest factor. If it improves Obama will walk in, if it fails he’s got no shot. Its really that simple. Regardless of what major factor is taking place there, that’s going to be the issue at hand. Jobs, which are the largest lagging indicator, will be in full swing then and that’s going to be the most enduring test of the President.

Given the current climate of the GOP right now, the thought that McCain lost because he wasn’t conservative enough still has a firm grip on the party. Malkin and Coulter haven’t made room for Steve Schmidt and Megan McCain at this point, so the voices are still rallying to the right. Hannity and Beck have formed an impressive tag team that’s likely going to keep the party on course, but if it fails (and it likely will) we’re going to awake in 2012 in a world completely different than we know now.

The democrats, having won enough to warrant it, will drift leftward, leaving a middle open for courting. If the blue states start presenting high-profile republicans, that are in positions to be results based (and generally do, when the opposite faction controls the Executive they often can only work.) you’re likely going to see the moderation return to the Senate.

I don’t know if the moderation scares or entices you, but the writings on the wall. The one thing this country cannot afford is a lack of options. To have the Republican Party represent mostly southern white voters is not an option.

As a finisher I’ll say this, I didn’t include it in my general math because it could be a whole lot of nothing, but recently it was said that the third biggest city in America is about ready to switch from Chicago to Houston. The presence of a major city in one of America’s most conservative states may prove to be pretty interesting 20 years on. With Austin already a liberal enclave, if Houston slowly turns as many cities do. You may see a strong Democratic presence emerge from Texas in time for the 2032 elections.

Health Care or whats wrong with the president?

2009-08-19T07:05:00.000-07:00

While I'm a registered independent, when it comes to healthcare I'm Democrat Blue all the way. And i feel I need to weigh in at this point, if only to keep score, so that the 3 people who read this infrequent mouthpiece can throw their support where its needed, if they should choose to do so.

In the middle of august in the first year of the Obama administration, the democrats at this point are trying to walk back the public option, the republicans and freedomworks (led my former majority leader dick army) are equating insurance reform with "tyranny" and it looks as if the liberal democrats are the only ones trying to salvage this bill from the watery grave of compromise which is looking more and more like its going to do nothing but keep the status quo that kills 20,000 Americans every year.

Maybe its paranoia, but if the Republicans win this one are the insurance companies going to be drunk with power and inflate prices on a regular basis? More so than they’ve been doing?

Lets start from the beginning here. This started off with the stimulus fight. Not the bill, the fight. The president took from that bill that he shouldn't lead with compromise, he should let the Senators put things like tax cuts in so they can take credit for something, give them a bargaining chip, and find the bill at compromise later. But he took the wrong lesson from that.

For all the president admires the legacy of Reagan, he should have taken this one lesson from the gipper, and every haggle you've ever been in on; Highball 'em. Its not hard to see how you could walk back a single-payer system to a public option and be where we should be both morally and governmentally (meaning not too much gov. intervention). Instead he took from the stimulus debate that he should do nothing but request a bill and let them hash it out in Congress. Ever the good sport that Obama is.

But as we know at this point, he's been getting hammered for not having specifics. Another argument for the idea that presidents should go for broke. In 1981 then President Reagan demanded a 30% tax cut down the line. He ended up getting 25%. See how that works? If he'd gone in asking for a compromise of 15%, he'd had been lucky to get 5% and he'd have ruined any chance to revive the economy. But at this point its spilt milk.

The President at the time of my writing this has 3 options at this point.

1. Let the bill fail and purge from congress the representatives that should have listened harder to their constituencies. This is a gamble but if he looks at the numbers and sees a punishing result for the blue dogs who can't get the job done, it may not be a bad solution. They're only benefit at this point has been to give the Democrats a majority, but not let them pass any meaningful legislation. You can bank hard on an economic resurgence and in a year from now and ride it to a new, less resistant democratic base.

2. Get something watered down. This is what the republicans want. It will ruin the administration. Its not worth mentioning what it might do since the list carries on and on but lets just say the people won't benefit from this one and therefore, neither will either political party.

3. Reconciliation. Not even sure its legal. Will most likely be worse than 2.

Obama says he's walked back from the public option (according to Chuck Todd) because even those who supported it didn't know what it was and if the phrase of "public option" was hanging things up, we can remove it. But the Public Option is something that we need because for those who can't afford to eat and buy their medication.

In 1910 Churchill said we should judge a country by the way it treats its Prisoners. He should know, he was POW during the Boers War. It was an argument then, about how a society should treat its most vulnerable and underprivileged sect. Modern American Prisoners have a better healthcare system than more of the working poor, and in many cases better living conditions. Today our most vulnerable people are the families that work 3 or 4 jobs amongst two parents and are struggling to feed people, and praying that no one gets so sick they need real care.

Its been nearly 80 years since the first proposed health care system was left out of the Social Security bill, and at countless times along the way presidents from both sides of the aisle have attempted to get something done. The forces against us can often be ourselves, and senators and congressmen have long been just as guilty as private insurers. But the concerns today aren't all out of line or ridiculous; will this fund abortions? Are illegal aliens covered? What is all this "end of life counseling" about?

The republicans are suggesting a mandate, similar to what Nixon proposed, and almost exactly like what we've got here in MA, but the costs keep rising. Its braking the bank and if it isn't stopped a mandate will only serve to punish the poor or make them choose between Healthcare and food. (same problem only reversed because of government interference)

There have been concerns that the protesters at rallies aren't really protesting healthcare for any real reason. Concerns that the government will overthrow the country via healthcare. That Obama is taking gun rights, and that he's not a native born citizen. But the concern I can't shake was a free 8-day clinic in Inglewood California where doctors came to give free care to teh first 18,000 people that showed up. Depending on our political prism you’re either looking to see how many people worked full time, or how many were homeless. I guess one would show the difference between need and want but what I noticed was this:

from the larger article "...Over the eight days, dentists extracted 2,200 teeth, completed almost 5,500 fillings and performed nearly 2,000 cleanings. Nearly 1,800 pairs of eyeglasses were made and 400 women received mammograms." (http://www.dailybreeze.com/lifeandculture/ci_13151844)

Cleanings, Fillings, Glasses, and Mammograms. This wasn't even major work being done, this wasn't million dollar care being given out. People lined up and waited 8 days just to get things that are about as basic as going for a regular check-up. And while the idea that medical care can cost as much as a 1st time mortgage and can strike from no where is concerning, whats more concerning is that when the representatives from all over the country come together the debate is this...

Is making sure people can get cleanings and mammograms a tyrannical government takeover?

Really? Everyone interviewed was a working world stiff who just wanted preventative maintenance. Lets talk about that just quickly. If everyone knew what they could do to prevent major medical problems, wouldn't we be a lot better off? At least at that point couldn't we say you had your chance? In the end 60% of this country (roughly) has private insurance. Lets just leave that fact as it is. I can't say what % of the country is on Government care (every senior is for example) so lets just say America isn't 40% uninsured. But if its 10% or 15% if we could pass legislation so those folks had a shot...would that really take down the greatest republic the world has produced to date?

American's have always espoused the virtues of freedom and liberty. America's about options, and when we look to other nations where class systems still exist, or that a good amount of the population has no chance other than the States to go to college, I'm always reminded that for all our flaws we're still the last best hope - not for the well to do euros - but for the third worlders who want a better place for their families. I can tell you I walk about 4 different languages a day here on my way to the bus and they didn't come here because of our blinding arrogance. America is still a place where so much can be yours if you really want it. Sometimes we're chastised for how hard you have to work, but you can be assured that if you only have one goal in life, you can get it here. People are given fame and money unfairly sometimes, but that never stops you from yours. The idea that nothing is impossible on our shoes, no matter how minute, superficial, or sentimental is still something most of us believe.

The dream of preventative care, that someone who knows what their talking about can say "you need to be careful of X" or "try eating more of Y", and that everyone has the opportunity to just know that the ticking time bomb of a heart attack isn't around the corner orphaning children, burdening your family. Is that really the right we want to start denying? We've got our differences but we need to understand that this has been ruined every time politics was introduced. The time has come for Americans to stand up for one another, for the voiceless fools working too many jobs to have time to speak, and say that - no, we don't want free government handouts - but these people should have a choice, and if the private market is abandoning them in the interest of profits then the government should make sure that its citizenry is looked after.

I'll finish my tirade with a line from the most Liberal of Lions, Ted Kennedy and his all too famous closing at the DNC in 1980.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

NYT: A modern love

2009-08-06T12:30:00.000-07:00

As with all aggrigated news postings, please click the link to give due credit and revenue to author and publisher respectivly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/fashion/02love.html?_r=1&em=&pagewanted=print

Modern Love

Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear

By LAURA A. MUNSON

LET’S say you have what you believe to be a healthy marriage. You’re still friends and lovers after spending more than half of your lives together. The dreams you set out to achieve in your 20s — gazing into each other’s eyes in candlelit city bistros when you were single and skinny — have for the most part come true.

Two decades later you have the 20 acres of land, the farmhouse, the children, the dogs and horses. You’re the parents you said you would be, full of love and guidance. You’ve done it all: Disneyland, camping, Hawaii, Mexico, city living, stargazing.

Sure, you have your marital issues, but on the whole you feel so self-satisfied about how things have worked out that you would never, in your wildest nightmares, think you would hear these words from your husband one fine summer day: “I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did. I’m moving out. The kids will understand. They’ll want me to be happy.”

But wait. This isn’t the divorce story you think it is. Neither is it a begging-him-to-stay story. It’s a story about hearing your husband say “I don’t love you anymore” and deciding not to believe him. And what can happen as a result.

Here’s a visual: Child throws a temper tantrum. Tries to hit his mother. But the mother doesn’t hit back, lecture or punish. Instead, she ducks. Then she tries to go about her business as if the tantrum isn’t happening. She doesn’t “reward” the tantrum. She simply doesn’t take the tantrum personally because, after all, it’s not about her.

Let me be clear: I’m not saying my husband was throwing a child’s tantrum. No. He was in the grip of something else — a profound and far more troubling meltdown that comes not in childhood but in midlife, when we perceive that our personal trajectory is no longer arcing reliably upward as it once did. But I decided to respond the same way I’d responded to my children’s tantrums. And I kept responding to it that way. For four months.

“I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.”

His words came at me like a speeding fist, like a sucker punch, yet somehow in that moment I was able to duck. And once I recovered and composed myself, I managed to say, “I don’t buy it.” Because I didn’t.

He drew back in surprise. Apparently he’d expected me to burst into tears, to rage at him, to threaten him with a custody battle. Or beg him to change his mind.

So he turned mean. “I don’t like what you’ve become.”

Gut-wrenching pause. How could he say such a thing? That’s when I really wanted to fight. To rage. To cry. But I didn’t.

Instead, a shroud of calm enveloped me, and I repeated those words: “I don’t buy it.”

You see, I’d recently committed to a non-negotiable understanding with myself. I’d committed to “The End of Suffering.” I’d finally managed to exile the voices in my head that told me my personal happiness was only as good as my outward success, rooted in things that were often outside my control. I’d seen the insanity of that equation and decided to take responsibility for my own happiness. And I mean all of it.

My husband hadn’t yet come to this understanding with himself. He had enjoyed many years of hard work, and its rewards had supported our family of four all along. But his new endeavor hadn’t been going so well, and his ability to be the breadwinner was in rapid decline. He’d been miserable about this, felt useless, was losing himself emotionally and letting himself go physically. And now he wanted out of our marriage; to be done with our family.

But I wasn’t buying it.

I said: “It’s not age-appropriate to expect children to be concerned with their parents’ happiness. Not unless you want to create co-dependents who’ll spend their lives in bad relationships and therapy. There are times in every relationship when the parties involved need a break. What can we do to give you the distance you need, without hurting the family?”

“Huh?” he said.

“Go trekking in Nepal. Build a yurt in the back meadow. Turn the garage studio into a man-cave. Get that drum set you’ve always wanted. Anything but hurting the children and me with a reckless move like the one you’re talking about.”

Then I repeated my line, “What can we do to give you the distance you need, without hurting the family?”

“Huh?”

“How can we have a responsible distance?”

“I don’t want distance,” he said. “I want to move out.”

My mind raced. Was it another woman? Drugs? Unconscionable secrets? But I stopped myself. I would not suffer.

Instead, I went to my desk, Googled “responsible separation” and came up with a list. It included things like: Who’s allowed to use what credit cards? Who are the children allowed to see you with in town? Who’s allowed keys to what?

I looked through the list and passed it on to him.

His response: “Keys? We don’t even have keys to our house.”

I remained stoic. I could see pain in his eyes. Pain I recognized.

“Oh, I see what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re going to make me go into therapy. You’re not going to let me move out. You’re going to use the kids against me.”

“I never said that. I just asked: What can we do to give you the distance you need ... ”

“Stop saying that!”

Well, he didn’t move out.

Instead, he spent the summer being unreliable. He stopped coming home at his usual six o’clock. He would stay out late and not call. He blew off our entire Fourth of July — the parade, the barbecue, the fireworks — to go to someone else’s party. When he was at home, he was distant. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. He didn’t even wish me “Happy Birthday.”

But I didn’t play into it. I walked my line. I told the kids: “Daddy’s having a hard time as adults often do. But we’re a family, no matter what.” I was not going to suffer. And neither were they.

MY trusted friends were irate on my behalf. “How can you just stand by and accept this behavior? Kick him out! Get a lawyer!”

I walked my line with them, too. This man was hurting, yet his problem wasn’t mine to solve. In fact, I needed to get out of his way so he could solve it.

I know what you’re thinking: I’m a pushover. I’m weak and scared and would put up with anything to keep the family together. I’m probably one of those women who would endure physical abuse. But I can assure you, I’m not. I load 1,500-pound horses into trailers and gallop through the high country of Montana all summer. I went through Pitocin-induced natural childbirth. And a Caesarean section without follow-up drugs. I am handy with a chain saw.

I simply had come to understand that I was not at the root of my husband’s problem. He was. If he could turn his problem into a marital fight, he could make it about us. I needed to get out of the way so that wouldn’t happen.

Privately, I decided to give him time. Six months.

I had good days, and I had bad days. On the good days, I took the high road. I ignored his lashing out, his merciless jabs. On bad days, I would fester in the August sun while the kids ran through sprinklers, raging at him in my mind. But I never wavered. Although it may sound ridiculous to say “Don’t take it personally” when your husband tells you he no longer loves you, sometimes that’s exactly what you have to do.

Instead of issuing ultimatums, yelling, crying or begging, I presented him with options. I created a summer of fun for our family and welcomed him to share in it, or not — it was up to him. If he chose not to come along, we would miss him, but we would be just fine, thank you very much. And we were.

And, yeah, you can bet I wanted to sit him down and persuade him to stay. To love me. To fight for what we’ve created. You can bet I wanted to.

But I didn’t.

I barbecued. Made lemonade. Set the table for four. Loved him from afar.

And one day, there he was, home from work early, mowing the lawn. A man doesn’t mow his lawn if he’s going to leave it. Not this man. Then he fixed a door that had been broken for eight years. He made a comment about our front porch needing paint. Our front porch. He mentioned needing wood for next winter. The future. Little by little, he started talking about the future.

It was Thanksgiving dinner that sealed it. My husband bowed his head humbly and said, “I’m thankful for my family.”

He was back.

And I saw what had been missing: pride. He’d lost pride in himself. Maybe that’s what happens when our egos take a hit in midlife and we realize we’re not as young and golden anymore.

When life’s knocked us around. And our childhood myths reveal themselves to be just that. The truth feels like the biggest sucker-punch of them all: it’s not a spouse or land or a job or money that brings us happiness. Those achievements, those relationships, can enhance our happiness, yes, but happiness has to start from within. Relying on any other equation can be lethal.

My husband had become lost in the myth. But he found his way out. We’ve since had the hard conversations. In fact, he encouraged me to write about our ordeal. To help other couples who arrive at this juncture in life. People who feel scared and stuck. Who believe their temporary feelings are permanent. Who see an easy out, and think they can escape.

My husband tried to strike a deal. Blame me for his pain. Unload his feelings of personal disgrace onto me.

But I ducked. And I waited. And it worked.

Laura A. Munson is a writer who lives in Whitefish, Mont.

the printed word from the horses elitist mouth

2009-07-07T06:33:00.000-07:00

people say twitter is going to achieve the breaking point of information. That we'll have access to so much unfiltered information that we'll go running back to the newspapers.

they keep using the same talking point. I've never been to the twitter page, but I can tell you no one tweets about the cheese sandwich they are eating. No one checks on those people.

i think the newspapers are smug. And I think writers are worse. I read somewhere I can't recall that journalists don't see it as a job, but as if they're doing something for the good of the people. thats how we got in this mess. i guess they're breaking the old maxim "don't live to work, work to live."

your jobs no more important than mine, and anyone can learn my job. maybe filtered news is the problem though i doubt thats industry wide. the local news is a sham. as the dig tells it, its a "cavalcade of car accidents and house fires" and I've used that example ever since.

Periodicals are the only news source I trusted and you get the same thing in the long run. a well researched article with all angles covered. in 2007, on the lead up to Time's Man of the Year i remember the dopes in the "media" fighting over whether it should be david petraeus or al gore.

Time picked vladimir putin. which was a logical choice. the first two were fixing issues, the third ressurected a 25 year old corpse of a nation.

i don't have writers or the media because they are bias - i'm bias. i hate them because somewhere out there in their training as journalists they beleive they become ghandi. its too bad too because i liked the op-ed section.

tears of a clown

2009-07-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

funny ain't funny anymore. Attempt to be droll. Stop thinking. Sculpted set-ups don't play well anywhere.

I heard ya have to stumble over a joke in order to achieve success. Bad jokes are only funny if they are bad enough, to point out how bad bad jokes are.

I was watching daniel tosh on saturday and she said to me "he's only funny because he's shocking, and people don't know what else to do so they laugh." I think its funny because it got out of its cage. No one else says these things because they want to stay in good graces. Pirates are funny.

Pirates and those little kids at the Chinese restaurant who do things intentionally to piss off their parents. My father turned to me and said "its the same in every culture and language. No kids different."

Kick, Drink, and Be Merry

2009-06-08T12:19:00.000-07:00

Lechmere station is equivocal to mars. Nothing is right there, and it’s certainly not part of the city.

I leaned against the brick wall, thick with years of painting over the same white-roller paint jobs and it looked like all the memories of my childhood, hanging around old arcades and cheap, weeklong carnivals.

There’s an old circus sign hanging 3 feet above my head advertising “Trolley Snacks” but the splintered, red counters have been folded up to block the windows. The conductor walks by me, his loose cap barely on his shiny bald head and slams through one of the rusting black doors. When he returns 5 minutes later, he looks at me before he boards.

“this trains leaving”

“I’m looking for the D”

“Only E’s leave from here, switch at Park”

The vision from the platform haunts me as I’m riding through the Rat tunnels underneath the Capitol. The rails pull up, and veer far to the right, while the wires of the trains cables and power lines hang in the air like empty staves of music. In the distance the spotted condo’s and their satellite dishes seem to have a hum of a life I can’t quite describe. In the distance, without sound and only small images, things seem to go as their planned. People move about their homes, and they seem happy, and the wires bring in options for interests and the trains, and their lego-yellow platforms seem stream-lined; its all correct and for a minute things seem right with the world. As if the scene playing out comforts me with a pat on the back and say its all attainable.

In the middle of the tracks, theres a sole patch where the rubber had been torn up, likely for repairs and a gapping plank of wood sits slightly below level with the rest of the platform. I don’t really know what it means but its there and I feel as if it should carry some weight.

Back in the bar, the party rages on. I spent 20 minutes talking to a 22 year old girl who’d had too much tequila and how her financial advice to clients is “the markets fucked, keep the money in your mattress.” We trade the normal pleasantries searching for common ground and she tells me she was in Taunton once in 8th grade for a cheerleading competition. I’ve heard more than I needed and excuse myself for the bathroom.

In the dining room, there’s beer all over the tables and theres a half eaten pizza every third table. I can’t help but think there’s a herpes culture expanding like the universe on every puddle of PBR with cheap cups flipped over standing in it. The guys in the bathroom greet you with a nod; enough to establish a lack of hostilities, not enough to warrant conversation. I’d rather talk to the guys here anyway, they don’t come with an agenda. There are three kinds of women at these parties, those that are trying to sleep with you, those that think you’re trying to sleep with them, and the small few who are too drunk to care.
Tonight the latter was Ashley, who had all the early standings. “So is mine” she said after I told her my names hard to pronounce correctly. When she told me her name, I questioned how she got like this.

“My team has a rule that you can’t leave the field until all the booze is gone, and we have a huuuuuge cooler and I had to drink it all myself because I wanted to go to the bar.”

She could not have been more than 110 lbs. “What were you drinking?” I needed to know, this wasn’t beer drunk and it was 3 in the afternoon.

“It was tequila, and vodka, and beer.” I had to assume that was at least two different drinks and not some sort of alcoholic Voltron, but given this woman’s demeanor, it very well could have been.

In some ways I can’t help but feel I’ve stumbled upon some Dionysian grove in this beat-up shanty in East Cambridge. Surrounded by slaughterhouses and local banks, and building that were once proud captains of industry that look today sullen and as if they were the lone survivor of the car accident on the family road trip. The 9 to 5 stiffs dance like children, out of synch with the music and spill on themselves with no regard. I can’t help but look with an out of body experience, and wonder when we’ll all be too old, or when I should grow up. When the feds will kick in the door or when everyone will just fade away like all the Rocky Points and King’s Castles. I’m wondering when the ball pit became too germy and when my Coney Island baby is coming home.

Cheers my fellow kickers. We should drink as if this is our last stand against the growing hum of complacent tomorrow, whatever it brings.

Why can't I own a Canadian?

2009-04-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

I'm one of those conservatives that thinks goverment should have as limited a role as possible in peoples lives, and this Burkeian "moral authority" crap is directly opposed to my beliefs. A guy on the music forum I frequent posted this letter from 2002 that I thought people needed to read.

Why Can't I Own a Canadian?
October 2002

Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a radio personality who dispenses advice to people who call in to her radio show. Recently, she said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22 and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following is an open letter to Dr. Laura penned by a east coast resident, which was posted on the Internet. It's funny, as well as informative:

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the other specific laws and how to follow them:

When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15:19- 24. The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?

Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? - Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your devoted fan,
Jim

Saturday. In the Park. I think it was the 4th of July.

2009-03-28T05:10:00.000-07:00

some men capture what I can forget to keep in mind. Sometimes the saltbowl can still be beautiful. every so often, even in the depths of summer, when all the flip-flops fuse with the side walks, we can still have a celebration.

Of the two 4th of July celebrations I've been to in the city the first was a celebration of people, and the second might as well have been a friends episode.

That first time was my first residence in Boston, and we moved in on the first of June. Nestled in a student-free brighton hill, we were swallowed up by what people refer to as "real boston;" the commuters, the families, the children on scooters hasseling you for money, the cars crawling and the bikes weaving between them. The night had already come in and because of the holiday, a holiday you felt more strongly here, we all walked in the street, thousands of people migrating to the Hatchshell to watch the Pops. The charles looked like a bayou and there wasn't a patch wide enough for the blanket but the music rang along the banks and we all ate ice cream like children. I was proud to say I felt no emotions then.

The harvard bridge with its satellite vision of the state street art work filled up full and clear like the whole damn city was going to blow. The T's rang with efficency and we all were half deaf. The heat wave gave way to icy cars and in the middle of summer we all shivered like a rung church bell. I carried fast food in a brown paper bag, and we all went back to an old brick building with the floral hotel carpeting in the stairwells. we sat in a poorly ventilated living room and left only the screen door closed. We stood on our balcony that looked out to the back of the buildings across the way, ugly in their honestly, traced the ages in delapidating portions and make-shift carpentry. We drank to our freedom in every regard and toasts let the bubbles lat out on the floor.

For all the miersery on the north shore, or hardnosed lesson of the southern. For the memories in the west and the day to day here, I could never be a man from another place and time. Today I share its destiny. Lick the salt from the rim, shoot the last of the night, and stumble back to an old stylus and ramble till dawn.

Old Friends and Blue Roses

2009-03-20T10:04:00.000-07:00

When I was in high school they used to joke that there were the Feats of Brow. A selection of things I’d done because I was stupid and basically got shit lucky if you don’t factor in my penchant for argument and that I ooze charm.

One of them revolved around a girl name Kristen McCarthy. As was my lot back then, I played an effective wing man because I had ridiculous stories, could talk about anything (a discipline I’d studied when I asked a ripe young politician why he would watch a show as effeminate as Days of our Lives. “You need to be able to talk about anything.”), and I had a joke or two. In the course of that charge, I ended up saying, hey if I’m going to keep doing this for you, why don’t you set me up with someone I like. My rearing in Taunton taught me to be at least a superficial schemer. You don’t get anywhere without a plan.

We ended up managing to execute the date, and through the course of it somewhere I picked her up with a cheeseburger. At 26, I’m not proud of it, but at the height of the Austin Powers fame, I made a cheeseburger talk like the character Fat Bastard, and despite her vegetarian tendencies, managed to swing this into what at the time counted for a relationship.

She was the first girl to really break my heart for no good reason either. It wasn’t that serious, but I’ve never taken that sort of thing well. It’s a large part of the reason I’ve a bitter sod. A lifetime of thinking this one was going to work, and it never did. A year or so back I was with an old familiar group and they’d told me she was pregnant; a South American guy who didn’t speak English. I had to just shake my head. She had a wild side and went for guys who were generally troubled. If it weren’t for that cheeseburger I don’t think I’d have had a chance.

The other day our camping department put up a giant banner in our lobby and it stand to the left of my door. It’s a standard marketing piece, shots of kids from summers past and big, brass, letters saying what its all about, but I look at the same kid in one of those photos every time, because as much as I know it isn’t, she looks like Kristen’s 18-year-old twin. It’s more weird that I hadn’t thought of her, or that time of my life in a lifetime. I’m not the same person, in fact when I remember myself at that time; it seems more like a brother, than me. But there I am, in a world removed with a terrible haircut and oversized t-shirts. And there she is, sitting outside my office, as a reminder of so many things; who I was, how far I’ve come, how far off the path life can go, and the myriad of reasons she might have chosen that direction.

In all, it’s a reminder of why I write. Sometimes I’m working through problems when I sit down and write but sometimes its good to remind yourself of past failures and victories, to remind yourself of why you do what you do, where you ought to be going, and what drives you down that road. I was thinking I should give her a call to see what she was up to. I expect her to be alone with a kid, and sometimes you can use an old friend’s voice, or a good story to carry you through, but I honestly wouldn’t know what to say. She’s not on a different road anymore; she lives in a different state (metaphorically). I think maybe I’ll send her a single blue rose. She’d understand, and maybe for a half a second she’d remember who she used to be too.

I love my kickball team

2009-03-07T05:32:00.000-08:00

In case its not evident. This is leigh, stabbing me with a bunch of needles she found in the Fenway because I made fun of her Alma mater, Northeastern University. I'm assuming the reason we're "Entering Taunton" is because she hunted me down.

when my friends played wow...

2009-03-05T11:40:00.000-08:00

So if you didn't know, I am a nerd of uncomprable versity and unabashed admission. That established, I play W.O.W. (world of warcraft).

there are roughly 10 million players worldwide so I don't know why anyone should feel pushed into a corner, but regardless they sometimes do. Since the game was released in November or 2004 its always been about, existing around the game, a social enviornment.

When it was released it was the most in demand item you've read about. Issel and I went to the mall, actually 2 of them, and between the 4 stores there we only found one copy. I offered it to him, and he passed saying "we should buy it together."

"What if the next store only has one copy?"

He bought it. The next store had none.

I think it was released on a tuesday. I searched every day that week for a copy, but to no avail. On saturday I'd got out of bed at an unprecedented 7 am and drove to a Target in Seakonk, about a 30 minute drive on the hopes that they had one.

When i'd arrived I walked as fast as I could without drawing attention to myself to the videogame section. The games were stacked out from the back of the shelf and there between two games I can no longer recall was a gap. I peered down the hole to find one lone copy of WOW there in the back, hiding from public awareness.

It was all I could do to not sprint down the aisle, when I put it on the counter I crowded around it, to the confusion of the old woman buying sucks behind me in her fur coat. The cashier asked if i'd like anything else.

"no." I can still remember thinking I was snappy, but I could care less. I raced home, shot issel a text and spent the next few weeks addicted.

Somewhere in there, later on Marshall came hom from Officer Training with a broken leg and, unable to do much of anything, we got him into the game. We all kept in touch, we all made plans through the game. We talked on vent, and shot the shit while trying to take down any number of celebrated computer-drive adverseries.

We waited outside of January-cold buildings in strip malls, all lifeless except for the massing of nerd sitting outside and talking about the game, for one event steve and I ate wendys, for the other jon and I got drunk. Times been passing, friends have been dropping out. In the fall I left the group of guys I'd played with for close to two or three years.

In short its just a game, and the day will come where I put it down for good. Life is temporal and things fall by the wayside, but more than just a game, WOW served as electronic watering hole, the proverbial office water cooler for friends I'd grown up with and some I'd never met. And now it too has run its course.

For its detractors, wow was a nerd heaven that only the slovenly and the fat engaged in. Children that never grew up, who only had friends on the internet. But despite the way many would intentionally and ignorantly spin it, it was the same as walking around the mall, or sitting in the backyard throwing back beers, just in computer form.

And now, barreling down on its 5 year dominance of the video game industry, wow is becoming more and more unappealing, because while the game is basically the same, the friends have all taken off for greener pastures. In many ways, its no different than real life, except out here, I'm not forced to look at a list of guy and their non-deplumes that never light up...

Happy Raiding.

Mtv will save my job

2009-02-26T07:09:00.000-08:00

If you were a conscious person following the days of 9/11 and you watch TV more than passing one by in store windows you likely heard some variation of this phrase: “You know, for those younger people out there that came up in the MTV generation, this isn’t going to be gone tomorrow. This is real and permanent and it’s something we really have to live with.”

I should have been offended. The idea of guessing someone’s emotional reaction is arrogant at best, even if you’d come up in the same generation. I caulked it all up to the angry wilting of youth the young newscaster was feeling, realizing she was going to be on local news covering traffic jams with the local baseball team soon. But I’d heard the phrase or something like it constantly for weeks after 9/11, talking points and platitudes coming like fads in its own journalistic microcosm.

But if she was right, and my cranky tantrum was juvenile and immature, I think at this critical juncture, I’ve got to passing talking points of my own. We’re currently sitting in an awakening to how much of a sham the world of finance really is. As one market research correspondent remarked, “money isn’t anything with inherent value, we prescribe value to it, and gold’s no different.” WOW!

I didn’t go to school for finance, I went for English, and when the real world reared its ugly head, I went back for Political Science. At no point in my 17 years tenure at college did I believe I was doing anything other than the abstract. We knew what we were, and the first of those things was “mocked” by those with “purposeful” majors. That’s the sin I’m talking about, finance has paraded around for years as some concrete piece of machinery, intricate in its assembly and operation. Too difficult for the lay person to figure out. We went to men with Ivy League degrees and experience for support, and only in a time of unwavering rebuke, when we’ve walking into the proverbial coat room at the Christmas party and saw it fucking the boss were they ever forced to admit…this is all a sham.

This has left us with will. How we will the markets to be, how we determine the state of the country to be in (financially of course), English majors willingly accept the poverty they’ve chosen, but they’ve never asserted we were needed to run the country. So now we need to imagine.

The accusation being lobbed at President Obama as a last ditch effort by the finance industry to screw over a man they despise is that his tone is ruining the country. These 40 something’s are telling me that I have a short memory span? I can recall the last 4 years, and while I’m chomping at the bit to make that comparison, it’s done nightly on Olberman and The Daily Show, so I’ll make my point that I came to the dais with.

Should not the attention-deprived, Ritalin-addled, multi-takers of this new generation, those quick to forget the gravity of a situation, those iKids that move on before the last things over, aren’t they the solution? We need consumerism they say, now more than ever we can’t save.

If the forgetful are the engine by which the country is run, maybe gravity is not the merit we should long for. Maybe we should all believe this will be gone tomorrow, spend like the axe isn’t looming over our heads and remind ourselves that the past is long gone. There’s a book out there to the title of something like “How the Irish saved Civilization.” Its thesis from my understanding (having not read it) is that all the great old historic texts from the Old World were saved in a Celtic library while the originals or their near offspring burned while Rome was sacked. If all of what I’ve writing is within a foot of being accurate, the next book should be called “How MTV saved the American Economy.”

Yankee Passion

2009-02-25T19:44:00.001-08:00

If you've ever met up with me for coffee on some early saturday monring, you know I love practicing Yankeedom. I read this today and loved it, and thought I might pass it on...

A humorous aphorism attributed to E.B. White summarizes these distinctions:

To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To Northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner.
To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander.
To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter.
And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.

The cycling worlds forgotten children.

2009-02-08T07:40:00.000-08:00

“Wrong format.” It was a blunt rejection of a modest proposal. “Anyone who rides their bikes to grab a pack of cigarettes doesn’t read Bicycle magazine, and people who read Bicycle magazine don’t give a shit about people who use their bikes to commute.”

I’d met with Ian to discuss the options for a magazine that would cater to cycling’s forgotten sub-class; the commuter.

“Is that going to be the focus of the magazine?”

It wasn’t. I’d just finished reading an article about why New York magazine had been such a successful, enjoyable read. How the creators knew the energy of New York back then (70’s?) and they’d translated its beauty into insightful articles and well thought-out and penetrating opinion pieces. The same energy that had been missing from countless other city magazines that ended up being a bunch of snobby trust-fund writers talking about night clubs with prison-like consistency, and restaurants that charged $40 per inch of food. I looked at this and thought Boston deserved much better, the laundry list of topics could span for years if we’d only made one at the first round table discussion.

The city was as true to life as it gets. No omnipotent mayors rearranging cities into grids, Boston’s cow paths would remain, and a state legislature that repeatedly sent themselves and contractors to the big house when they attempt to “grid” the highway system. What other city ahs shifting exit ramps? That alone is the most interesting architectural piece in America.

How could a city so aligned in the minds of Americas with racism by way of bussing also be the only place that gay people could get married. How much of a line can Boston walk?

From its roughed-up gulley’s in JP and Allston to the cobble-stone chucks of Beacon Hill and all its western outliers, the culture of people living in the Greater Boston region was, as distinctly homogenized in its uniqueness. These cultures we’re nationality based, they weren’t given to you in a blood line; they were conscious choices, a throwback to a time when neighborhoods said everything about somebody. How they voted, what tax bracket they were in, how they saw the world, and the types of people they married.

And all of these tiny issues that made Boston, Boston were circling around, and intertwined with the morning commuter like nothing else. It was the card between the spokes; it was the elephant in the room.

The cycling commuter isn’t box-able. They’re not all the same. The DUI’ers line up with the Green-minded, and peddle alongside those fitness-junkies who peddle to work because there aren’t parking spaces after 4:30 a.m. in the financial district. The people without cars because Somerville’s ticketing system is a fascist regime, and because those roadways made a bike more efficient than any car could be. Those in the know up here know two things; the bus will save you more time than the T if you’ll only learn to read the schedule, and that bicycles are the fastest way to get anywhere.

But there was still no outlet for the community to rally. In my opinion, communities of like-minded interests can get quite a bit done if they rally, and that usually takes a swift boot in the ass. The larger problem in Boston is that a large part of the 60’s envisioned utopia springs eternal. Older folks with graying hair and polo collars still believe the fairy tales of the drug-induced Marxist theory.

Like communism itself, when its put in to practice it doesn’t really amount to anything of worth. Half-hearted protests, a “bike day” where we all ride down Comm. Ave. with a police escort, writing to our representative. These are all ideas that are supposed to work but of course never do. If not for the benevolent dictator; Tommy Teddybear up in City Hall the cyclists who actually need a legal recognition would be dead in the water, or more accurately, under the wheels of the 66.

What Boston really needs to do is stop holding signs on the common in colorful tribal garb and start throwing some fucking tea into the ocean. In other words, A lot less Cambridge, and a lot more Boston.

For all intents and purposes, cyclers are a second class citizen that does more for a commercial area than motors physically can. We reduce the need for space, we decongest busy roadway and we end up paying more than our share of taxes for things we don’t use.* A more opening commuting community also is a new source of revenue for everyone. Its not all bike racks and locks. We create urban infrastructure, roadways, specialty shops, and reduce the wear and tear on roadways.

You’ll notice I didn’t mention the environmental impact. Less Cambridge more Boston. In addition to my insistence on community lockstep to achieve goals, there’s also a degree of politics. The environment for quite a few politicians is a conversation killer. It ends debate, they shutdown and no one gets anywhere. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my short career it this; cut to the chase, give them the cost and how its going to help them. Mention the rest as icing on the cake when their already on board but for Christ sakes, never let it be the breadth of the issue. Ever.

Cyclists need to, as a community, present themselves as a grouping in existence for the better of civil function, for social progression, and that are fiscally prudent, rather than telling everyone to ride a bike because we’re causing hurricanes. Even if that’s the case, the goal should be to win your position, not say “I told you so, I was right” when its too late. In this position, the environmentalists are more guilty than those who don’t care because their charge is a responsibility they are not taking custody of.

The ends justify the means. As “Tip” O’Neil would say, “all politics is local” and the line is drawn this way, there are winners and there are not winners. This accurately accounts for all gray areas. Take baby steps, hit them where it matters (generally the wallets, sometimes kids), and never get off message. You allow one space cadet to invoke your name without violent repudiation and you might as well hang up your hat. The community is there, our needs our reasonable and our demands are logical as well as cost-efficient. We just need a voice, out many comes one. E pluribus unum. Ride safe friends.

* http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/331734_firstperson17.html

When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race.

--H.G. Wells

Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride.

- John F. Kennedy

It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.

-- Ernest Hemingway

You're a f***ing pervert is what you are.

2009-02-08T05:36:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/books/review/Gottlieb-t.html?_r=1

The article in the link above is something thats fascinated be for awhile. It basically details the things people look for in a mate, and how that effects their lives. The article makes a couple important points that are central to the overall inquirey.

The following is a quote from a woman who has no legs and who's husband, Ron, happens to find that a turn on...

"Yet Ron’s current wife, also legless, questions at times whether her marriage to Ron is romantic or sick. She has, after all, seen the Internet chat rooms where men like Ron list specific preferences for SAEs (single-arm amputations above the elbow) or DAKs (double-leg amputations above the knee). “But,” she wondered, “was a preference for a single arm really all that different from a preference for a certain color hair, a certain tone of skin or shape of face or type of body?” "

You can read this sort of thing all over the web, you can pair it up with psychological text in most academic texts, but rarely, given our Puritan origins, has anything been this openly discussed in a major news outlet that spans the nation. If the question above doesn't convince you that this is less an illness and more a preference, we should cite history (and the same article) for a reference to see how we all are...

"Are all of them deviant? None of them? Or is deviance a matter of time and place, the way that a century ago, fellatio and cunnilingus were regarded as perversions in some psychoanalytic circles?"

Truth be told, there are people out there who still find those two things perverse. Even within the confines of a locked bedroom, and a monogomous marrige. But today those folks are few and far between and the idea that these are normal has long ago been exported from ancient Indian text.

Once the point was established the article and I parted ways. I was happy to see the the curiosity stood to become slightly more public, but while the NYT's kept fighting the crusade for it being normal, I kept wondering - How does this happen?

We've all seen the standard ones. We've all at least heard of the foot thing, we all know about violence and the costumes but there were tons out there, not as high profile but with a stewing mass of supporters on backwater sites all over the internet. (To be fair, i'd never heard of the amputee thing prior to the article).

You need only click haphazardly on a pop-up ad to be thrust (intended) into a world of weird fixations you've never seen or heard of before. The one that has confused me for years now is balloons. The thing about this one is, there isn't really anything perverse about it. Its just naked people of the gender of your choosing with, around, and on balloons. And even the "on" isn't weird, their just sitting on them.

In this capacity, the balloon isn't any different than a chair or a couch, its a prop in the area. So what the hell? To date I don't know. I thought it was a tactile thing, may a latex like structure was the crux of the issue but tons of things in the defiled world have this property so I'll ask again...why the circus toy?

In truth I've never found out and to be honest I don't activly look. I just know that its lurking out there and I need to know why I'm just too lazy and prefer my retnas to do anything about it. If you're not actually dealing with sites that are peddling it for pornographic use, like craigslist or other classfied internet sections, then you can generally get into the midset of these people which is all I want. We all know what a sick world it is out there, and that might be a matter of preference, but that my preference and I'll stick to inquiring outloud and hoping someone else can give me a hint.

Bridge to Somewhere

2009-02-06T09:03:00.000-08:00

The trip out of town was a long one, with considerable stretches of barren wilderness that second guesed a mans wanderlust. The world was silent when Collins left sometime between 4 and 5 am and the sounds around him became keen, like expositioned writing. The stone dust crunched beneath his shoes and his car door had a familiar creek, albeit more intricate than any time prior. The gas even smelled of gas when he turned the engine over. The cold had a way of doing that on those early spring days where the warm of the sun was sandwiched between the hollow coldness of its absence.

He found an AM station that came in poorly over the speakers and turned it down till it became a babbling hum that came through but wasn’t comprehensible. This wasn’t a time to think, it was a time to do, to go and there wasn’t a considerable time to waste. He left nothing behind, his debts were paid off, his things had mostly stayed in the car to begin with, and the rest he bundled in a blanket and threw in the backseat.

The road was silent and empty, the cracked windows gave a roar to the wind that wasn’t there and the thick wall of pine trees that lined the road prevented the sun from turning the windshield into a kaleidoscope. The last thing he’d pass before leaving town was the train tracks that carried the materials of the steel mill and the parts for the factory, a breakfast place that wouldn’t open until noon to account for services, a blinding white church that appeared to hold no more than 50, and a gas station. The only sign of life for miles in either direction. He’d filled up last night but stopped in to grab a coffee and a refill on a half pack of cigarettes.

The man at the counter looked up with a half glance that still managed to look shocked.

“can I help you” he mumbled has the other half of his lips worked to hold the filter in his mouth.

“pack a malboros.” He turned back to finish pouring the coffee and stir in the sugar. “and this.”

“family vacation?” He turned back from looking out at the car with a loss of expression that made it hard to tell if he was joking.

“yep. Disney world.”

The man at the counter choked out a laugh like it was stuck in his throat. “you fillin up?”

“that’s it.”

When he pulled away, the neon sign for American Spirits glowed in his rearview with its Native American smokes the peace pipe. The last frontier at the end of the run was a bridge out of town, named after Senator Bird from WV, made more elaborate because it connected two states over a river 200 feet below it. It was the last bridge out of town, glowing in the rising sun, and seemingly brilliant in its modern architecture. He rolled the window down to let in the coming warmth and turned the radio up slightly. He dragged out the end of his cigarette and crushed it into the steel ashtray from days gone by. He flicked the crushed butt from the window off of the bridge letting it almost float down to the river below to extinguish the dying flame and carry it off into the great Atlantic to rejoin with whatever nature it came from. The rows of street lamps faded into the distance behind him he threw on sunglasses as the sun hit the windshield and exploded into a thousand points of light.

He kinda looked like Farley Granger with his hair slicked back
She says I'm a sucker for a fella in a cowboy hat
How far are you going he said depends on what you mean
He says I'm only stopping here to get some gasoline
I'm guess I'm going thataway just as long as it's paved - Tom Waits

A eulogy too late

2009-01-19T18:59:00.000-08:00

I’ve never left flowers on my grandfather grave. In fact, I haven’t seen the plot, and I didn’t attend the funeral. I went to the wake, but I opted not to go to anything else. If it matters, he wasn’t even my biological grandfather.

At the wake I watched love turn ugly an already somber event. One of my cousins, who’d had her own troubles in life, wore jeans which drew the wrath of my aunt.

“its so disrespectful” she said. I wondered if my grandfather would have noticed.

I remembered the morning the call came in. My father, who’s never been a man for crisis woke me an hour prior to my normal routine. Half-conscious, I clamored for the phone thinking it was my alarm, thinking I was late and when I got there I answered the phone expecting the explode on my family for not waiting another 6 minutes.

“your grandfathers dead.” The line came through in a voice with a timbre that wondered what to do next.

“this is how you wake me up?”

“well what am I supposed to do Bren.”

“alright well let me call you back once I’ve showered.”

I was a man born for crisis. I over think things, I think too much, but when there isn’t time, and you just react, that’s where I shine. In times like this, I don’t feel much. I just end up thinking that you have to appear strong for everyone else. Someone needs to act rationally. Too much hemming and hawing might lead to some paltry disrespect of the man. Let the details be handled, let the other greave.

I went to Late Shakespeare that day and let Hamlet wash over me, but that was all I could take. I skipped German class and went home. I called my mother.

“whats going on?”

“well the wake is tomorrow”

“come get me, I’ll be there”

I told Erin I should get down there and see my grandmother soon. I thought I would ask, depending on her mood to see the tombstone.

I’m sure other people had planted flowers, I’m sure some had left wreaths, and prayed for his soul. I still never have, but for what my opinion counts; for whatever this counts, I think about him constantly.

There are plenty of men in my life, old guys that have come before me in the bloodline. None in my generation, but there are uncles, and my father. I even know a few great uncles for what their worth, and some of them I look up to. Some of them I should look up to, and some I wisely don’t. Still, I always think of my grandfather.

I would never tell the man this, I don’t know if he could handle it, but rarely do I think “what would my father do” in this situation.

My grandfather was a man of no great acclaim, he never stood high above the crowd, he never asked for very much, and it’s a crushing sadness to think that he could weather tremendous strife, never say a word, and complain even less. In that way, I think he shined brighter than anyone else I’ve come across not because of where he stood when things were going, but where everyone did when they weren’t.

To me, temperance is a gift I was not blessed with, but its one that I can’t take my eye off of. They say that God, whatever he is, works in mysterious ways. While I was not given a cool hand, I’m blessed to have an example to learn from, and in many ways I feel that its worked to my advantage to study and witness its virtue.

In all the words we never spoke to one another, in all the lost time I wouldn’t know what to do with if I could get it back, he’s still the most enduring and revitalizing figure I’ve come across. That he went back at 40 to get his high school diploma, that he worked three jobs to support a family, half of which he inherited. A man with no wants apparent to eye or ear, but one who would spin records on his head at the holidays and sing, a man who would draw Casper in condensation on his windshield from his morning coffee; A poor immigrant who had never seen the middle class, but would still ask “I wonder what the poor people are doing today” every holiday dinner.

Its easy to see this as a sentimental story. If we all just hold out, we’ll over come, right? I don’t really know, I never looked at that aspect. What mattered most to me, and one thing I heard the President-Elect say the other night was that he never got too high when things were good, and he never got too low when they were bad. He was reliable. If I were a novelist, I’d mention that across from their house was the Atlantic Ocean right there in the south end of New Bedford, and across from their house was a rock that jutted out from the surface, slightly crooked facing northeast ever since I was a child. He lived inside the flood gates, the ones that saved the city if there was a flood and the rising tide was closing in. His house would have been gone, but it never happened.

I’ve never thought of it that way, but that rock that had seen countless decades, a pack of seals and Frank Sinatra’s boat was the best way to explain him. It takes a lot of words to say I miss my grandfather, but that just wouldn’t do him justice. He was a gardener, he had passed it on to his children, and I can’t bother to water the spiderplants. And I’ve never left the easter lillys on his stone, but I think I’ll carry that rock with me, not just through life, but into the heart of my deepest lows, and times of suffocating solace, I’ll remember I could have it far worse, I could have it much graver, and I could always take it much better, survive smarter, and never say a word.

Ryan Seacrest is the enemy

2009-01-04T17:24:00.000-08:00

When I was a young lad, I took up a paper route. It wasn't like your paper route, I would imagine. Placate me here for a second, I'm guessing yours was a neighborhood deal that you either wanted or your parents made you get to instill some responsibility. You knew your neighbors names and called them Mr. or Ms. [last name], you earned a little extra spending cash for the concession stand down by the ball field and every Christmas you got excited because most folks on the street would give you a little holiday money, because you'd been so helpful all year round. You were a fucking eagle scout.

If that's you, and I'm guessing it is because that was every ones route in my neighborhood when I was growing up, then we in fact did not have the same paper route.

See I got my paper route under the guise of responsibility when I was in the 7th grade, I was roughly 13 and despite having been on the payroll of the Catholic Church and my uncles landscaping business, I apparently still needed to learn the virtue of a hard day's work. Or in this case days, because my paper route was born out of my mother inability to handle money. She's screwed herself into debt to a considerable degree and this was her way of making some extra money. It was slave labor. We made $5 for three days of work. At least the church gave me $3 a game when I'd help out at CYO.

The route grew in number every month because we needed more and more money. (Once a financial moron, always a financial moron). We'd start Friday afternoon when school got out, and we drove to all the mailboxes. At its height the number of houses we were to stop at had peeked just over 1,000 and it encompassed 5 surrounding towns. My mother would drive, while the person riding shotgun would hang the papers on the hook or run them up to the door, and the person in the back, amidst a sea of folded and bagged newspapers would fold and stuff until we switched. Obviously, my mother always drove.

I should mention here that this wasn't the home town paper. This was the paper you got when you didn't get the hometown paper. It was a glorified tabloid that no one really wanted, so you'd have to ninja the paper to their property because if they caught you, they would undoubtedly cancel, and you'd be down revenue. As I mentioned above, we couldn't be down revenue.

This inevitably led to problems. During the winter months, papers might occasionally land in the snow in someone's front yard. Complaints erupted at the Gazette when spring rolled around and large swaths of suburbia discovered their own mini-compost pile sitting in their front yard when they ran it over with their lawn mower. Numbers dropped but we pressed on. For an entire year, we sucked down hot chocolates and suffered through Casey Kasums top 100. I've heard more Mariah Carey and Boys II Men than I would ever hope to again in my life.

Somewhere close to the 1 year mark we were fired. Well, my mother was fired we were sort of along for the ride. The people that finally chased us down were still being counted to save revenue, but the papers were mounting in our basement, until we were getting close to capacity and my father went ape shit. Instead my mother went to the little league field to dump a bunch of papers in their dumpster, but the privately owned field saw her do it and decided to give the gazette a call. Some would call it terminated, but my brother and I saw it as liberation. And in hindsight, I think I've discovered why he's never held a job for more than a month in his life.

Conversations in Time

2008-12-26T08:17:00.000-08:00

I was thinking I would, because I'm lazy and their interesting, post conversations. I'd also be able to post anything I've said in the last 2 weeks, picking the dialouge that seems most organic, or makes the most interesting points.

That being said, Cathy and I have always had one of the better relationships, and therefore, better conversations. We pay no attention to the frequency of conversation and don't always have to say something for it to be understood by the other. Theres a feeling on my end that she doesn't need to walk a mile in my shoes because I feel like shes lived in my head. Which seems to be hers as well.

The following is a conversation about the dying counter-culture style of humor...

9:18 AM me: so exactly how many donations come in on the day after christmas?

9:19 AM Catherine: so far? zilch

9:20 AM me: yeah I'd imagine

9:21 AM Catherine: how many new memberships?

i imagine that won't kick in until new years, when people pretend they have ambition

me: sadly, two. I've given a tour, and upped a corporate account

9:22 AM because with the Y, in a place like this, people think this is furthering their worth as people

9:23 AM Newton's a bitch to describe but their the type of people who worked a soup kitchen yesterday as a family to teach their kids good morals

9:24 AM and today, the people of Newton say to their significant others [phrase used in hetero couples as well] "you know, I've been meaning to join the Y, I ought to get in shape"

"but what about the compost pile you wanted to start?"

"well I can do that after"

9:29 AM Catherine: ha

too bad you didn't think of stufff white people like first

9:32 AM me: Oh god, I read that blog once and thought it was a sham

I like so little of that, which I took to mean I wasn't white

9:33 AM I think I was just hit on by a divcorcee (how the F do you spell that)

Catherine: megh and i talked about how it was basically stuff urban liberal arts

educated yuppies like

but yes, our friend katherine grew up in newton and enjoys mocking it

9:34 AM her idea of fun is people watching at the whole foods and taking notes for later

me: yeah thats exactly right, no one in Kansas likes any of that shit

Catherine: it's really just for coastal elitist types

9:36 AM me: that, by the way, is the death knell, the apex, the jump the shark

moment when the indie humor stopped its accent

call Ian Micheal Black and tell him he's about to loose his job

9:37 AM Michael Ian Black, whatever, see he's already forgettable

Catherine: it's just so obvious

and not remotely clever

9:38 AM me: the comedy from that scene is just mailing it in at this point, its going through the motions and I expect 2 years of stuff we're "supposed to laugh at" until it finally becomes apparent that this isn't funny and some new movement rises up

9:39 AM I'm going to post this part of the conversation on the blog because I'm too lazy to write it again

9:40 AM Catherine: although i still have a soft spot for someecards
becuase it's just so damn good at calling out those things

9:41 AM http://www.someecards.com/upload/newest/just_wondering_if_we_still.html

9:43 AM me: I think thats different though, the toolboxes over at Best Week Ever are
feigning sincerity on things that they were sincere about in the 50's, so the only difference is the implication

Catherine: i jumped ship on that and headed to the soup a while ago
me: with these e-cards, I feel like its traditional comedy where people are asking questions that are supposed to be out there

9:44 AM Catherine: i think there's a way to poke holes in the whole urban educated professional experience and be clever, which someecards does
vs, as you point out, bwe, which has been running out of steam for years

9 minutes

9:53 AM me: I can't figure the guy at The Soup out, but what i think I like about him is he's not afraid to make a terrible joke
and i admire that
9:54 AM that safe, "i had a writing team help me with my jokes" stuff is for the birds
the only one who can handle a writing team is Conan

Sad Day

2008-12-17T07:52:00.000-08:00

So I finished reading the David Brook article, Lost in the Crowd

Between that and my daily run through the blogosphere and this article, I’ve realized the reason my hit count is low, is because I have no focus. I think I need to give myself a consistent base, maybe start a new blog, and continue here, writing what I want.

Fuck if I know what I’ll focus on though. I’d honestly like to explore my W.A.S.P.ier side. Any suggestions?

=(

Manners and Logic

2008-12-16T08:05:00.000-08:00

Let talk about the word “welcome” as seen in such phrases as “you’re welcome.” They have mats and wagons for it. It’s the corner stone of good customer service and is the general successor to “thank you.” Therein lies the problem.

I’m concerned that its fallen out of logic with is use in the common lexicon. Lets review;

wel⋅come /ˈwɛlkəm/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [wel-kuhm] Show IPA Pronunciation

interjection, noun, verb, -comed, -com⋅ing, adjective

–interjection 1. (a word of kindly greeting, as to one whose arrival gives pleasure): Welcome, stranger!

–noun 2. a kindly greeting or reception, as to one whose arrival gives pleasure: to give someone a warm welcome.

–verb (used with object) 3. to greet the arrival of (a person, guests, etc.) with pleasure or kindly courtesy.

4. to receive or accept with pleasure; regard as pleasant or good: to welcome a change.

5. to meet, accept, or receive (an action, challenge, person, etc.) in a specified, esp. unfriendly, manner: They welcomed him with hisses and catcalls.

–adjective 6. gladly received, as one whose arrival gives pleasure: a welcome visitor.

7. agreeable, as something arriving, occurring, or experienced: a welcome rest.

8. given full right by the cordial consent of others: She is welcome to try it.

9. without obligation for the courtesy or favor received (used as a conventional response to expressions of thanks): You're quite welcome.

—Idiom10. wear out one's welcome, to make one's visits so frequent or of such long duration that they become offensive: Your cousins have long since worn out their welcome.

It’s more than evident the word welcome has both a genial nature to it, as well as a state of change associate with it; ones feeling in a location, both emotional or physical, and occasionally location as well.

But the person uttering the phrase it would seem has to have some form of authority to grant you this welcome. Whether its “you’re welcome here” or “you’ve been welcomed into the family,” the person has to have some authority. At this point in the breakdown, that seems logical. But take this and apply it to the last time you said “you’re welcome” or the last time it was said to you.

This morning I held the door for a woman at Dunkin Donuts. She said thank you and that’s fine, thank you seem normal, but if I hadn’t been a cranky yank who’d been out walking in the hail for 15 minutes my “yep” might have been “you’re welcome.” You’ve heard it, its not outside the realm of normality to use that there, but does it make sense?

What am I welcoming her to? The dunkin donuts? The act of me holding the door? One doesn’t make sense and the other is well out of my jurisdiction. I don’t have any relation to Dunkin Donuts save for my patronage and on this point we’re of equal rank. If I’m welcome, she’s welcome. And if I’m not, I don’t have the authority to hand it out.

That point is over the top, but I’m trying to lay this out as clearly as it can be. The only instance that I could think of, in which “You’re welcome” should logically be a response is when someone has brought you into their home, and the sad thing is, in this one situation that I find it reasonable to say this, the roles out to be reversed. That is to say, you’d say “Thank you” when someone has told you that You’re welcome in my home.”

I’m not trying to say that this should be put into effect. I don’t have an agenda here save for the analysis of words, and I feel I’ve done my part. Nothing heavy, just something to think about.

Some men like to hear the cannonballs roaring

2008-12-14T19:38:00.000-08:00

Dear Moira,

Those dreams are back again, and their just as dark. I have these images of the van, and riding against the side wall, feeling every repair on the highway and Günter jets across the city into the west village. We’re always late for a gig, but as soon as I realize I’m in the back of a hollowed out service fan, I’m suddenly back on stage playing this infernal horn, sweating in the bright lights; it runs down my face and I fail on this note and it rallies these kids. I don’t know ‘em and I couldn’t care less but I feed off them. I play this same refrain they know by heart but they loose their minds.

I took a ride down to the Charles yesterday where sofie and I first read books, and returned them when we finished. I just stood on the edge of this freezing river and let the old cigar smoke fade into the icey winds of the city. I thought of her out there in Peru and I still wonder if she thinks about me. This city is litter with people I’d known for a night, or a season, a semester, or a coffee and I still never run into them but 2 years on I still wonder if in some distant village I’m on their mind.

At this point in my life I no longer feel like I’m a man on a journey in one of these burgeoning bergs, I am Boston, I know all of its streets, and I’ve seen its bars that line up on Mass Ave. like the clubs sold out. They banned smoking at the CanTab and it just ain’t the same they say, but who cares…if smoke makes the bar it wasn’t that good in the first place. Last night I watched the green line come in behind the billboards near the Science Museum and it was an old familiar melody of a bad karaoke song. There’s a bench in Kennedy park where Charlotte and I shivered together and since I was the thickest, I kept her warm. Thinking of that makes me laugh, but I’m always crestfallen when I see that bench. Once when we’d parted ways I went back, bored and sat on that same bench but the day was too abandoned and I had to leave.

I still remember that first city place we got in July, when the screen door overlooking the back parking lot let in the summer mid-day. I knew Boston before the sun, and after it left and I spent two hour everyday on the highway. I felt like a stranger in my own apartment but god it was amazing. Like I’d gone up to the mountain at night to sleep, and each morning come roaring down to deal with Taunton. At night I would take the long way up through the financial district on 93 and come crashing through the O’Neil tunnel playing achillies last stand and I felt like I was going places. 5 years on, the challenges are different. Those girls in different in other cities are still out there, but I don’t still burn for them. I thought of them every day, all of them, but somewhere along the line it became a career life only. Today I want to get paid to write and I’m going back to teach.

All my dreams are gone now Moira, I’m well fed and I sleep with the heat on and a humidifier so I don’t dry out. The sweat is gone, its just a crick in my back when I slipped on the ice. 8 hours later my world is perfect. All I have now is bad metaphors and stories. I’d like to be more serious but I feel what I feel and these burning passions of yesterdays better get me a fucking publishing deal.

Newsweek, National Review, and the Almighty Dollar

2008-12-11T13:32:00.000-08:00

Gay Marriage, the newest and most hotly contest issue in the social-conservatives bag of tricks, has for one reason or another come barreling back into the lime-light as an issue that has commanded the attention of the national media so viciously, that we’re having articles written on articles. The meta-narrative runneth over and its come to a point where it may want to have its head checked.

As it started I watched Social Conservatives reigning champion, Mike Huckabee state his case before a decidedly Liberal audience on Jon Stewarts “Daily Show.” It goes without saying that to make headway here might have been a pipe dream, but it speaks volumes about a man’s character that he would speak before the lion’s den about his convictions, knowing full well he’d be cheered down by every point his opponent made. While I wouldn’t go as far as to say this was comparable to Kennedy’s appearance before the Baptist Ministers Union appearance, I would say it’s along the same lines.

While I applaud his decision to make the appearance I have to say that his arguments were more of a standing of ground, rather than an imperial crusade. Regardless of venue, I’d guess his arguments would serve only to confirm the similar convictions of the choir, and while he might be speaking to a head nodding consortium, his words won’t inspire a revelry among any new demographics, and it would stir the passions of his committed.

The argument was largely liturgical and literal. “The definition is X, it’s always been X, we shouldn’t change it to Y.” We’ve heard it, its not new, and further more its open to a great many logical attacks to which there aren’t defenses. When one advocate for equal rights said “well why not change all civic citations of ‘marriage’ to ‘union’ so we don’t have to segregate and we don’t have to trample religious tradition” (a war no advocate is interested in) we fall back on tradition. I love tradition and it should be upheld, but not against the fabric of the republic. Free and Equal has always been Free and Equal, I’ve we’ve made a misstep in the past; we shouldn’t cite it as reason to continue to do it in the future. Let it be known that the above statement goes for anything, not just things we like or don’t like.

So while this argument is wrapping up I decide I’m going to grab the new Newsweek which is supposedly biblical advocacy for Gay marriage, an argument I’ve not heard of prior and by virtue of its novelty, I thought I might go check it out. As luck would have it I was out of Davis square and only surrounded by quick-e-marts that didn’t carry Newsweek (though somehow the Nation which was surprising since that’s written on tree bark for Christ’s sake)

Flash forward to the next day when I Google the Newsweek article to get some feedback and I stumble upon Mark Hemmingway’s article* in National Review Online, the conservatives arch-rag and largely considered one of the smartest and most well reasoned.

Reading through it, it makes note that the Newsweek article is largely the opinions of the writer and that the text is scant and rare. I’ll comment on that as soon as I can grab a Newsweek but what I can comment on thus far is that the traditional tactics of the hollow-right are rearing their ugly head; attacking a separate article by Newsweek Editor, attacking the supposed “slump in sales.” (Which by the way is affecting all print media and I’d like to point out that amount of balls it took NRO to print this while simultaneously having “donate to keep us strong” at the top of their page is beyond fathom.)

Its no secret I’m an advocate (which is no reason to dismiss my opinion) but the tides they are a changing and I am an independent who can’t stand the coming self-righteous wave of “told-you-so” morons lead by Sean Penn’s “Milk” which is in theaters, what now? Soon? Who knows, anyway the point is, while I don’t agree with the anti-marriage groups, I do think that there’s a point to end off with, and its coming with the silent success of the changing attitudes.

There isn’t much I agree with republican’s on, but the “white guilt syndrome” is one of them, and while this has nothing to do with race, the ethos is the same, that the culture of “I’m so awful I need to give everything away” is starting to eat away at its own base.

Once again, as is the point to most of my political rants, is that the left needs to regain its roar and cut off its whimper. Our convictions need to be ours and based in the fabric of the American mission, and not based on how we perceive other peoples struggle and then find ways to blame ourselves.

Nellie McKay

2008-12-08T07:38:00.000-08:00

The day I read the article that noted the common logic “Jane’s Addiction was the heir apparent to Led Zeppelin’s throne more than any of those banana-haired English rock bands ever could hope to be.”

I remember taking a step back from the item-to-item comparisons that had bogged down a lot of my rationale at the time and thinking I’d spent too much time looking at the wrong thing when I listened to music.

That being said, imagine the Moses-like sojourn a man must have taken, hearing Zeppelin scorch across the radio in his 20’s and not hearing anything as close to powerful for another ~20 years.

I write this because from where I sit I’ve found the very thing so many have traveled for years looking for. It’s no secret that I’ve found the musician of a life time when I heard Tom Waits, when I’d first heard his music I felt like someone finally got me. I wasn’t a drunk, or a circus employee. I hadn’t been to Singapore and I’d never lived in the Midwest or South but still I felt I was one here, I knew Waits in a second, and in a second I felt like it was ok to be what I was. I don’t think it was any great coming out, but prior to this I’d been unsure of my place in things. Waits put beauty and august reverence into the eccentric.

I’ve been orbiting the music of Nellie McKay for a couple of years now, but in recent months I’ve been thinking she is the heir to the Waitsian throne for all the unheard reasons. Their music sounds nothing alike, their stories are dissimilar, and the ethos of one does not suit the other. Still it’s easy to see a beauty in the commonality of a search for the organic.

If the two artists have anything in common, it might be that no sound is off limits, that every noise is worth its existence and that genre is something “those people” say. I’ve grown exhausted listening for the mandolin’s sprint, the clockwork of the upright bass’s pluck, or the nervous shiver of the bowed violin, the days of breaking down music for me are few and far between when I need to be academic to write something communicative. But mostly I take in the massive banquet of theory, and the orgy of influence that comes from both artist, who have never placed limits on themselves to be commercially successful, they know their base, and therein they will have complete immunity.

And in the end that’s the difference, the knowledge that a fan base is intelligent and is willing to engage in anything that warrants their time, that piques their interests, that conjures visions of a brand new highway.

To many waits fans who long ago left the mission statement behind for anyone in a baggy suit or an inherently off-putting voice (I’m looking at you Joanna Newsom fans), I’m sure McKay is all too many things that they find unappealing, but like every Zep fan who thought Foreigner was the second coming, and that jane’s addiction were a collection of pansy’s with bad vocals and worse outfits well, its their loss, but to me I’ve found a new pool of future potential, and three discs worth of mesmerizing sonic vats that I can spend the next 6 months bathing in. I plan to review with a fine tooth comb the works of Nellie McKay and produce them here.

I’m adamant that with only a few listens you’ll understand my fervor, and I think you’ll understand why I am not only a fan, but a man on a mission to expose a waiting and unconscious unwashed mass of something as great as music might have ever produced.

I hope that I’ve inspired one of you with this. If not, well the discography is on the way…

All the Best,
Brow

The trap of political prominence

2008-12-03T07:54:00.001-08:00

So one of the other blogs I write for in a music website, its no big deal, I’m just pointing it out because I’m going to use it for example.

We have these kids on there, who’ve likely been there since early on in their formative years. At least three, and let’s say at worst 14 to 17, at best 16 to 19. We also have some Brits there in their late 20’s to early 40’s and because of this; the younger Americans have tried to setup up their intellectual game.

What was once a good intention with a nice mark of diversification has deescalated into a non-stop 24 hour political tirade, as if they’d learned the value of political minerals, and decided to level the mountain to the point that they have nothing left to offer.

They’ve made their avatars, the tiny pictures that most have for fun or to show a sign of passion an interest, into pictorial bumper stickers of snarky left wing inside jokes. Everything leads them back to this mountain to drink from the waters that once refreshed, but for those subject to their rants, now feels like a oncoming flood. Tom Morello once said of his band mate “Zach’s political leanings can smother, no matter how well intentioned they are.” At least Zach went abroad occasionally.

I love the new invested political future we have, but they speak as if it were still 1996, as if their scion, the only ones to know anything about politics at all. When I was a younger lad, I recall a priest saying to us that sinful was the man who went to the front of the church and prayed loudly, to show everyone his favor for God. This is the secular version, loud soapbox pronouncements made louder to hopefully catch the ears of those around, to spark the smallest question that would, in their minds, warrant the avalanche of opinion.

In the end this is a lesson of self-worth and conversion as well. We have to wonder about a persons past who begs to be thought of as informed and intelligent. And how much of there interest is placed into getting their opinion into policy. Are they the literati of policy, or is this a genuine attempt to fix the country?

Milton Freidman once said its not important how people vote with their mouths, it’s the feet that matter. He was talking about movement from China to Taiwan, and as to which economic situation was better. Knowledgeable is the man who moves to change policy, loudly or not. Starved is the man who screams his opinion the loudest, attempting to appear knowledgeable.

That’s at least my two cents. I’m just hoping they don’t resort to caps lock.

Where your apology, inbreeds?

2008-12-01T19:06:00.000-08:00

20 years after an irishman couldn't get a fucking job, we had the presidency; May he rest in peace...

I'll still never forgive Texas for 1963.

Dallas should be the reason we don't trust power.

That ring of federal government, so tempting to leave a child orphaned.

That a blind love of country

A hatred of communists

And a difference of policy

Would widow a wife, and take a mind.

They turned on the television in 1968

"Serves those damn hippies right!"

I'd agree but you cna't blame them.

What love of a country takes its leader

What champion of democracy thwarts the electorate.

Someone call Dallas and tell them the tours cancelled.

I'm taking my loan and I'm headed downtown.

They hid like cowards, they referenced like housewives

and if God is a good man

I heard them whimper their last breath

ranting about Reagan in 2008.

A linguistical missonary

2008-11-28T12:45:00.001-08:00

I recall vividly Ian telling me that grammar was lost on students at UMass. I think that was a gross exaggeration but he was a non-fiction editor and the other disciplines tended to write for him more than me (I was fiction).

His complaint then was that following the word “and” 90% of the population would put a comma where it evidently didn’t belong.

Let me first state that if you’ve read anything of mine, you’d realize grammar wasn’t my forte, and not that there’s any reason to be sloppy with grammar but its on the other side of the discipline from where I stood. While English and its focused study has countless fractured off shoots there remains, for the purposes of this commentary, two sides; the Grammarians, and the Linguists.

To catch up to speed those who may have chosen a more exciting path than to labor through the doldrums of the English study, for all intents and purposes, the two should look like this (with regard to belief):

Grammarian – A set an unwavering, cast-iron laws has been created for the construction of words, sentences, and language. These rules are not to be broken. Changes are to be deliberated on at great length and are required to come before large bodies of fellow grammarians. (this body is generally vigilante, and has no real authority to speak of)

Linguists – Those who feel that language is created by the people, not handed to us from some higher power, or Titan-like god of yesteryear. Words are words because of use, and popularity determines what language is. While its never been said to me one way or the other, I believe that linguists can assert that a word may fall out of use, but I would suspect they think that words never die.

But my position in all of this, which I should have likely gotten to in the first place is, that while linguists have no commentary on grammar, and of course grammarians do, there should be an understanding and sympathetic approach to grammar once the rules have been firmly understood.

Again I should come to my point. I was reading a passage in the book I’m currently in the middle of and they were citing a letter from 1892. As they were in Chicago, far from the academic northeast, rules were cast to hell and anything went. I started reading it how best I thought it intended but ultimately I could see in this letter the difference between grammatical ruling, and a sort of theatric dialogue, something that was written as it was said, or at least with that aim.

I started to read words like a musician might jazz notes; with an understanding of the rules and an intention to ignore them. I started to hear the Baptist Ministers, adding pauses and lingering on syllables that might otherwise be ignored but the classically trained liturgist (or pianist as the metaphor goes) and saw in this understanding, the true fruition of what English could become. The notion that words had more personality than the stodgy, clinical Times New Roman might display them as gave reading a far more power effect. In reading in a manner, as one might here a narrator in a Ken Burns film, we are able to retain information and citation in far greater capacity. We no longer had to settle for what characters thought, but in a fashion, why they thought, and where their rationale and philosophy might rest.

In any given sentence, there is a feeling in a word or two, and several other words surrounding that feeling to elicit a reaction, to prove a point and to convey a message; emphasis is the courier of that emotion. It is here that we realize reading is little more than understanding concepts on a page and how to stop, or pause over them like a tour bus driver, letting those who stand in awe of the architecture around each corner that a city has to offer, the bucolic beauty the ocean becomes as backdrop , or the local flaws of culture that give the buildings a feeling, and like tourists, as we pass over these concepts at certain rates of speed, with certain weighs of emphasis, here we are snapping photos so that our memory may recall the understanding of dreams realized or yet imagined.

An open letter to hipsters

2008-11-11T17:15:00.000-08:00

When I was but a young lad, I used to look at photos of my parents wedding, their friends and my extended family and think, "did they really think these outfits look good?" I got concerned that maybe we all looked at equally terrible and when the blinding bulb of hindsight was turned on, 20 years on, we'd all be throughly embarrassed. This entry would go for days should I write theories on fashion so lets skip it, but let it suffice that I have a good idea those people did know who unbelievably foolish they looked.

Fast forward to last weekend when I was in the western most portion of Brooklyn, Williamsburg, a supposed hotbed of Hipster activity. I was talking with a guy I'd just met about the situation and he said it was unbearable. "They all run around here with their cut-off jean shorts, their handlebar mustaches, and stupid bandannas.Their everywhere."

You can imagine how I recoiled given that in the Peoples Republic of Cambridge, we have such a heavy Ivy influence that nothing that vulgar would really be seen in populous. And then it hit me. Hipsterdom, the very zenith of counterculturalsim was in danger, as all fads are, of trying to outdo itself, tripping itself up in its own quest and unraveling ultimately because of it.

Up in Boston they are a stronger force in the population, less easily discernible, but the soul of the movement has a healthy froth here and what I heard of in New York stands to undermine everything.

If we're being honest, its about enforcing a rigorous standard of taste that is impossible to attain, and a hipster int he running to be such is always falling out of the ethos because he's attained a level and created a new one. Thats the positive spin. Non-hipsters will tell you that we're tasteless assholes who seek to get high enough on our horse to look down on everyone else we can. While fashion has become part of the deal, its not what matters.

Whoever is right there, the level of taste and who actually adheres to it is no doubt rough and at a higher level than most academics or elitists. While hipsters generally relegate themselves to music, it would be foolish to presume that preferring a late era Pollack to a pre-populous Dali wouldn't assign you and Pollack to a commercialized tool of the man. These New York insurrects are chasing Ansel Adams as a god.

And theres the problem. Snarky is the deal, yes. Theres no way around that. But Irony, while functional, cannot be used to undo eons of work, refining a rebellious, shit-starting, antagonistic attitude that we've moved to a level which almost seems refined. We're but lonely inches from subverting the children of the WASP class, and these reformed frat boys are in danger of ruining it for everyone who was sick of the three classic rock stations you got in your hometown in the sticks.

Its hard not to imagine the mustache coming up within the culture in how we might imagine "Stagger Lee" (Nick Cave) or when guys like Jack White grow one for the hell of it, but the cut off jean shorts and mullets have never been a part of the culture, just a parallel running social current thanks to the internet took off. By why this, and why here? Why don't hipsters start dressing like Chuck Norris, or Mr. T. Or Transformers. With all the horrible 80's references, where are the Night Riders driven by David Hasselhoff? No one looks like Robert Goulet. Basically anyone else Will Ferrel might have played on SNL in the late 90's.

The reason i'd wager is because none of these hard very much to the principles on which the first hipster was born. When we look at the primordial ooze of pop culture and counterculture that the first born crawled from, there aren't traces of the 80's kitsch, or the idiot middle school girls who always dress like Olivia Newton John from "let's get Physical" when they want to do a "crazy, fun" Halloween costume.

Their idiots. <~~~~Hipster statement.

Don't Taze me bro. <~~~~~ Frat boy.

If its on a Snorg Tee, its likely not within the realm of the hipster.

My point in all of this there is a reprehensible, but valuable and needed personality out there in the American ether that acts as a catalyst for cultural stimulation. The shove of the hipster can lead art forms to come full circle, but not for years and never can you say that in their presence there is stagnation. The overarching idea is that with constant movement, the intermix does a few things:

1. makes it less easy to adapt to some fad. Hair Metal rules the 80's after having started in the mid 70's and went strong until 1993. Rap/Rock died in 3 to 4 short years.

2. Because no sound can dominate, a mix and experimentation has to come to a forefront, and it almost demanded by a nation with a shrinking attention span and a growing access via the internet to new, different, better.

3. The sticking point to the creation of new art now is personality, and personal preference. In the big cultural swirl, all that remains is you. if you don't know who you are you're in the swirl, too indecisive to commit, and not confident enough to create. If you do know who you are you don't care where the swirl is going, you know it will come back.

Think what you want about it, but as John Stewart Mill would suggest, the more philosophies we have out there, the better off we are as a society. If its the case that you're outwardly against the inclusion of a hipster mentality, let me remind you that something will take its place, and as we speak it looks to be 1970's urban-dwelling redneck-idolizing revisionists of 1970's good-ol-boy culture. And by the very nature of their approach, a humor on par with a 1970's humor; Andy Kaufman. An inside joke between one man, only now its a bunch of unsightly pasty clowns who have spawned and over run a group of elitists who by name alone exclude.

Everyone has exclusionary groups until they become imperialist. Think hard america, its time for the great ecumenical movement within art to cast these heathens out, for the sake of everyone else.

Snarkily,
Brow

My mother wore fancy dresses

2008-11-03T07:38:00.001-08:00

I am the kid rock of blogging.

on god and nature

2008-11-02T20:22:00.000-08:00

"he once wrote of the young man standing alone in a church, juggling balls in the air, each one tossed in a swirly feat of personal mastery; it was something he could do. It was the one thing he could offer up to god when they were, as best as he could arrange it, alone together" - Chris Matthews on William F. Buckley

its always too much white and never enough green. All medicine and no immune system. If these people were lawyers, the letter of the law would trump the spirit...

I lost god somewhere after Maire. I couldn't explain why but I'm glad for it, because back then I had it all wrong. It was all white back then.

I took a course on Christianity when I was at UMass, it was more of a historical view that was taught by this Methodist preacher. We read some letters once that were written during the Inquisition and one of them was from the paladins lead oprative in the field; it said that should the holy father (meaning the pope) decree that "black" was "white" then he would see it no other way.

The way it was written was more powerful and more alarming but thats along the lines of where I was before it all fell apart. All white, all letter. No spirit. I was dictated to, afraid, and slavish. I look back and think of what an embarassment I'd made of myself.

I've come back to religion slowly, like a healing wound, where my beliefs were made with experience and a tangible knowledge, where text is a consideration but nature and its forever shifting and reinterperting is truth.

if forces in the universe were truely the work of god, then the truisms about life must be true about the afterlife and god too. in many ways I liken life to architecture, if only for good metaphors. I looked at destruction, or things that have been badly damaged and I'd think that they should be abandoned.

Through experience I know that parts are taken apart and put to use while others are melted down and crafted again, but ultimatly I learned that nothing was really destroyed.

Recently i went to the House of Seven Gables and while touring the facility they told us about the many changes the house had undergone in its time; additions, detractions, transplants, internal reworking. Previously I'd have thought reconstruction to this degree would have ultimatly compramised the structure, but not only was it rebuilt stronger, it was coming up on a 400 year anniversery. The idea of change in any capacity was aboloished.

While architecture can't account for everything, it had certainly made its point.

For a time back in the 80's, Prince used to think you could fuck your way closer to god. thats too cursory for me to applaud on just that mark and it would likely send the wrong message, not to kids, but to spiritually lazy adults should I leave it there at that point, though I can't say that he's wrong. To each their own, and I guess thats my point.

As a linguist I'm aware of the potent poison stagnant words become. god may be eternal but his lessons are ever-changing. What one man learned 700 years ago and committed to paper should never trump the lesson god would be teaching you now. In short, he had no script to learn from, he only had experince. While he should not be faulted for writing it, those who follow it as eternal and unwavering should.

i've never subscribed to the idea that one mans writing should supercede what you feel. I don't have it in me to think that I should teach people things, or preach to them because they've not felt what I have or that they might have missed their clarion call.

What we come to know is universal, what we learn is common and in our own way we will eventually understand. Like a child learning the proper way to hammer a nail so that his thumb remains healthy. The lessons may hurt but they will be learned. Boards will break and nails bent and rendered useless, but all things like knowledge are reuseable.

Our experience is a treasure, but stagnant words cannot save a generation from smashing their thumbs. Black and blue. Bloody and bloated. they will regenerate, reborn from the damaged and destroyed.

Have faith in god that he will show us faith in ourselves. Have knowledge in ourselves that god will show others in time. And understand that our paths our are own, even if they appear to be exactly the same.

Worth a read

2008-11-02T18:16:00.001-08:00

I read this from boston.com, but it brings up some interesting points to think about...

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/11/02/five_questions_about_america_this_election_may_answer/?page=1

If you're still out there, let me know what you think. All 1 of the political junkies who reads this.

They'd give me the old T.S. Elliot I'd think

2008-10-31T09:41:00.000-07:00

Of men and Yankees and a life content...

All these 30 something’s rattling their cages

Bemoaning the empty tank of a full stomach.

If I liked Maya Angelou I’d have said you get better

As you write, but she proof negative.

Their tired of searching, so they mine the blasted mountains of creativities heyday.

Its got a solid foundation and a good craft but you can’t write about tragedies

you’ve never seen before.

“good poem, no ones ever written about the toll of homelessness before.”

This writing groups a joke. I don’t sign my name in hopes they attribute that

reaction to facts

And not that I’ve publically denounced his Drunk Whitman prose.

Theres still sorrow in love and its exposed ache is a healed over infection

What lies beneath the surface is a cold dead muse, a mid-life crisis, and a new

frontier that these old poets can no longer search.

Men from Rome died to early to know this future and show us the way.

No real intellectual writes well, but we need a few to write badly in a new

direction.

We don’t starve, or starve for love, we have learned to be gentle with a savings

account

And the whole world crashes down in an unwrittable quaint suburban hell.

Blasphemy.

I count these men amongst the great imposters, baptized in the gutter streams of

Grenich Village.

Dylan’s a dead man and they go running for Catholicism.

They talk amongst friends in hushed tones and Dockers, with suv-shoes that make them

seem just as

adventurous.

The G man is coming and he’s bring your father, and together you can go bald and eat

the scrod at 6:00 p.m.

Their fear is getting old and suffering less, but theres nothing to fear except the

crushing laziness that

slaps a mans teeth out when he comes to the end of a cleared path.
Theres a pain in potential, if loss is a cliff and the bottom unseen then let the truth be known that complacency is a wicked camouflage that creeps through the reeds like a tiger, and complacency is the worst a man can face in himself.
If tragedy is still defined by the Greeks then let children bear the filthiest cost to ones cerebral misgivings.

No coffin like a banquet in bad sweaters surrounded by a family, singing together in old waspy spirituals, with coco and a fire and the dark framework of hallmark.
I have known the horrors of holidays and they have given me a yuletide fuel for a thousand terrible entries but silence does not a character create. Let the lambs of the shepard gather in congregation on this Christmas eve pitch’s and summon the conversation. The darkest a man can offer is himself, and I for one have never lost my social ability. The stories are there in the crevice of conversation that hides in the ways the a man holds his mug, or how she looks out the window when he’s talking.

I can count, like children count the country stars an emotional response with no words or actions save for the dart of the black bird eye, and in the depths of suburbia, when for so many dead men who’ve hung up their pens, the night falls like an axe, I will rise like a phoenix and paint color and brilliance when darkness fell like wool on their vision. The path of the pen is winding, long and weary and often runs astray looking for youth in the jungles of the bicentennial, where all men weary of their legacy search for the fountain of youth and get killed by the mosquitoes and their viral itch.

a day in the life...

2008-10-20T14:14:00.000-07:00

Its Tuesday night on the south side of Newton and I’m heading into a Panera Bread to network with a bunch of suits from the Chamber of Commerce. I’ve never seen a Panera with back room before, but leave it to Newton to have two of them. The rooms full of guys who wear blue stripped suit coats over shades of salmon button-ups and slicked back hair that stare out at you from their conversations, shifting their eyes to cast judging glances and licking you clean of tip-offs that might give away your worth.

They never miss a beat though; they never move their heads of change the cadence of their conversation. They don’t even hear their conversation, its been market tested by guys back at the office, and their original shpeal was heavily edited to instead choose words that linger in your subconscious. They use buzz words and stand with a posture that suggests confidence, an energetic cool that says I can do my job better than any competitor, but I don’t need your money. They gesture with hors devours as if they can’t conjure the correct word with half stretched fingers bedecked with rings.

I come in late and stare back with no discernable trait, which always comes off a little creepy, and while it may cost me business, I like to think it takes them off their game slightly. They don’t think of people as people, their to be assessed, and eye contact takes the statistic off the spreadsheet and gives it a face. These are seconds in transaction and I’m never there long enough to know if it matters. I dart toward to the food where I can eat and make small talk with the other would-be accidental salemen and talk about their miserable businesses and how their following their dreams into miles of bankruptcy litigation.

You can always tell the new ones. Their nervous, they stutter, they try. Their pitch is patched together piece-meal. The lines are smooth but they can’t connect them without sounding like a broken record. The pitch the like a concerto played by a new apprentice. He stops for too long between staves and reminds himself what mistakes he makes here and what he should do to get around it. I just see him through and let him make his sale. I tell him I call and I will as much as I call anyone else back. So he tells his boss that some guy in a suit seemed interested. Let him pay rent one more time on my feigned interest.

Then theres the rest of us who couldn’t give a fuck, they hey we’re here group. We sound as smooth as the showboats but without the radio voices. We takes turns telling stories so the other guys can eat the cheese and cracker. Everyonce in awhile some big shot whos family was just struck by tragedy gets it in his head that he’s going to be some philanthropist and come talk to us. We don’t know what his catalyst was but we don’t care. We’re immune to emotion, we take his charity as insult. To us, we’re chained to the gig and we all have to pull. We smile at him the way they do when the new guys make the mistake of walking by their in group, like a gazelle past the lions cage. With wide pearly placation that fakes interest so poorly we might as well throw our plates at him.

Tonight we’re left to our own devices . Lars (larry) jokes that we might become the prevailing power structure soon and we all shudder except for bill who sees the upside. “hey maybe we can go somewhere that has the foresight not to put mushrooms in my fucking chowdah.” We laugh and the girl at the sign-in booth shoots us a glace that says shes either too important for her job or to remind us that it’s a family establishment. Bill gives her a chance to take herself off the black list. “Oh I’m sorry do you like Mushrooms.”

She sneers and we pretend to care by telling him to “quit being a jerk.” The moons cresting the buildings and we decide its time to head out with a pocket full of business cards to show our boss tomorrow. We shake hands and talk about next month. Bill fills out a comment card and we know its best not to see the aftermath. “Must be nice to work for your father” says yells over his shoulder and from the parking lot we can see bill shoot us the bird.

Mr. Molina

2008-10-19T19:40:00.001-07:00

I think i've decided i'm going to move toward becoming a teacher.

For a couple months now, stronger than ever, I've been wanting to write. Odd times, like while I'm sitting outside the bathroom waiting for someone or wathing parents fight with their children at the Fried Dough stand.

Last sunday, I sat down and brainstormed on how I could write for a living without resorting to that bastard black sheep of an option, journalism.

I was watching House because its an addiction and I thought I want this, I want mastry over some subject to such a degree that I can see past obvious tricks and traps and drive toward a goal. I want to matter, and after a short conversation on the Cape this past labor day with Zack, I see education as more important than medical advances.

I can't ever cure cancer, but I'd like to think I can make a kid find an appreciation for reading, and more over writing. i'd like to think that even though I never read worth a damn until i'd finished college, that I could show anyone that maybe theres some worth in it. Or how words can be taken apart like swiss clocks, dismantled, put back together in oddly phrased sentences to put the emphasis where you want it, to speak in a manner than can move people to move mountains.

I learned to love words too late for life to be simple. If I'd found reading sooner, I might have worked for the Harvard Crimson, I could have rubbed elbows with the publishers of major publicans. But I was a lazy ass and I valued road trips over anything intellectual. I'm not done yet, i just realized that theres a long road ahead. But I think i've found value in showing people what i've leanred on the road trips I took long after i'd left Taunton High, and that hard lessons i learned from learning no lessons for too many years.

Its coming together. I've learned the hard way how to get through things the way I wanted, but the point is I learned and i'm fine with that. What I'd like now is to show people how to find what they love, even if its nothing I have an interest in.

I've been talking about teaching for so many years. I think its time I actually started moving on it. Who knows, but if anyone has any advice, i'd appreciate it.

from a better blog than mine

2008-10-18T21:51:00.001-07:00

out there in the Blogosphere, regular folks write irregular things. This is one such story that can found at:

http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/2007/12/tom-waits-theologian-of-dysangelion.html

"Tom Waits: theologian of the dysangelion
To my delight (and my wife’s dismay), my collection of Tom Waits CDs has grown nicely this Christmas. I’ve been absolutely addicted to Tom Waits all year – I can hardly bear to hear anything else.

I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration to describe Tom Waits as a “theologian” – as long as we add that he’s a theologian of the dys-angelion, the “bad news.” His songs conjure up a swirling chaos of monsters and madness, devils and despair – and on the horizon of this dark world we glimpse the first faint glow of dawn, the surprising appearance of grace “de profundis” (Psalm 130:1).

God himself suddenly breaks into these songs as a strange and threatening – even monstrous – presence, as an unaccountable interruption of the world’s (dis-)order. One of Waits’ most astonishing theological pronouncements, for example, is the gleeful hiss: “Don’t you know there ain’t no devil / That’s just God when he’s drunk.” Or on another occasion he wonders: “Did the devil make the world while God was sleeping?”

In such songs, God bursts onto the stage not as a benevolent projection of our own wishes and desires, but as the one who overturns our expectations and shatters our projections of deity. God appears not as a supreme being who calmly “completes” and “perfects” nature, but as the one who interrupts nature in the apocalyptic newness of grace. Divine grace, for Waits, is thus a kind of unnatural incursion, a perversity, a disruption of the way things are. Grace interrupts, it shatters and strips things bare to the bone. And so Waits portrays grace in a way that is uncompromisingly – often shockingly – menacing and grotesque.

Even in Waits’ more “orthodox” gospel songs – and there are many of them, such as “Way Down in the Hole”, “All Stripped Down”, “Down There by the Train”, “Never Let Go”, “Make It Rain”, “Take Care of All of My Children”, “Come on Up to the House” – even here, grace appears as a perverse interruption of a world of murder and brutality and Satanic seduction. Grace breaks open this world like a nightmare or an earthquake – wholly unexpected, unconditional, presuppositionless; impossible to be tamed or assimilated. As Rowan Williams remarks in his study of Flannery O’Connor’s fiction, “the actuality of grace is uncovered in the moment of excess – which may be in a deliberately intensified gracelessness” (Grace and Necessity, p. 105). A “deliberately intensified gracelessness” – that is the world of Tom Waits’ lyrical theology. And it’s in this way that Waits articulates the euangelion through a startlingly brutal and disturbing declaration of the dysangelion.

Grace shines from the abyss. It appears in the mode of the grotesque. And if grace is itself dysangelion, it is “bad news” precisely for those of us who are already complacent in our own religion and our own righteousness (our own ready-made “Chocolate Jesus”). It is “bad news” because tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of us (Matt. 21:31), because (as Waits puts it) those who “never asked forgiveness, never said a prayer” are nevertheless grasped and held by grace. It is “bad news” because God – if he is really the God of grace! – is not the God we want, not the God we think we need. He is the God who does not “fit”, but interrupts. He is the God whose Yes is hidden in a shattering No.

But this “bad news” is indeed “good news” – the best and happiest news! – for the undeserving, the criminals, those riddled and rotten with shame and doubt. As Waits puts it in one of his more conventional gospel songs: “Does life seem nasty, brutish and short? / Come on up to the house!” At the world’s dark end, all that remains is grace – grace for the ungodly, which is therefore the grace of God.

Anyway, I’ve gotten carried away with this prelude – but the real point of this post is to list some of my favourite theological lines from Tom Waits’ songs. Here are a few (you can read all his lyrics here):

“I’m close to heaven
Crushed at the gate.”

“Hell is boiling over and heaven is full
We’re chained to the world and we all gotta pull.”

“God used me as a hammer, boys
To beat his weary drum today.”

“The devil knows the Bible like the back of his hand.”

“God builds a church
The devil builds a chapel
Like the thistles that are growing round the trunk of a tree.”

“I left my Bible by the side of the road
Carved my initials in an old dead tree.”

“You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again.”

“Did the devil make the world
While God was sleeping?”

“I swang out wide with her
On hell’s iron gate.”

“Well, you say that it’s gospel, but I know
It’s only a church.”

“Well, I got to keep myself, keep myself faithful
And you know I’ve been so good
Except for drinking
But He knew that I would...”

“Goddamn there’s always such a big temptation
To be good, to be good
There’s always free Cheddar in a mousetrap, baby…”

“Well they’ve stopped trying to hold him
With mortar, stone and chain
He broke out of every prison
The boots mount the staircase
The door is flung back open
He’s not there for he has risen…”

“Don’t you know there ain’t no devil
That’s just God when he’s drunk.”

“Well, you leave me hanging by the skin of my teeth
I’ve only got one leg to stand
You can send me to hell
But I’ll never let go of your hand.”"

We're fine with the Bean Pot, thanks.

2008-10-13T09:41:00.001-07:00

I never really check my event invitations on facebook because their usually to something I couldn’t give a rats ass about, or from someone I no longer talk to, or (and this is the worst) some moronically clever group that people post once on then forget their apart of.

But everyonce in awhile I go through and can everything that inherent is sucking, has sucked, or will continue to suck for months to come. Then I came upon an invitation to support Boston’s bid to have the Olympics in 2020. Are you out of your God damn mind?

If 2004’s DNC didn’t get the message across, and I’m guessing you didn’t live here then, when any event happens in this city, it becomes a bigger cluster fuck than it already was. The trains run less frequently, they break down far more, the hotels can’t support the globe so people are communiting in from route 9 in droves, that does absolutely nothing for traffic, busses, the pike, toll booths or commercial businesses, which are supposed to benefit from the event but since they need to put up “welcome to Boston” purchased by MNC’s, those shops see nothing.

Now we’re going to have the Olympics? I don’t know if you’ve met Boston, but we don’t like people. Any people. We allow gay marriage; no one else on the planet does that. Currently we’re the forerunner in human rights and bloated government. And how is anyone going to get directions? You think the ever shifting Big Dig will be done by then? What happens if a tunnel falls on a diplomat from Chad? We’re all really screwed.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Boston, but the world is 12 years separate from us, and I don’t think in 12 years that gap will change. I don’t even know if we’re behind 12 or ahead 12 but I guess it depends on the issue. As for the support, I fully support people to drive this cancerous geo-social plague out of Kennedy Country before I get stuck behind some Belgian man mispronouncing Quahog and the new bussing riots start all over again.

Because its without descent that I’ve lost my mind

2008-10-10T09:14:00.001-07:00

Today I had to send an attendance sheet to HR that basically said that one guy didn’t attend the training because he’d called in sick for the day.

Then I thought “what if he wanted that under the radar to give himself an extra day, what I’ve I’m fucking up the program.”

I started thinking about what Truth is and why everyone values it so much. Why everyone feels safe and secure when everything adds up. Then I came to this…

The truth is in fact intellectual communism. This is going to come off like Colbert rallying against the public libraries but I’m just going with my gut lately until I start getting comments in this bitch.

The truth, and therefore honest people, mean that no one has to do any work. Theres no research, theres no work put it, if we’re all honest, we’re all just lazy fucks who want truth handed to us. I for one don’t care for it.

I think theres a mistake in finding virtue in an honest man, he can’t be trusted to lie for you, he clearly can’t differentiate between what is a worthy cause to lie for and therefore one has to take his morale judgment into question. If you can’t find anything to lie about, one may want to get his heart checked.

Machiavelli was looking to get back into a city, and while I’m not sure that madness is much better, its not political motivation, and autonomy, for whatever currency would have it, seems to carry with it an intrinsic value. If that last statement holds true we may be able to reason that lying holds intrinsic value because its inherently independent from the true. In a capitalists sense, lying in uniformly singular. One story, held by no chains of truth will change slightly from here to there thus rendering each mans story his own.

Heres where the work comes in, and its written on the same premise that one should read multiple news mediums should that person want the facts. Bias is removed when 12 papers, news channels, and periodicals have similar facts, we can cut the fat. The highlights are there, and so is the case with stories. A man who works can find the truth, and the truth is, its intellectual communism.

And here i dreamt I was a ringleader

2008-10-09T12:51:00.000-07:00

The clown on Boylston has a flower on his lapel

That squirts water and his bow tie spins. He reaches into his bag and pulls

Three balls; red, yellow, and blue.

He tosses them in a recycled fashion and the children with their balloon stare

Intrigued enough to let their mothes drop open. When they recompose themselves

Their throats to dry to call the first time to their parents. They cough and repeat themselves

With such earnest conviction, and their parents feign emotion so as not to discourage.

They watch again as he turn the elongated balloons into fish, and stars, dogs and rabbits. Their old

balloons slip from their hands and float high into the early afternoons star-speckled purple, erratically

moving from side to side, knocked around like a ship in the currents. The children don’t care, the ferris

wheel is called, its lights bright enough now, unchallenged by the sun to draw them in. They ride with

their cotton candy, like pink and blue fire up into that night sky where the world is visible and their

stomachs drop. A car below curious hands are dropping pennies through quickly constructed steel

girders, with patches of blown out bulbs and chipping paint. The rides around it spin and spin and play

music that intertwines with the smell of greasy dough and cigarettes and the old men, holding the

pretzels and soda watch the younger men with their chests puffed out like peacocks throw baseballs at

tin cans and prove their worth to adorning girls who cherish the giant stuffed animals for what they are,

an adornment of pride, a symbol of small town recognition’s high society. The clown stands between me

and the Ferris wheel, each juggling their own, giving the small time bar maids and the divorced janitors,

whos children only know sacrifice a seed of a dream. The courts and the jester travel the country, and

make kings of the poverty stricken for a night in mid-august when the world has forgiven the day.

Who knows what I mean when i'm drunk?

2008-10-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

and when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun. -- William Shakespeare

these writers are all drunk or starving.
They've given up writing for the bloches and swirls that are the given precedent for a manufactured cover. the books have been judged and their voting yes.
the bars twisting mahogany beams knot them selves above my head and dive down into the corners and swing for my head.
Two old me perch like owls on sliced up old bar stools and their bristle-wire beards crawl toward the floor. I cling to my glass like it might run away and imagine their conversations, like currents in the ocean that steer the ships against their mothers wishes. This glasses run tall and hide in their brown jackets and the head gives it away.
i throw my glass across the table and the waitress asks if I've had enough. I'm embarassed but I order another and feast on the bowl of pretzels.
Theres 15 feet of snow in East Wisconsin and the dawns not on the horizon. We're all hoping that we're trapped in this bar, like a family of strangers, hanging from a tree that grows top down in the tangled support beams of Landry's Juggling Cactus.

Still, their ain't got nothing on Bartly's...thats for god dman sure. No man on the great plains knowns what shrimp really tastes like. They just pretend thats what the pink curls are int eh frozen section.

You can do better (politics)

2008-10-06T09:30:00.000-07:00

I just finished “What’s the Matter with Kansas” which is a relief because the text was occasionally dense and more often dry but I knew what I was getting into. The other reason it was great is because it ended smarter and better than I thought it would.

For all intents and purposes it’s a book about how the conservative wing of the Republican Party ousted the moderate’s in Kansas state government. It talks largely about how the conservative wing are so focused on wedge issues that good economics went out the window. It spends a large amount of time showing how religious fervor on the great planes had been hijacked and used to push a no-government policy when it comes to economics that only really serves to screw the small time guys (the religious people) who were the rank-and-file of the Republican Party out there.

But he made an important point, only in the final chapter which I think makes it stronger. I’m not going to write the whole thing, but the phrase that caught me was “The Republicans didn’t so much win Kansas as the Democrats abandoned it.”

When we think of “liberals” as Thomas Frank (the author) points out, we think of celebrities from all stripes commenting on how we need to save animals, or not make fun of ugly people, how we should be vegetarians and save whales. And how ultimately, the democrats have courted this mentality very heavily for the past two decades, leaving the factory workers of the heartland with no help and less of a voice in federal government. Frank notes how we shouldn’t begin to wonder why the people, looking for someone to speak to them choose those who at least spoke to their religious convictions as opposed to...nothing.

Democrats aren’t bad people, and neither is being someone who enjoys a leftist government, but the Democrats elected to office have been a fucking sham. If its not Clintonian “triangulation” or Nafta, its this idea that anyone gives a fuck about how someone feels. The Blue Dog movement isn’t filling the gaps for those of us who want to have a government who wants to fix social problems, not moral ones.

To me there’s a better way to just about everything, and you need only take an issue into account to realize that any ass on the bus can figure out a better way to ride the bus. Congress is madness and that’s true, but we need to start holding people to the fire. If you allow yourself to be ignored, then you invite this level of terrible government. Shrinking the government is blaming the wrong malfunction.

When you look to government and see corruption, we should see laziness in ourselves for not voting with good intentions.

Government went sour in the minds of the people and we’re loosing the American mindset. We’ve gotten fat and lazy, both physically and mentally. Start local, and you can demand better. The movements that gave us the greatest leaders started years before they were realized on a national level. They were born in the backrooms in bars, at kitchen tables and today they’ll likely be brought to life on-line, finding a trans-national audience all the more quick. The tools of the masses are allowing bigger jobs to be started and executed sooner. All we need to do now, is develop the minds of the masses to remember how to take pride in themselves, in their cities and state, and most of all in country and government.

Friday Night at the VFW

2008-10-03T13:30:00.000-07:00

The spirit has gone out of me. Life is good and I am happy. My torment isn’t over, its just over for now, and I don’t have anything to pull myself through. Writings been like the blues, and I sing them to get over them. I used to swing a pen like a weapon, but the wars over and now I just debate diplomats over tea and scones. I rue an image that has me swapping stories at the VA Hospital. Only the reservists survive in my line of work, and the guys that really know combat bite the dust, its part of the job, it comes with the territory.

Still I can’t help it though. I was born to write and when I think back to the times when I was as crazed as Gloucester in the rainstorm, with my hair on end and the sweat on my palms racing against all physical limits of speed, writing like the story would die if I took my time; when I’d bathe in the salty whaling graveyards of New Bedford and stare back at my grandfathers yellow house, with its chipping paint and its roman pillars, and the stone rock jetties that sectioned off the lower south end, I want to pour it out of me, as if these imagines are a source of the breath in my lungs. They give me and make me what I am, and its something I can’t ever get enough of. The tore down the old playground behind Bennett school, and it can only live on in pictures, but pictures can’t tell you how the world looked from those tires and planks and how you remember a school with no chimney having a billowing black cloud coming from those imaginary bricks, when the leaves changed color and you were fine in hooded sweatshirts and your cheeks were numb but you refused a hat.

There’s no picture that knows what a trip down 44 smelled like when you were late and you wanted to be early because on the other end was the only thing you really wanted. They mocked the discipline when I was at UMass as a monk-like pact of poverty but the world still needs writers because the intangible will die without us. All I can do now is pray I speak of the passion well enough to sound the rallying cry; that the young and lamentable can feel the stories inside of them. Until I have a reason to paint again, I’ll stick to politics. Someday the ghosts will come back to haunt me and when they do I promise I’ll give you the best of what’s killing me.

7 + 12 = Bad Math

2008-10-01T06:37:00.000-07:00

It's a Saturday and I'm haunting old theaters, the ones with classic movie lines on the walls, like cinematic make-up that makes them feel better about themselves. And the butters running down my fingers and its better than you can expect it, and all the slurping noises turn the heads around me but I'm lost in the movie. I'm sitting here alone because I'm feeling spontaneous and these boring half-wits can't really keep up. 'sides they already had plans to sit around and do nothing, or clean up their bathroom or fold socks. Their telling themselves that this frontier lifestyle is close to godliness and that due diligence is an adult lifestyle. They paint me as a child but I've seen the bad backs of the old men at the bars in their blue jump suits with their name stitched on, and their faces bear the marks of painters, growlin about what might have been and what ought to be from their stools glowering down upon their children. My words spill out like Radiohead videos and I can't really make sense of it. It just comes. The concepts swirl on the screen and I am taken in by how well the director and composer worked together on this character. With one guitar they've captured the desert in its peaceful solitude with its vibrant colors and savage terrain. In my head there is a portrait of a woman glaring downward telling me to be myself, and self is an operative piece. She tells me I'm a man alone and that I will know greatness when I give up on these fantasies of taking everyone by the hand and living in a well structured little community. She is the city and she harbors chaos and I try to block her out but that's why I'm in this high-mounted bijou in the first place. The film ends and the wind on the common runs through my hair. I’m sitting on the planks of a Ray Flynn-era bench and watching the toddlers waddle their way from catch to the playground. Today is boston and my ideas for moving have gone to see the dead letter office.

I think that I always wanted to fork this fucking tree to the hard left. To find some French girl who was half Columbian that needed to move to Miami or London or Seattle and loved bad coffee and loved Joanna Newsom. I wanted something that was so unlike my family, she was unlike me. And when stupid men attempt to engineer their passion they always end up miserable. I was still running from a bloodline that was never intact to begin with. I was hoping for some diluting body to enter the pool.

I put too much stock in nature, never realizing that should that be the be all end all, I’d be just as happy with this crass herd of jackle I was dealt. Just as I had done prior, I could so do again and my future was mine to take. Should this end in hydrogen and fire, I would still come out better than I’d ever gone in. The differences were no longer physical, and not traceable on paper. By the eye of the inexperienced, I’d given up. My favorite political move has always been to let them underestimate you. Arrogance is to be punished and I’m 3 feet high and rising.

Even though I hate the second person...

2008-09-03T07:42:00.000-07:00

i still can't get the ending right, but with a few exceptions and awkward lines, I like where this came out, as I do with anything that comes to be on the fly...

You hate being miserable, so you just get addicted. You thought you’d smoke cigars instead of cigarettes because they were trashy and you didn’t want to look like your Uncle Paul who had one of those cartoonish small tattoo’s on his forearm where you could see the lack of commitment, or money, or tolerance to pain. He might as well have gotten the thing in prison and if smoking cigarettes gets you closer to that, you’d assume not smoke anything. Still you thought this was something that looked cool and when you spoke to the smoke shops owner, he told you that this was a coinsure item, like wine, and that these were in fact “not cigarettes.” That was really all you needed to hear. This was in league with Yachting and dog shows, you were classy and going places. You bought six and a butane lighter.

The gin’s always been there, it was your first alcoholic drink ever. You had no idea what you were doing so you mixed it with iced tea but once you figured out how to steer that ship it was tonic forever. You hate being in your own apartment, the summers ending and the fruit flies are fucking everywhere, dive bombing into your drinks and food, and that fan you bought at the supermarket just isn’t cutting the mustard. Its enough to keep the humidity at bay, but you’re still sitting naked on a towel when its real bad out. The water bills through the roof and its still fucking august.

You bury yourself in the complications of small time addiction because it gives you something to manage. The efficiency of things is a fascination and it’s always a chase for the quicker, meaner, cheaper…you’d be lying if you said you did these things only to forget about her, because in truth, even when you’re with women you’d call yourself a tinkerer, but theres an escape in it, if only a small piece.
These addictions linger, and most days you’d say that’s a bad thing. You still drink, and smoke, and eat pizza from the greek place up the road where they can prep your onion pizza and two snapples when they see your number pop on the caller id. You’re like clockwork, and for all you like to figure things out you don’t disassemble yourself all that often. Or maybe you just know what makes you work and you stick to your guns. Still, for all the residual effects of a bad lifestyle, you welcome it on days like today.

You get a letter from her. Its out from nowhere and on the surface its plutonic but you think that underneath you can see the small embers waiting to explode into that passion that was. Or at least you’d like to think its there. Just seeing it, even days later makes you smile and you try and shoo it off like the fruit flies because you need to move on and find yourself a new girl. You’re still there though, and you hear from some friends she has a boyfriend which pains you slightly but you know he’s not long for the picture. You count time like a prisoner on his cell wall, with slash marks carved with crude tools, these aren’t days, they all blur, its all just tallies without her and they are carved into the walls. You wave your hand as if this is another fly around you, and decide the wild shores of the Republik would do well to liquor you up and head out for the bus.

A Lamentation of Bitch Journalists.

2008-08-21T10:17:00.000-07:00

So Cathy regularly sends me stuff from NYmag and various other rag works from NYC and everytime I see it I think, since the Dig went down the shitter and tried to recover its readership by dumping it glossy cover, Boston has been trying to compete with New York like its still 1991. Stuff @ Night (really the “@” who fucking hired these people), Boston Magazine, even the Improper, long a benchmark of how this city could roll has tried playing catch up with magazines attempting to emulate it.
If you’re not from around here, imagine if Cosmo was all about Boston. Those are our magazines.

Dig is the lone wolf left since the Phoenix has spread its wings to other ports. (I was in Portland last month and even they have one now.) but its lost its edge. I think I can count 5 honest articles in there and its bite comes from its sections like Bean Counter, Media Farm and the album reviews more so than it does its scathing right-hook of a writer base. I’m hoping they can pull one out and I wanted to post this for awhile so heres an example of why this close-knit metropolis is desirable sometimes:

Jonas Borther, A little bit longer

GENRE | BROTHERLY BARF
VERDICT | A LOT SHORTER
RELEASE | 8.12.08
LABEL | HOLLYWOOD RECORDS
JONASBROTHERS.COM

Now that every member of Oklahoma's Hanson is married with 10 kids, it's the Garden State's turn to present us with precocious, snot-filled trash. And just like a teenage Jessica Simpson, the Bros all wear abstinence promise rings. I can't wait for one of them to fuck John Mayer.

See, that needs to be everything. Boston is Boston because we’re salty and bitter. Jon always says “Its Boston, we’ll let you do whatever you want, as long as we can make fun of you for it.” People thought we were progressive when we allowed Gay Marriage, it was just a get out of jail free card to use the word “gay” twice as much. To use the old Nixon-era mantra, “Don’t blame mem I’m from Massachusetts.”

“I’m not homophobic, I’m from the Commonwealth.”

The Dig once wrote “we need to drive out all these stoic blonde women in business suits courageously piloting their Jettas around the city. In other words, More Boston, Less Connecticut”

Similarly, we need to drive these Sex and the City-esque Advertisements disguised as Magazines out of the city and get back to real, gritty journalism. In other words, More Boston, Less Vegas.

Weather Report

2008-08-19T13:16:00.000-07:00

The well-said emotions of spontaneous conception are sprawled around my floor scrawled on receipts and boxes of pizza. A dime store notepad and an oversized bag they gave me for break sticks. I was drunk on the train and I saw you in the window and I bled onto the bag that sits in the middle of my room and makes it a mess.

I tried to be Blake on an old CD case you’d made from construction paper. Stolen from work, the pad that held a child’s amorphous vision now held a mix disc of songs you thought I’d hate.

I can’t hear it any more because an old bottle of coke once spilled on it and sealed the case to the plastic. I never knew how to tell you that the songs didn’t matter, they were 18 gifts of thought and time and I listened to them all and I could always see your face. I’ve kept the thing through two moves and saved it from the rain and though I can’t hear it any more, sometimes I think I’m waiting for you to make me another one.

Tom Waits - All the World is Green

2008-08-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

because Tom Waits + colors = good reading. NP has up a 2 hour concert he did in Georgia for his Glitter and Doom tour. The live version is amazing. Scarlett's version....eh

I fell into the ocean
When you became my wife
I risked it all aganist the sea
To have a better life
Marie you're the wild blue sky
And men do foolish things
You turn kings into beggars
And beggars into kings

Pretend that you owe me nothing
And all the world is green
We can bring back the old days again
And all the world is green

The fase forgives the mirror
The worm forgives the plow
The questions begs the answer
Can you forgive me somehow
Maybe when our story's over
We'll go where it's always spring
The band is playing our song again
And all the world is green

Pretend that you owe me nothing
And all the world is green
We can bring back the old days again
And all the world is green

The moon is yellow silver
Oh the things that summer brings
It's a love you'd kill for
And all the world is green

He is balancing a diamond
On a blade of grass
The dew will settle on our grave(s)
When all the world is green

Blue Valentines (Tom Waits 1978)

2008-08-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

She sends me blue valentines
All the way from Philadelphia
To mark the anniversary
Of someone that I used to be
And it feels like there's a warrant out for my arrest
Baby you got me checkin' in my rearview mirrror
That's why I'm always on the run
That's why I change my name
I didn't think you'd ever find me here

To send me blue valentines
Like half forgotten dreams
Like a pebble in my shoe
As I walk these streets
And the ghost of your memory
Baby is the thistle in the kiss
It's the burgler that that can break a roses neck
It's the tattooed broken promise
I gotta hide beneath my sleeve
I'm gonna see you every time I turn my back

She sends me blue valentines
Though I try to remain at large
They're insisting that our love
Must have a eulogy
Why do I save all of this madness
Here in the nightstand drawer
There to haunt upon my shoulders
Baby I know
I'd be luckier to walk around everywhere I go
With this blind and broken heart
That sleeps beneath my lapel

Still these blue valentines
To remind me of my cardinal sin
I can never wash the guilt
Or get these bloodstains off my hands
And it takes a whole lot of whiskey
To make these nightmares go away
And I cut my bleedin' heart out every night
And I'm gonna die just a little more on each St. Valentine's day
Don't you remember I promised I would write you
These blue valentines
Blue valentines
Blue valentines

Something I think you should read

2008-08-06T21:36:00.001-07:00

From the larger http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/magazine/10politics-t.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

On the day in early July when Clyburn and I talked, Barack Obama, who is the same age as one of Clyburn’s three daughters, had recently clinched his party’s nomination for president. Clyburn, who as majority whip is the highest-ranking black elected official in Washington, told me that on the night of the final primaries he left the National Democratic Club down the street about 15 minutes before Obama was scheduled to speak and returned home to watch by himself. He feared he might lose hold of his emotions.

“Here we are, all of a sudden, in the 60th year after Strom Thurmond bolting the Democratic Party over a simple thing, something almost unheard of — because he did not want the armed forces to be integrated,” Clyburn said slowly. “Here we are 45 years after the ‘I have a dream’ speech. Forty years after the assassinations of Kennedy and King. And this party that I have been a part of for so long, this party that has been accused of taking black people for granted, is about to deliver the nomination for the nation’s highest office to an African-American. How do you describe that? All those days in jail cells, wondering if anything you were doing was even going to have an impact.” He shook his head silently.

This was just something that mattered a lot to me.

So maybe I’m a dog person.

2008-08-05T10:56:00.000-07:00

I was looking at photos from a new book I was reading about in the NYT’s. For more on that go here http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/books/05squa.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

But there’s a photo in the slide show they offer where a guys sleeping on a cot in the street and on the cot next to him is this big dopey golden retriever and both of them are sacked out.

Back in high school I remember taking road trips with either nate or issel and a couple of times I’d realized we’d been just riding along in silence for somewhere over an hour. That’s kind of what I like about dogs, its like a silent understand because speaking is confusing.

I started thinking back to Cyclone which was my dogs name until his brother died. At that point we didn’t need words. There was no differentiating, he’d just follow us around the yard, generally my father who would usually survey the garden for what was selling and how things were growing. He never really grew old, he just sorta settled into his surroundings. They never told me but I think he was hit by a car, but until that time he never stopped leaving dead animals on our porch.

When he was younger, if you gave him three weeks, he’d figure out how to get out of whatever was holding him. He could jump about 3 feet vertically and if it didn’t scale fences, it would get him onto something that would allow him to hop over it. At the end of the day we’d sometimes decide our shoes were too muddy and we’d sit on the stairs to take them off. He’d come up and sit next to us, taking in the same view, and maybe it was just assumed, but you sorta felt like he was thinking about the same thing. How to pay the bills, and what did you feel like eating tonight. How your buddy from high school was doing and whether or not that girl really was interested in you. And you’d sigh deep and he’d lay down and look up at you in a manner that said he was comfortable, “don’t make me get up.”

And when you’d been exhausted with the weight of the world, he’d be a pain in the ass and come lick your face, but he generally understood. You didn’t need to explain anything to him, words would just be confusing. These days I wish he was still around, he scratched up the paint on my car and knocked shit out of my hands, but I think he was the only one who got me. We shared something, and the blues lost their sting when he was around.

How the blues sound played on a Typewriter

2008-08-01T12:28:00.000-07:00

Too much happens too fast and the mistake is trying to analyze it all at once. The mistake is trying to avoid failure. I think my personality types clash like that, I want success so badly, and its so tangled up with work, that I can’t conceive of good results coming from nothing.

I hate not having answers. I’d like to know what I’ve done wrong, still all these women just loose interest with no warning or reasoning or rationale. The one good thing to come of it is that it tests the limits of my optimism. And I’m hoping should I reach the bottom one day and find that constant positivity will only fail, I have bitter wealth of experience to draw from.

I’m arrogant, but not yet arrogant enough to diagnose my entire generations psychological disposition. But down there at the core of it all, you can smell the fear of becoming their parents, a divorce ridden generation we either are running away from or seeking a solution to. I suspect it will only get worse; the two types clash and push one another away. One clings to the other for salvation, and the other runs from suffocation and each come away bitter from the experience. Maybe we need to just let go as a group and take what comes. My experience has always been that the runners feel their more well adjusted, the 90’s was such a time for “independence” that it became ingrained that anyone can go it alone.

What we need is a duo to continuously beat the loners; One with truly equitable relations. The problem I see is we’re still being run by a golden age group of couples. Politicians are running prostitute rings and making out in airport bathrooms and at every press conference we watch their wives “stand by their man.” That’s not balance. And this is what people are seeing, this is what they run from.
Someone somewhere once said that solitude without peace is loneliness.

I spend my time trying to constantly improve in small ways. Reading, Exercise, Socialization, I’ve started trying to do more manual labor if only to pick up some trade skills. I really want to sail. Still I’m not sure how one can reconcile the notion that we can always improve while being comfortable in our own skin.

If we accept what we are, why improve. If we accept there is room to improve, how could we be comfortable by sitting idle?

This isn’t rhetoric. I’m really asking.

you wave your hand and they scatter like crows, they have nothing that will ever capture your heart

Come on up to the House

2008-08-01T09:26:00.001-07:00

The aesthetic appeal of Jack Cafferty

2008-07-28T10:35:00.000-07:00

I don’t know where they found this guy but I cannot get enough of the Cafferty file. I think someone at CNN built a time machine, went back to the days when you could look weathered on TV and that was good because it meant you were working and they spliced a police chief and a editor-in-chief and brought him back to our time.

He could be on in the middle of the friggen day and it looks like he’d been run over a truck and asked roughly 47 stupid questions by interns, had to fix three screw ups that cost at least one sponsor and fixed a leak in the break room. He guns through news stories and letters from viewers as if it were house chores or eating brussle sprouts and I have no idea what’s going on with his hair, but it fits. When Blitzer thanks him for the reporting he say “yep” like it was a question on a deadline from office writer, like this was routine and non-important. You get the idea if he could smoke and shoot coffee on TV he would. I’m betting money he does when the cameras are off. He’s like Bob Ucker in Major league behind a news desk. You get the idea when he reports on some obvious political photo-op that as soon as they cut cameras he gives that “who are these fucking morons? Is this the best we’ve got?” speech.

I’m a big fan of progress, but I kinda miss the old world guys who work like its as natural as breathing and give the greatest answers on the planet when you ask them something out of routine.

Basically, there aren’t enough Red Foremans left in the world, and I say that as someone who’s constantly told I look like Eric Foreman.

Cobbled together from pieces

2008-07-23T08:53:00.000-07:00

Has laziness ever been an emotional response? And at what point should it be forced to resign. I walked to work today, suited up with a coffee in hand thinking about every plan I had committed to later this week and all I could think was "I don't want to get out of bed."

The ennui is crushing. I've just written something else no ones going to read and you wonder if you should take all your talents down to the river and drown them, get a bad tie and sign up to be a used car salesmen.

What if your passion is being showered with praise? Can you put a price on that one?

Forget about the debt, I wouldn't know what to do with the money if I'd had it. Sometimes I think the drug addicts have it right. Theres never a guessing game with them. They like heroine and that's never going to change. That's intellectually lazy but today I'm a sloth. Its days like this you can almost hear the dreams dying.

Our track coach used to tell us that the days you don't train, someone out there is, and that's why you're never going to be the best. Goals aren't much different from track to life. The day I'm not out there looking for a web designer is the reason some other magazine with more motivation and less brains is going to be the next flash in the pan.

Sometimes I get arrogant and think I need to be surrounded with more highly motive people. Someone to carry the burden when I'm down, but whenever I think like that I get dragged into relationship questions and that's the path you never should take. Most get in relationships to settle down. I'm looking for someone to help me steer the rocket ship.

I work harder and care more about my resume and cover letter than I do my job. I don't think I'm alone and the American work force becomes more curious still. It's a sad day when you don't want to do anything, including nothing. I wonder if I tried explaining that to a robot if his head would explode. I found that kinda funny…whatever.

At 5 I bail early and I go to get my hair cut because I can feel the ends poke at my ears and that makes me feel homeless. You could make a kill on Comm. Ave. if you cut hair after 6 p.m. I get a heavy set woman and I breathe a sigh of relief. The asian guy butchered my name and I’m fairly certain my hair would have met the same fate. She’s overweight but she’s nice enough and some part of me feels like her lack of beauty means she’s less distracted by life. She brushes the hair upward on the back of my head and I feel like a dog getting my belly rubbed. I tip her $5 because she didn’t make me look like a meathead or a ten year old. I step out and look for the 57home.

A man approaches me with his cause for Union Labor. He has that low serious tone of an idealist going through the motions after having been rejected for the past several hours by anyone with a clue. I feel bad enough to talk to him but I could care less about whatever he’s peddling. I try and get him off of his game by asking personal questions. He’s come up here from North Carolina and his soul patch is mismanaged. His name is Chris and he was an English major too. We finish our conversation and he sets off to harass more people. Waiting, I watch two Mexican woman cross the street and I’m wondering why we’re trying to stop immigration. From my vantage point, we ought to at least bring their women in. They duck into an ice cream parlor and I have to give up my vulgar day dreams.

The bus is packed and is made more uncomfortable by the mugginess of the coming rain. I sit next to a woman who is none to happy with my antics of writing. She doesn’t speak or turn her head toward me but she sighs loud and often enough to warrant my assumption. The bus starts to let out and I purposely sit with her even as the rest of the bus is vacant. I eventually get bored and move off into the front before leaping out into Watertown yard and giving the whole rotten day its last rights.

It starts to rain as I walk home and I think that it will at least me bearable tonight. The glow of the neon in some backwater convenience store bleeds slightly from the windows across the street as I pass underneath the awnings and make my way up past the condemned library and down my street.

No Decision '08

2008-07-22T07:34:00.000-07:00

I know most of you guys don't like the political stuff, but occationally I write for the Green Blog (listed on the side) if you want something less serious. So far its only one of mine but its "Zeno's theory" if you want read it.

The Economist, which stands as one of the more unbias publications, had on its cover last month the two presidential candidates and the line: America at its best. For a second I believed them, but the problems with this political election are highly subtle and exhaustingly complex.

The main issue that everyone ought to be voting on is the one that poses the most immediate danger or problem for the country. Enter problem 1.

The issue, if we looked at it today, would certainly be the economy. We have a nation, as Lou Dobbs might say, that cannot cloth or feed itself. Our reliance on other countries for our most basic needs not only is nerve racking because of our dependence on shaky foreign business markets, but because even at these “fair trade” [sic] prices, how would anyone be able to afford them when they don’t have jobs, because 2 years ago they were making those clothes.

If the economy remains and issue, its an election that’s decidedly in Obama’s favor, but this of course is the problem. McCain doesn’t know much about anything when it comes to economics, or how social safety nets, put in place because of issues we’d resolved back in the 30’s, work and why they shouldn’t be dismantled. During the primaries Mitt Romney hammered McCain on this very issue (and rightfully so) and sowed up Michigan before going down in a Super Tuesday blood bath (where he only took Massachusetts). More concerning is that his advisory committee (or what looks like it) is more callous, apolitical, and out of touch than any of the other free-market advocates. Phil Gramm’s “Nation of whiners” comment should be exposed to the light of day far more than it has been to date.

So what’s the problem right? Obama wins and, while he doesn’t necessarily have the econ background covered, everything turns out better than it might with McCain…until the problem shifts.

Let’s just assume that the economy actually does improve. It won’t be until about the middle of the 1st term and at best it will recover slowly. Neither of these candidates are Putin or Reagan so we’re not going to see unfettered progress with the intelligence required, and as much as John McCain wants to be TR, he’d never have the fortitude to grab out-of-control business by the reigns and tell them if they can’t help America, we don’t need them.

But Obama is being forced to the left but a bunch of out of touch lefties who still want to see the war ended, and as much as I’d love to bash the hell out of them, there are some points they make that have a strong sense of validity.

1. This is a huge economic drag. The money we continually sink into this occupation could be better spent just about anywhere.

2. The occupation itself. Its why traditional conservatives like Buckley and Buchanan (why are all the conservatives Irish?) opposed the war three years after supporting it. Invasion? Yes. Democracy? Yes. Empire building? No. I don’t think that’s what we’re doing over there, but long story short is….

3. The Iraqi’s need to govern themselves. If they want us out of not, we can’t be there forever. They have the tools now to conduct themselves in a way they see fit, and if we stay, their not going to review some of the more savage behavior as just that, savage.

But the occupation has logical reasons for continuing. Casualties are down, way down. And while the opponents will tell you that one casualty is too many, that’s just not war. I agree we shouldn’t have gone in, but don’t give us a reason to have to go back in.

This is why this election is a nightmare. It’s reactionary.

We don’t have the option to select a man based on our best interests, just our best interest. And that’s three options short of acceptable. We’re talking the lesser of two evils here since we’re never going to hear them discuss much of anything on the lower end of the political spectrum. Whose education policy do you favor? In fact where is most of the domestic policy? I don’t know if we’re in the business of calling the economy “policy.”

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. If voting third party is throwing your vote away, I might throw mine up.

Bloomberg ’08.

I'm done with music...

2008-07-08T07:33:00.001-07:00

I’m done with music. I’m sick of everyone’s private little band, I hate the hipster games of “have you heard of…” I can’t take LP’s or EP’s or the ED that comes with a thousand bands who are too drunk to fuck or make decent music.

To hang around with the people I do, Patrick Wolf was the second coming. He had everything an indie kid could want, highly effeminate posturing with homoerotic overtones, circus colors and a catalogue that sounded like the Beach Boy’s Smile if Brian Wilson had been dragged through the 1984 post-punk revolution. Not only this but for whatever reason, he was the Elliot Smith every Elliot Smith fan wanted since Elliot Smith. (who I can’t stand by the way)

I’m sick of every second album being as thought through as take out Chinese. The curse of the second album used to be that bands had toured with 12 songs for so long they had forgotten how to write, or that they were one-hit wonder trying to cash in on a niche market to override their lack of talent. Now these bands hit a rough patch and they throw the apathy into overdrive. You can’t affect enough for the photo shoot. By the way the only photo shoots that don’t make people look like absolute douche bags are photos taken when people aren’t expecting photos. When you’re going over how something should sound or where the lyrics get all garbled up. You usually see them on the inner jacket of live albums. They should be everywhere. Your web site, magazine covers…everything. Posed photographs are an atrocity. The “lets all jump together” move of the pop-punk band made baby jesus cry.
I love what myspace has done for music, I think LastFM is the best thing to happen in the last 25 years in music and I’m still not sure how they’ve managed to avoid a law suit. That aside, the corporate shove is obnoxious, not because its corporate but because they delivered on their promise.

Take this story for example: Every rag and its sister web section have a page dedicated to what people leaving shows have to say about it. Not more than three years ago I read a comment from a 12 year old girl leaving a Black Eyed Peas show. She said “Some of these younger kids, they don’t know a lot of the Peas older stuff, and I think that’s just because their young. Their just new fans.” Its ok to laugh, talking about the Black Eyed Peas early works like they were any more credible than whatever constitutes their later works is a travesty. The machine that makes the saccharine treats rarely changes formula, just shape. More concise: The gummy bear doesn’t taste any different than the gummy worm. But the issue today is that that once 12 now 15 year old girl is saying the same snobby pseudo-high-minded hog wash about a band we’ve never heard of from some Garage-juke act born 16 miles outside of Duluth. You’ve never heard of them, and who’s to know if her heads up her ass or that she’s full of shit? She may be spot on, and now I have to crate dive and dig through the annals of the internet just to find out their a Melt Banana knock off that got stones one weekend and bought the back catalogue of The Fall and the Psychedelic Furs.

What we’ve done by commercializing a culture is give the once guarded jargon of credible music to the unrefined and irresponsible. People who can no longer articulate why they like something, or analyze music from across perspectives and time periods now have free range and freer access to gallivant as if they not only can, but have and had it published to boot. The new revolution is old friends. The new music investment is financially conscious. I shall forth conduct musical purchases exactly one year after its released. Not its leak, not its pre-production web downloads, its release. Not only will my investments be less rocky and furiously more sound but I will be perennially cool in that I will only always own the older stuff. Granted, one year in the Indieverse is length for enough bad news about an artists forthcoming album to make people cling to the last one. So when you get wind of Ryan Adams’s Rap album on the horizon, I’ll be experiencing Heartbreak for the first time, when Beck pulls a Bjork and records an album using only his voice, I’ll be knee deep in Midnight Vultures (great album by the way, don’t listen to any reviews on that one). And when you’re pissed because the new Dandy Warhols has left you down again, I’ll likely be listening to something else completely but I’ll still be smug in my giant vault of money.

Charter, Charter, Magna Carta

2008-06-27T09:40:00.000-07:00

When one finds himself squarely in the center of the political spectrum, decisions that elected officials make are often maddening.

Take nothing more than the recent example of Senator Obama saying that he acknowledged that his economic plan may hurt the economy. Or when he proposed that an increase to the capital tax (for those who own stocks) and was told that in every instance of doing so, it has lead to a weakening of the economy; his response was “well it may.” The answer is not “it may”, its “it does.”

So when officials cross the aisle I couldn’t be more excited…except when they cross the aisle to pick up another parties failure. The Globe reported that Governor Patrick was set to unfurl his ten year education plan later this month. In short, he’s opted for Charter Schools*. I think I might write him a letter.

In every instance I have seen this described to me, and in everything I’ve ever read, I can’t help thinking the same thing: New American Class System.

In my earlier collegiate days, I used to openly mock Harvard as politically corrupted with an education that focused more on cultural diversity than actually education. The reason for both of these is because they have a 50% legacy acceptance rate. If your parents went here, and you’ve got the money, its likely that you’re getting in. Then I found out what Oxford’s acceptance rate for legacies were and I lost all faith in Europe. Because of their educational structure, a staggering 90% of those accepted to Oxford have parents who’ve gone there as well.

Charter schools bring us about 3 steps away from that, and by steps I mean generations.

In Massachusetts, you’re required to pass an exam in order to be qualified to teach. Roughly 2 months ago, they proposed a waiver for those who’d failed the test three times to be able to teach regardless. “If that passes”, as one prominent political talk show host proposed, “tell me where you think these people will teach? Weston? Newton? Its just another shovel load of dirt on the casket”

Now imagine if they allow morons to teach, and the kids with potential are to be taken to schools where only those with a doctorate are allowed to teach.

With luck you’re child would make it in, he’d build his own rockets and he’d have to tie his best friend’s shoes for him. We’d widen the gap between the success rate on the MCAS exam between anyone who could afford it, and those who can’t.

The Charter school is not rewarding children who do well in schools, its rewarding parents who have enough money. It punishes adults who were disinterested as children, or who had parents who valued education only when report cards came out.

A child does not have the discipline of an adult in second grade, why should we punish them for 12 years with poor education, and then tell them they have no skill set when they attempt to find a job?

Similarly, why should it be the policy of the education department or its secretary to tell parents who are working multiple jobs to afford their child a future that they need to double their combined income in order to ever have the opportunity to achieve because they need to start paying for a good education now.

The premise behind Charters to begin with is that they will be pushed into the business section of life and held to the populist standards of businesses. Therefore schools would have to bend to the will of their “customer” to stay in business. I agree with this 100% because this usually whittles things down to “better product, for less money.” But there aren’t enough schools to warrant a capitalist exchange of ideas. What we’ve been given with these schools is a monopoly. When only one school is going to offer better education, a better chance to get into great colleges and therefore a great future, who’d care to address what’s taught or how?

And this new Patrick system is based on a lottery in an attempt to make it more “fair” which I can understand, but the gap still exists, and the cost doesn’t go anywhere so for the lucky few who are poor and get in, good luck, you’re a Front Page human interest story 18 years down the road. I’m sure the Metro can’t wait to have you. But if you’re one of the countless kids whose parents are regular blue collar people, there’s no hope in sight, and as it appears, both the left and the right have decided they’ve done their good deed for the year.

And they say voting third party is throwing your vote away. I might throw mine up.

Meghan amongst the leaves

2008-06-17T06:45:00.000-07:00

I was in the heart of Penn Station when I got the text message from Meghan. “Tim Russert is Dead. Your thoughts?”

I always appreciated that my opinion mattered to people. Meghan and I had, since graduation, drifted apart as I tend to do with most people. I can’t keep pace on short notice, I don’t have it in me.

But the other day she sent me an e-mail with an article from The Onion with some satirical article about one of the video games I play. She had this to say…

“Vermont is awesome. I can't find a good job though. I'm ok, i miss the boston bars.

Meghan always had a succinct way of phrasing something. As much as I don’t care for him, she has a Salinger way about her writing, you get a whole emotional picture from one line of text.

But I have to say that it depressed the crap out of me. Not that shes gone or that she can’t find a job, but that sometimes we move on for reasons that aren’t the best. Or we’ve told ourselves that to not move on is to somehow stunt ourselves and we end up having this self-hating complex building up.

I tend to write about the still frozen image, as if at some point as a child I’d seen an old photo from the 70’s with a guy who looked like the life of the party, and then I was told that he was dead. This isn’t to suppose I find Meghan dead, but gone in the same fashion and that 40 years on I might look back and wonder whatever happened to her. She was a force unto herself, she was well educated but she didn’t give a damn for school and I respected that about her. The academic world is self-serving and some bite the bullet and get through, and some of us couldn’t be bothered by the fickle fascinations of some egotistical professor.

I can see her in those paisley tights she wore to Ambers wedding, and the jazz hands she’d use whenever she was mocking some terrible idea is that vaudevillian raspy voice. Now I see those things in front of the back drop of some green covered spring ski mountain, lying dormant waiting for winter to give it life again. Vermont to me has always been a lace for people to vacation and you didn’t move there unless you’re some transcendental hippie. To say you miss the boston bars, suggests to me that the metropolitan kitsch is decidedly vacant from the pubs up there.

And maybe its how I see Vermont that’s the problem, a heterogeneous mixture of like-minded individuals that by virtue of what Boston is, simply cannot exist here. I’ve met more interesting people on the bus here than I likely could in Vermont. To see a personality like hers, one that no doubt gave way to interesting dialogue and had to inspire its share of young minds in such a fertile place is a shame to me, and certainly a loss to the city.

For one reason or another, I get the impression that people go off to these places and die, or more accurately, become someone else. And maybe that’s what I fear the most. But in being realistic I know Boston wasn’t always a kind environment for her. I imagine I’ll tell my children stories about a lot of the people I’ve met, and how their from all over, and all the places I’d met them. But in the back of my mind I hope that don’t finish like so many of my fathers d…“yeah yeah…he’s dead now…cancer.”

I can’t honestly write about everyone I know or all those who’ve made an impact on my life but I can say that when I write about these people, I hope you see some of yourself in here (if you’re out there reading), the the sentiments I hold about one is applicable to the other, and if somewhere along the way we’ve lost touch or don’t communicate like we ought to that I think about lost friends more than I would care to think about. Maybe this is just an apology. I’m unintentionally elusive, and I drive myself toward goals that don’t allow me to pull others along, and for this I’m sorry, but your value is not diminished in my mind, and I forget very little of our friendship back then.

Santoro's Roast Beef Sub, with Mayo and Salt

2008-06-06T13:16:00.000-07:00

[Santoro’s is a dumpy sub shop that abuts a gas station and somehow ended up in the same parking lot. For all intents and purposes, it’s a hole in the wall that is unmentionable in every instance of the word. It also had the grave misfortune of being in Carver, Massachusetts which has been put on the map by a renaissance fare and exactly nothing else.]

Back in my Councilor days, when we’d cart children around the state in giant yellow busses, we’d frequent the recreation facility that was a lot over from Santoro’s. It was standard fare; potato sack slide, go karts, bumper boats, arcade games, all plopped out here in the middle of Carver like some runaway carnival that went off to join Thoreau.

Being the kind of charming young lad that I am, I’d managed to make strong ties to one of the men who oversaw this particular camp, and as such when he’d break off from these field trips, he drag me along with him. It was here, that I would come to encounter the dump known as Santoro’s.

I remember when we pulled up on it his exclamation of excitement “yeah brow….San-Toro’s” with the end of that broken abbreviation hitting a higher than needed falsetto. I took from that I might be in for some remarkable cuisine here in this growth on the side of a Mobil station. I wasn’t.

Santoro’s was just another dive pizza joint, only as Massachusetts can. A Greek family masquerading around as some Italian family, making pizzas for blue-collar Americans that don’t know the difference and wouldn’t care anyway. (You mean the Greeks don’t eat pizza?) And thinking back on it, I couldn’t possibly imagine why the hell anyone would get excited for such a dump in the first place, and as any writer does, I had to come again to the conclusion that things that I see are just observations, and that my opinions are irrelevant. If you’ve been given perception beyond the tangible, you ought to use it.

Santoro’s could have been Jim’s Tire Store, or Guadalupe’s, the place really wasn’t relevant. Its more like a pragmatic American Dream. That we’d all risen high enough to fuck off at our job, and occasionally leave a ton of children in the charge of another group of people who’s judgment was questionable and, given that we were at an amusement park, whose attention spans might be lowered to lethal levels. We were out, we were free, and we were on the clock. It didn’t matter if we’d gone to buy stamps, I’m sure we’d have found an air conditioner to stand in front of and rationalize that in fact, this was the life.

I have been working myself toward an Old Money dream, one in which I shirk the low class mentality of the farm land I grew up on, one in which people conduct themselves with a degree of cosmopolitan air regardless of what their doing. To me being high class should come with being American. To live, as Bobby Kennedy suggest, for the people, not off the people. But whether they lack the money, refinement, or perpetual optimism to carry themselves in such a manner, there are those who don’t have such a high brow view of how things ought to be. Education was never a big point for them, neither to was propriety, and who says it ought to be. But I spend too much time lamenting this reality and not enough realizing that these are people who are lost in a dream, where the closest pizza joint can be the break from a bleak and doldrums-filled existence. Where the air conditioner at the post office, or the grade C meat at some dive pub can be all the difference in the world.

Sometimes when I look back I can see a scrap-book collage of still-framed images fading there over time, where you can see the joy in the face of a man who had lines from the hard life he lived and for logical or illogical reasons, the rough path he choose. I am, for all my graces, still no different than they are. We all look down upon one another for varying reasons, and to another man we may be equally as flawed. But though I’d never choose to descend to that level, or conduct myself in that fashion, I can still see the beautiful paintings that are created from their own emotional crescendo, and in those images, I might find myself something to write, a literary sea chantey I can’t stop whistling, even if its about some junk box sub shop, fading in the sun of old memories.

A compedium of love

2008-05-24T03:45:00.000-07:00

In the late fall of 2005 I was living in Boston, and as rare occasion would have it, one evening I found myself winding down the barren-tree’d banks of highway 24.

Home is a tough place to describe and harder still is the reasons I’d go home to do nothing with my family. On this one particular occasion I was going to play cards with a group of friends that, by the proxy of Irish-hood I regarded as I might an extended family. It was here I met Marie.

We went out once, and then for the betterment of her own education she headed home to Texas through the remnants of Hurricane Katrina. In the interest of full disclosure I felt that while I had fun, that was the end of things for us, if there were a “things” at all. But she kept in contact with text messages, e-mails and the occasional late night phone call. (their an hour ahead over there in Houston).

We met once between that fall and the summer and one night together was all she wrote until she packed up again and flew back to Texas. Then the summer came. She showed up unannounced one day at the front desk of the building I worked in, told them her name was Gretchen and they put in a call that I had a visitor. I was as shocked as one might imagine and from there we had the chance to see one another more often than we’d ever even spoke before. But a month into that summer everything turned for the worst and floored it. We had a conversation, she told me she’d no longer wanted to conduct ourselves the way we had. Her friends had read my blogs, I was moving to fast and she wasn’t ready for something like that. The following two months were torturous.

The last time I saw Marie was after a wedding. The same woman who’d accidentally introduced us nearly a year ago was getting married. We drank the champagne, said our goodbye’s and with Marie in tow, we had set off to South Carolina to visit our friend Amanda. We had to make two stops before hand. We picked up Amanda’s college roommate Ginsey in Balitmore, and then we dropped Marie off in D.C. where she had left her car a week earlier. She headed back to Texas, and Ginsey, Issel and myself headed south. After we dropped her off, Ginsey drove the rest of the way, and because it was 2 a.m. I went to sleep in the backseat.

That was the last time I saw Marie and I woke up the next day on a Virginia highway with two people who’d known nothing of my story and were in good spirits because of the road trip and the vacation. For a week, I couldn’t think about how depressing it was that I would never see her again.

But I had to return home at some point, and when I did the pain was a dull lingering mope. I didn’t know what to do. I started school a week later and immediately found myself attracted to another girl in my class who I, when I think back about it, gave ample consideration to because she was brown. (Marie was Mexican, she was Pakistani). Maybe it was because I’d been emotionally drained but I played this up relatively cool and it wasn’t before long that she and I were sleeping together. Sabeen however, was not Marie. She wanted an open relationship, she had 5 majors and she was very cut and dry. If something didn’t make sense, you were an idiot and she didn’t have time for you. In an intellectual capacity I still have a deep amount of compassion for her. Its not easy to find someone as mercilessly logical as a tax attorney that is intelligent enough to argue political philosophy, entertaining enough to drag you to a Brooklyn Rave, and impetuous enough to shoot off to Thailand and backpack over to Africa. We spent 4 or 5 months together before she shot off to Oxford where she studied something philosophical enough for me to loose interest. When she got back things were a little more than complex because at this time she was living with Dmitri to save money for the Thai trip, and soon after her return she started seeing two men at once. (its hard not to like her).

I hadn’t had much trouble adjusting by virtue of a Road Trip we had taken in October of the year before.

Before I’d really started seeing Sabeen, I had spoken to Cathy about the situation with Marie and she had suggested that going down to New York might do well for the spirit so a ended up going there on Columbus Day weekend (if memory serves me correctly) with Sabeen in tow. She was going off to meet up with Dimitri who was studying at Columbia and after dropping her off, I went to meet up with Cathy. (after an accidental detour into Spanish Harlem). It was there I met Dana.

She was callous at first, and I would find out later its because she hadn’t known I would be there, and as an ex-boyfriend of Cathy’s (with only Paul as a reference point) I had the potential to be a huge tool. [Possibility still not ruled out]. After a rocky start and a couple glasses of vodka we were all getting along swimmingly and as people tend to do while drunk, we were openly flirting. But I was, to a degree with Sabeen and I had plans to ride out to Brooklyn to go to the decompression. Due to illness and the 1 o’clock hour, Dana and Cathy went home and I attempted to find Grand Central. At 5 am I arrived back at Cathys apartment and, being a pain in the ass enough already by ringing the buzzer at that time, I decided that in lieu of a bed I’d ball up my clothes and sleep on the floor.

The next morning we ate at a dinner before I went to pick up Sabeen and head back to jolly old boston. I can’t explain why I’d remember something like this, but I can still remember her impression of a little French boy she’d taught in her classroom and I still laugh if it catches me off guard. When I left I didn’t know if I’d see her again, but it would be awhile before I forgot her.

As luck would have it, while Sabeen flew off to England for a few months, out of no where Dana and I started speaking. I don’t recall the path it took to get there, but eventually I went back to Manhattan to meet up with her. I stayed in Jersey that night at some hotel and the next day I hopped a train back to the Bus Station. We would meet this way more and more often but the strain of the road and the distance between us was too much for her to bear. When she was too booked to meet up, I made the trip down to Jersey to see her while she watched two children that had been students of hers. That was the last time I’d seen her.

In july I asked if she were available at all that month.

“Nope” she said “all booked up, sorry”

I was crushed, but with Sabeen and Dmitri there to tell me to “take the hint” I had to move on. In all honest I managed to get that text message while at a BJ’s and thought that if the text message had permeated the lead-clad walls of a warehouse, it just wasn’t meant to be. That was July.

In October I couldn’t take the silence anymore and I had sent her a message in modest terms about how I felt. That I still thought about her and how I hoped things were well. It was a month before I heard anything by which point I’d contented myself with thinking there was no chance and she was disinterested.

One late November night I got a phone call from her and we had talked about how things had ended, and how life had gone since we last spoke. Again, if my coincidence or fate, the phone cut out. I sent her a text saying it was good catching up.

I’ve had girlfriends since then, and I’m sure I will again, but the last two were not worth mentioning either because of the shortness of the relationship or because of the cruelty by which they ended. I’m sure I’ll find someone of equal caliber again, but this was something I had to put out there, and I felt I should release.

I met someone a few weeks ago and who knows if it will be a flash in the pan or a vested relationship but what I do know is that I’ve died at the hands of lovers before, and I’ve come back to fight again and now to even tell the story. I’ve survived the worst it can throw at me, I’m hoping it can start trying the other direction for a change.

“…For three years I had roses and apologized to no one.”

Wtf?

2008-05-16T12:38:00.000-07:00

"UPDATE: Tucker Bounds, McCain's spokesman, responds. "It was remarkable to see Barack Obama’s hysterical diatribe in response to a speech in which his name wasn’t even mentioned. These are serious issues that deserve a serious debate, not the same tired partisan rants we heard today from Senator Obama. Sen. Obama has pledged to unconditionally meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- who pledges to wipe Israel off the map, denies the Holocaust, sponsors terrorists, arms America’s enemies in Iraq and pursues nuclear weapons. What would Sen. Obama talk about with such a man? It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don’t have enemies. But that is not the world we live in, and until Sen. Obama understands that, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment and determination to keep us safe."

McCain needs a little help. Half of the things he just mentioned there in response are flase, and are ripe for an Obama firing squard. A quarter of what he just said are traditional republican attack points that are going to prove useless. A hysterical diatribe? We're going to try and make him seem crazy? Thats the best we've got?

and for such an aggressive war hawk, I think its a little neutering to see him utalize such vaginal manuvering such as "in which his name wasn't even mentioned."

Unless you're called out by name, you should respond to another systematic GOP attack? The american people aren't stuipd, their actually tired of the same old attacks and they've had time to sit with them. Their not going to be fooled again...

McCain needs help.

try this

2008-05-13T09:23:00.001-07:00

http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php?p=27

Tell me again old man, of the shaving grounds?

2008-05-06T14:28:00.000-07:00

God bless the cultural disarray. The badlands between a tanking approval rating and the next election.
In the brutal spaces where no higher power rests its hands on the puppet strings
Of good favor and capitalistic progress.
Where all men’s favor rest on himself, and the ingenuity and the intelligence.
Where luck is the residue of design, where the papers of the universities are scrap
For the ticker tape parade their play at the funeral of parlor room acceptance.

I must scrap all I have know of my paths, the map is to an old world that can no longer be traveled if one seeks to achieve their destinations. The soft cushion of another mans work will no longer climb the ladder for you. It has grown pale and soft, and its voice no falls on deaf and absent ears.

Ignore and deny this ladder, and by your own methods rebuild your own, one in which there is no climb, but by which all others can achieve greatness. Allow them to ascend to the heights you always knew you were at. Let be be the end of seems. Old money sleeps easy if the laurels are kept safe in the vaults of good measure and conventional wisdom.

And the razor may be rusty and my face brittle from the cold but I will shave this tree to the bow that splits the water, I will careen through the murk and feel the wind in my sails, by my own admission I will conquer the seas, I will find a new path and discover new land.

Awareness

2008-04-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

I'm in love with "TV on the Radio" and I found this gem tonight. The song is not for the meak, but the lyrics are something I think everyone should like a great deal. The lyrics get really good about mid song. I'm not really sure whats going on prior to that. I'll denote that with a star.

"I Was A Lover"

I was a lover, before this war
held up in a luxury suite, behind a barricaded door
now that I've cleaned up, gone legit
I can see clearly: round hole
round whole, square peg don't fit

I'm locked in my bedroom, so send back the clowns
my clone wears a brown shirt, and I seduce him when there's no one around
mano y mano, on a bed of nails
bring it on like a storm, till I knock the wind out of his sails
*And we don't make eye contact, when we have run-in's in town
just a barely polite nod, and nervous stares towards the ground
I once joined a priest class, plastic, inert
in a slowdance with commerce
like a lens up a skirt

And we liked to party
and we kept it live
and we had a three volume tome of contemporary slang
to keep a handle on all this jive

Ennui unbridled, let's talk to kill the time
how many styles did you cycle through before you were mine?
and it's been a while since we went wild and that's all fine
but we're sleepwalking through this trial
and it's really a crime it's really a crime it's really a crime
it's really criminal

We're just busy tempting, like fate's on the nod
running on empty, bourbon and god
it's been a while since we knew the way
and it's been even longer since our plastic priest class
had a goddamned thing to say

I was a lover before this war