Events both good and bad sometimes fall together in a way that allows one to shine. Sometimes those moments are sorely needed.
My son had a tonsillectomy performed the Friday before Thanksgiving and doctor’s orders necessitated his remaining calm. No running or jumping. He loves every holiday wildly and acts in just that manner. While most of the time he listens well to me and my wife, we knew Thanksgiving would turn into a day of calling him down if he were unleashed into the wilderness kingdoms of either of his grandparents houses. Evasive action would need to be taken, so my lovely and I threw a Thanksgiving coup. We contacted the parents explained the situation and asked that we have Thanksgiving in our home this year.
My mom agreed immediately already having to acquiesce Thanksgiving for Friday years ago, as my gender cheated her out of her yearly stuff them until they die fest, knowing protocol in our families insisted the husband attend the in-laws feast. My mother-in-law was a little more hesitant, because it meant a lack of control, the menu wasn’t going to be her anti-Southern stance it had been in past years and most of all my progeny would be in a controlled setting where jabs at parenting skills would come much harder. (It should be noted at this point and not just to save my ass, my mother-in-law is a good person, but a strong personality that thrives on sucker punch type vocal jabs and therefore one must be on their feet or be made sport.)
To describe the two Thanksgivings my wife and I come from is to see the differences in our backgrounds. My Mother’s family put on a feast of casseroles and spices and to stand back and look at the spread was to know the King’s stores had been opened. Green beans, potatoes, yams, corn, okra, carrots all treated in some way with a cream based something or other and a myriad of cheeses melted in, onions, garlic and some cayenne. Just to look at the colors and smell the mixed aromas was to make a mental note that one may want to make a check up appointment with their doctor before Christmas. On the far sideboard lay the still cooling pumpkin pie, chocolate fudge pie, and mincemeat and vinegar pies. The only foods that actually made it to the dining table were the platter of meats and a huge basket of yeast rolls. Yes, I said meats. The turkey was present of course, and it was flanked with country and city hams. The other platter contained the yield of the land. Dove breasts, venison, catfish, and rabbit and occasionally squirrel. Eight to ten was the usual number at this annual event and there existed enough food for thirty. We would eat this meal for days and be miserable. The conversation hit all the social faux pas it could cover politics, religion, deaths, infidelities, and a general critique of life’s direction.
My wife comes from two Midwestern Catholic families and many years attended two Thanksgivings. Both meals consisted of traditional Thanksgiving staples followed by apple pie and pumpkin pie. Both families were large in number and personality. The foods were prepared with the number of attendees in mind and the more aggressive made quick work of anything that looked to be a potential leftover. A much more conservative common sense approach to a celebration of gluttony could not be found.
With my family there are no place cards or floral arrangements, you grab your own chair hopefully next to someone less annoying than one’s self and the beauty to behold is how intricately the many samples of food have been placed or piled. Experts know all the gravy items should occupy the same quadrant. There exists no choice of wine with the meal, if one is of drinking age than they are pretty well pickled by the time the feast begins.
At my in-laws it is much more formal. The table looks like a magazine spread. Place cards are in place. As has become the tradition I have never been placed by my wife or son. I did sit next to my daughter once, but she had been an absolute brat all morning and I am pretty sure she was shuffled to my corner keeping us both in check. One of my first interactions with the family was Thanksgiving. I was placed next to a family friend and what would soon be my sister-in-law, it was her first appearance as well. Everyone was asked to state what they were thankful for which I assumed was family tradition. I later found out that was the one and only time that occurred. Seems the hillbillies sitting in the cheap seats received their first sucker punch test. The conversation remained civil and shared old family memories and the occasional spar with my mother-in-law, but never approached the fire brand debates I was used to preparing for each year.
This year the feast was mine to plan and execute. I can cook and needed to do something that showed I had some form of talent. It has been a bad year for me as far as job outlook and future plans and I had been feeling particularly sorry for myself. There would be ten in attendance. I was determined to show my mother that you could send leftovers home with everyone, but at a more reasonable portion, and to show my mother-in-law that a little decadence was good for the soul. I knew I needed to put a meal on the table that both groups would be comfortable with, but something different enough that my own abilities made their case.
First was the logistics of having ten folks in a small cape cod rife with rehab projects. A general cleaning took place as both matriarchs have spotless well appointed homes. We have the projects, hobbies and unhung art work, and toys taking up much of our abode. Once that was performed I realized without the above diversions we were kind of monkish. Sparse matrix came to mind as I looked at the open paths and walls. The only seemingly out of place things, the very large desk I scored at the Habitat store for mere dollars, my treasured 1971 Panasonic Multiplex Hi-Fidelity system and my son’s collected hawk feathers that he demanded we pretend were turkey feathers for the day. The ‘Big” table received its extra leaf and the kids table was placed nearby. Leaves were collected and taped underneath a roll of butcher’s table on the floor while the kid’s colored fall like colors on the top bringing the leaves forms to bear on the new table runner. A simple flower arrangement was placed in the middle of the table. The two inherited china sets one a lace white and silver, the other a sienna and cream toile were mixed for the day. No place cards, but a balance of the two histories.
Finally the food! Traditional tweaked to my liking. Home made cranberry sauce with ginger and orange zest. Stuffing made with Spanish Chorizo and pears. Mashed potatoes mixed with parsnips and shallots. Oven roasted Brussels sprouts in pesto and parmesan. Asparagus roasted in sea salt and olive oil served with simple balsamic vinegar. A roux and white wine based gravy. The nod to my mother-in-law a perfectly cooked twenty pound bird and no other beast to take away from the turkey. (I stopped shooting at animals about the same time I first dyed my hair blue-black, donned an overcoat and began to write rhyming suicide notes I called poetry.) In my moms honor the corn pudding. Carbed over with yeast rolls and finished off with pumpkin pie, chocolate-nut and bourbon pie and a cinnamon sweet potato tart.
There we sat the traditional Republican couple from the Midwest, the Liberal Democrat couple from Kentucky, their married slightly anarchic couple. My brother -in-law and sister-in-law (Teabag republicans) backed out. The Panasonic belted out the vinyl versions of Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Gershwin Song Book and Miles Davis’, The Birth of Cool. The conversation only briefly touched politics. I explained why the Occupy movement is smart by not making demands. A slight discussion about the new Catholic mass, no death or infidelity discussions or vocal sparring and hours of family memories while I watched the two matriarchs soften into comfort and being pleased someone else had the reins I knew the experiment had proven successful.
Maybe it was the first time I was thankful at Thanksgiving or for the past few months. Either way the coup was in place. As a good friend of mine would say, “The day sir is yours.”
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
You'll Wind Up in Some Factory
You'll wind up in some factory that's full time filth and nowhere left to go…
The above phrase danced through my MP3 player on a night a couple of years ago when I was trying to determine a path for my life.
I had been in a job I never cared for nearly 15 years. I tricked myself into thinking the good money (and it was), the good healthcare (it was great), and the chance for advancement were all things important to my family. I did not include me in the equation simply because my position in that building was me atoning for perceived past sins. The part of me that remained true to myself never spent time thinking of retirement. That part of me turned its back when certain promotions were offered when I saw the gains required of me to let go of ideas that were purely my own. It required of me to step on others. When a restructuring occurred that took a quarter of my pay away, changed the health package to one of the worst I have heard of, took away 50% of my earned time off and presented a production schedule that was based on forced overtime to get to the next layoff on time, I jumped ship.
This led to a two year journey of a return to school and getting a base level degree to go back to work. I hoped to find something more charitable, a heart payer. While my education still chugs on I have reached that first level goal, but have entered a job market that is truly a nightmare. Then the job I hoped for came along and I was lucky enough to gain an interview. It appears that I did not get the job. The shell that I was carrying around until I met my friend for a coffee a couple of weeks ago would have thought myself a failure, but the fact is the dream job exists and it will open again and I will try again.
The coffee I mentioned I thought would just be a pleasant outing, but it became quickly eye opening. I found out I was not alone, that we shared some situation in which we put on ourselves some pain or humiliation that we intuitively credited to someone else. As I listened to her I realized I was mistaken and so was she. Our transgressor had done nothing more, but be rude or arrogant. Showed his true colors when no witnesses were around and I and my friend internalized his actions and started the process of allowing it to get to us. Finding out you are not alone really isn’t a surprise, I think back and that epiphany comes again and again in my life.
I wasn’t alone in leaving college in my youth to pursue something that meant more to me. I started a music label. It was semi-successful, my partner and I after two years did not agree on directions and I left. The label went on through his efforts and following our original plan for another decade. I am not the first person to follow such a path. I counted my leaving originally as a failure. I look back now and I was true to myself. Shortly after leaving I met a girl and we dated, as I was about to leave she told me she was pregnant. I did what I considered was right and married her. We lived in misery until she slept with a mutual acquaintance seven years later effectively ending the marriage. In that time our son was still born due to doctors trying to make sure they met an insurance quota (yes, they do exist, I have the documentation). The marriage and my son’s death were two things I internalized as my fault and let them dictate a nearly decade long disappearance on my part. I meet people all the time with similar stories and reactions and realize again I am not alone. I had an active role in the outcome of the marriage, and in the birth I was a helpless bystander. I owe it to me to have learned from both.
I forgave someone. In that act they asked me to make some promises, which I thought was bold and arrogant on their part, but I agreed because I wanted to move on. I at that time made a second promise to myself that I would not be blindsided again by this person. The very promise that was asked showed me this was necessary. More and more signs popped up and I realized to keep the promise I must vacate the situation. Any distaste I held for the person, or any supposed trespass against me was all my doing. My coffee date showed me that.
So coffee lady (she had wine), I say openly to you. Being true to yourself first, is good for you, for your family (blood or engineered), and poison to villains. Failure I am seeing is a necessary tool in success. You and I my friend are never alone.
The above phrase danced through my MP3 player on a night a couple of years ago when I was trying to determine a path for my life.
I had been in a job I never cared for nearly 15 years. I tricked myself into thinking the good money (and it was), the good healthcare (it was great), and the chance for advancement were all things important to my family. I did not include me in the equation simply because my position in that building was me atoning for perceived past sins. The part of me that remained true to myself never spent time thinking of retirement. That part of me turned its back when certain promotions were offered when I saw the gains required of me to let go of ideas that were purely my own. It required of me to step on others. When a restructuring occurred that took a quarter of my pay away, changed the health package to one of the worst I have heard of, took away 50% of my earned time off and presented a production schedule that was based on forced overtime to get to the next layoff on time, I jumped ship.
This led to a two year journey of a return to school and getting a base level degree to go back to work. I hoped to find something more charitable, a heart payer. While my education still chugs on I have reached that first level goal, but have entered a job market that is truly a nightmare. Then the job I hoped for came along and I was lucky enough to gain an interview. It appears that I did not get the job. The shell that I was carrying around until I met my friend for a coffee a couple of weeks ago would have thought myself a failure, but the fact is the dream job exists and it will open again and I will try again.
The coffee I mentioned I thought would just be a pleasant outing, but it became quickly eye opening. I found out I was not alone, that we shared some situation in which we put on ourselves some pain or humiliation that we intuitively credited to someone else. As I listened to her I realized I was mistaken and so was she. Our transgressor had done nothing more, but be rude or arrogant. Showed his true colors when no witnesses were around and I and my friend internalized his actions and started the process of allowing it to get to us. Finding out you are not alone really isn’t a surprise, I think back and that epiphany comes again and again in my life.
I wasn’t alone in leaving college in my youth to pursue something that meant more to me. I started a music label. It was semi-successful, my partner and I after two years did not agree on directions and I left. The label went on through his efforts and following our original plan for another decade. I am not the first person to follow such a path. I counted my leaving originally as a failure. I look back now and I was true to myself. Shortly after leaving I met a girl and we dated, as I was about to leave she told me she was pregnant. I did what I considered was right and married her. We lived in misery until she slept with a mutual acquaintance seven years later effectively ending the marriage. In that time our son was still born due to doctors trying to make sure they met an insurance quota (yes, they do exist, I have the documentation). The marriage and my son’s death were two things I internalized as my fault and let them dictate a nearly decade long disappearance on my part. I meet people all the time with similar stories and reactions and realize again I am not alone. I had an active role in the outcome of the marriage, and in the birth I was a helpless bystander. I owe it to me to have learned from both.
I forgave someone. In that act they asked me to make some promises, which I thought was bold and arrogant on their part, but I agreed because I wanted to move on. I at that time made a second promise to myself that I would not be blindsided again by this person. The very promise that was asked showed me this was necessary. More and more signs popped up and I realized to keep the promise I must vacate the situation. Any distaste I held for the person, or any supposed trespass against me was all my doing. My coffee date showed me that.
So coffee lady (she had wine), I say openly to you. Being true to yourself first, is good for you, for your family (blood or engineered), and poison to villains. Failure I am seeing is a necessary tool in success. You and I my friend are never alone.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Set 8 for Tea Please
I watched the Tea Party Republican debate last night with the sick fascination of a rubber necking driver passing an accident scene on the highway. I do not claim a side. I never have, but the place the Republicans have gone in the past decade has made me appear to be way more liberal than I probably truly feel comfortable with.
CNN hosted the event with Wolf Blitzer as the mediator. The questions were posed by proclaimed Tea Party members present at the debate and in 3 other cities via remote.
While many questions were very well stated I feel Mr. Blitzer was way too involved in reshaping the content of the question and directing how certain candidates would address them having said that, I will give the full disclosure I am not a big Blitzer fan.
Here is the score card. I cannot repeat verbatim the answers, but I jotted down the parts that caught my attention. I am sure the dialogue is available word for word on the internet, so feel free to check it out.
Question 1: Social security and Medicare changes.
Santorum: Will reshape the both programs. He stated repeatedly he has been at the forefront of predicting the problems in both programs, and that he tells the truth.
Gingrich: Obama scares folks everyday. We cannot allow President’s to threaten to withhold checks.
Paul: People need to go on their own. He would not take anything away from the current receivers.
Perry: Would not change for the current or about to receive, but it would change and be reformed for the middle career folks and there on.
Romney: Asked Perry if he had a change a heart since Perry’s book released 6 months ago said both were unconstitutional and need to be done away with.
Bachman: She would reform them, claimed Obama robbed Medicare of 500 billion dollars, and that it would be bankrupt in 9 years.
Cain: Privatize social security.
Huntsman: The fixes already exist in the Ryan Plan.
Question 2: Balancing the Budget and cutting spending:
Santorum: Prescription benefits for seniors would stay in place; cutting out fraud will accomplish the budget.
Gingrich: Modernizing the government will balance the budget. Getting back the 500 billion Obama took as well.
Paul: Make necessary cuts and end the unnecessary wars.
Perry: Eradicate government fraud.
Romney: Spending cuts.
Bachman: Balanced budget amendment, stop all bail outs, people take personal responsibility and take ownership.
Question 3: Plan for the Economy
Gingrich: People create jobs not the government.
Paul: Cut spending and remove government hindrance.
Perry: Would not approve any 800 billion in giveaways, create jobs, and deregulate to allow the private sector to make the jobs.
Romney: Undo NLRB blocks, reform the tax code, balanced budget amendment.
Bachman: Do away with the debt ceiling that gave Obama a blank check to spend more.
Cain: Install 9-9-9 plan, do away with tax code. 9% corporate tax, 9% personal tax, 9% national sales tax.
Huntsman: Do away with Obamacare, end most personal tax deductions, end corporate loopholes.
Question 4: Pro Business or Pro Worker
Cain: Pro worker because he was one before he was an executive, his father was a janitor, worker and chauffeur all at the same time.
Huntsman: Pro both, we need more workers.
Question 5: Should the Fed be audited?
Santorum: Should be changed from its double charter back to a single charter as it originally started.
Perry: Stands by his statement Fed chair Bernanke has conducted treasoness acts.
Romney: Fix it yes, but do not give Congress control.
Bachman: Reduce its power greatly. She was against the bailout.
Cain: Audit it and fix it.
Question 6: How much of the dollar I earn should I get to keep?
Gingrich: Get rid of Green tax credits.
Huntsman: Reform tax code, end many personal deductions and close loopholes.
Question 7: Where do you stand on the fair tax?
Romney: Reduce middle class taxes.
Question 8: Executive Orders:
Santorum: The Texas policy is wrong and should be opt in instead of opt out.
Paul: Executive orders are legal, but should not be used to legislate.
Perry: I will use it to get rid of Obamacare.
Bachman: Obama has used it to force insurance companies to provide the morning after pill for free.
Question 9: How will you reduce the cost of healthcare?
Paul: The cost comes from frivolous law suits and a weakened dollar. People should be free to choose and live by those choices and not expect the government to take care of them.
Perry: Obamacare and what Massachusetts did is wrong.
Romney: People need to be aware of what it cost, to them you pay a deductible then it’s free.
Bachman: Repeal Obamacare, we do not need socialized medicine.
Cain: Repeal Obamacare and end frivolous lawsuits.
Question 10: Immigration:
Santorum: Secure the border, build a wall.
Perry: The federal government has failed miserably; putting 4500 pairs of boots on the ground will help.
Question 11: How will you gain the Latino vote?
Santorum: I am pro immigration as the son and grandson of Italian immigrants. We need to make English our official language.
Perry: In Texas, if you have lived 3 years regardless how your parents brought you, if you are going through the steps to be legal citizen, then you get tuition money for school to keep you off the government dole.
Romney: Latinos do not want handouts they want opportunity.
Bachman: There should be no handouts, the liberals changed the immigration laws in the 1960’s that has caused these issues, and we need to go back.
Huntsman: In Utah we provided a driver privilege card that was not to be used as personal id.
Question 12: Energy Independence.
Cain: Remove federal government blocks, rein in the out of control EPA and deregulate.
Question 13: Would you decrease military/defense spending?
Santorum: We need to stay put, Jihadist want to kill us and bring an end to our way of life.
Gingrich: We need to refocus on the true threats.
Paul: We are involved in 130 different countries militarily, defense and military spending are two different things, we need to cut unnecessary military spending and go forward with defense.
Question 14: How will we secure safety for the woman and children of Afghanistan?
Perry: We need to have prescience there, but bring our men and woman home. We need to help with infrastructure and build schools for those young ladies.
Huntsman: We need to get out of Afghanistan and fix problems here first.
Question 15: What personal thing would you bring to the Whitehouse?
Santorum: I have 7 children so probably a new bedroom and more beds.
Gingrich: More music and a chess set.
Paul: A bushel basket of common sense.
Perry: Most beautiful first lady this country has ever seen.
Romney: I would return the bust of Winston Churchill back to the Oval office.
Bachman: A copy of the Bill of Rights, a copy of the Constitution, and a copy of the Declaration of Independence.
Cain: A sense of humor America is too uptight.
Huntsman: My Harley Davidson and my trail bike.
As I stated these are just phrases that caught my ear and by no means do I represent them as complete answers. If some of them seem a little crazy given the question, in most cases it is because Blitzer kept interjecting and changing the question as the candidates tried to answer. I state this again specifically to the two assclowns that want to send me personal emails rather than hit the comments section. For the rest of you I actually have two trolls that want to call me a socialist and Nazi every chance they get in email form, but never just leave a comment.
At times the debate got heated and Romney and Perry dominated the evening. Santorum was more even keeled tonight than normal, but hit his ignorant place again with the Jihadist comment.
I think Obama was mentioned way too often. We get that you don’t agree and never will.
Kudos to CNN for not jumping on yet another gaff by Bachman, but I will not let it slide. Mrs. Bachman, the Bill of Rights are the first 10 amendments of the Constitution, they are not separate documents.
Bachman also brought up the 500 billion stolen phrase again. She loves to perpetuate the blind sides that have been proven wrong. Obamacare does not bankrupt Medicare in 9 years according to the CBO it adds 8 years of solvency that currently does not exist.
We also found out in a Bachman and Perry spat (that I think Bachman whooped his ass on) that Perry cannot be bought for $5000.00. Sadly he did not report what his going price is, but looked cock sure he would get it!
Romney, Cain, Huntsman, scare the bejeezus outta me, but came off prepared and informed. Perry was attacked on all sides and did well fighting back for the most part. As I said I believe Bachman dug up a weak spot on him and exploited it well. Gingrich, was good for jabs at Obama, but looked like an also ran the whole debate. Ron Paul said some brilliant shit, and some scary stupid shit like he always does. His brilliance does not play well with his party, the scary stuff we’ll get to in a second. Santorum as I said hid his usual self through most of the debate then opened the idiot box at the end.
Now the scary, Blitzer set a scenario where a young man in his twenties decides since he is healthy he did not need major medical insurance, gets in an accident, and goes to ICU and is in a coma for 6 months, who pays? Paul started out with, ownership and accepting the consequences of your decisions. Blitzer asks, “So you just let him die?” Now it wasn’t a big section, but some of the audience whooped, hollered and yelled “YES!” This is just a few days after another group cheered the fact Perry in his stewardship of Texas has executed more death row inmates than any other governor. Good pro-life stances!
No mentions of Gay marriage or God tonight…kind of surreal!
Monday, February 21, 2011
Lenny Bruce is not afraid....
A little over a decade ago the world prepared itself for the end of modern civilization. The binary code which has always existed in defiance of the tower of babel had nothing to say for the new millennia. Communications, alarm systems, power drives would all cease to be at the stroke of midnight on January 1st, 2000 and our long dormant hunter gatherer backgrounds would resurface.
While many of my friends (even the sane ones) had stored water, bullets and genetically engineered foodstuffs, I myself was ill prepared. I had not stocked up on anything. I spent the evening alone with a bottle of Bush mill’s Black with Billie Holiday, The Gun Club, This Mortal Coil, and Morphine and Johnny Cash alternating on my soon to be dead, 5 disc changer. Twelve midnight came while Billie was pushing my soul to look at the “Strange Fruit”, and oddly enough she didn’t stop coaxing me. A few minutes of car horns and firecrackers from a few streets over was the only other sound and then my cell phone rang. Y2K, the invisible monster had not made the scene. I had survived the end of civilization.
Cut to last Thursday. A friend I have not talked to in a while called. He said he wanted to talk to the few that mattered, because Armageddon had begun. “What do you mean it has begun?” I asked. “Yeah, Iran has two warships going through the Suez Canal on their way to Syria! You, know Egypt is on its ear right now, so that just leaves the Iranians to do what they want, and Israel will blow those rafts outta the water!” , came his excited reply. He is a paper carrying political scientist that is hardly prone to conspiracy theory and can recite most modern Middle Eastern history without pause. He expounded on how the revolutions of democracy in the Arab world would be the United States undoing. Mostly because just as tired as they are of dictators in that part of the world, they are tired of having no money and will look to new avenues of gaining funds. Currently the only way to buy Arab oil is with US dollars. Meaning every country in the world has to use their funds to buy US dollars. There are those in the European Union which would like to see the Euro, become the currency of choice and China would of course like to see the Yen, but in Oil rich world the impoverished are tired of their lives and would like to see some hope come their way, so maybe the massive move to a more democratic reality will bring a call to have their own currency take the helm.
How will this be our undoing? We do not have to buy dollars we print them. Oil will go through the roof for us in price if we have to buy someone else’s currency as our already fictional dollar values will vanish. Most of our population depends on cities, which depend on supply to meet our demands and supply means oil. Are we on that verge? Have the last 35 years of debate over alternative fuels, greenhouse emissions, and dependence on foreign fuels without quick action finally kicked our keisters? Possibly, and possibly we had no choice in the matter.
The Mayans and the Hopis have given us the end of time scenarios. There is a lot of… to put it nicely “stuff” out on the net now that the Bible puts the final battle between good and evil in 2012. Predictions of solar storms picking up in that year will be knocking out power grids and taking down satellites at an alarming rate. The “super volcano” in Yellowstone has been swelling and the ground has lifted over the last few years. Although scientist say we are not in emanate danger, the calendar created by folks whom with stone tools measured the lunar year to within 34 seconds of accuracy may suggest otherwise. Thrown in that we are overdue for a major catastrophe according to some physicists and the poles magnetic fields are on the move and the recipe starts to take on the form of congealed doomsday gravy that cannot be ignored! Or can it?
Can we ignore the end of times long enough for 12/22/2012 to happen? I would like to give you the sober and sane answer of yes, but know one here truly knows. I will probably be just as ill prepared the night prior, but unlike some I will have done things a little different leading up to that day.
My spirit will be good. Take that religiously, philosophically, or politically. I have already apologized to those I should. Those that I love know it. Unlike most of my fellow Americans, the race of acquisition for the sake of acquisition is over. My family is currently in the process of saying no to life on credit and eating foods brought to us by diversified conglomerates. We are searching ways to live on the grid, without being chained to it.
I am doing what I want to do, and starting to pursue the aspects of life I ignored. I am in my first band in years and I don’t have to be the singer, it has no plans of being “signed” will probably never be goofy enough to play a show, and it’s my favorite music project I have ever come to be a part of. I am writing fiction in the wee hours and reading the books I always said I would. I am practicing 3 new languages with plans for a fourth. My children are being given opportunity to set their ambitions without my over lording their dreams. The twins want to be artists, and the six year old currently wants help building a “machine that will make vegetables taste like hotdogs!”
I am watching my politicians thoroughly decimate what we got right in this country and have come to the conclusion that my own decisions in every scenario is what got me to the place I am in. A beautiful family, extraordinary friends and sorry if arrogance hurts you, but an understanding that I live in a time when not being a sheep and having an intellect above the rush of many is seen as treason. Oh well.
This is how I hope it plays out. The last week of the world as we know it the family and I will read books, eat some adventurous meals, and listen to some of our favorite music and talk. I will hope to take my wife to a nice restaurant; you know the kind before kids. The friends should all don their best ironic t-shirts and have a party. Maybe the goofy band could play a song or two. Many snobbish hops elixirs should be consumed that evening. If or when the sun rises on the 22nd of December 2012 and my eyes open I will only have two things to determine if I need to start building a tribe or if breakfast will be healthy or fried.
Here are a few sources you may want to visit before obliteration:
http://www.2012store.net/?gclid=COz1vbHemacCFYGW7QodAymccg they are still allowing credit card transactions at this time!
http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Quizzes/BeliefOMatic.aspx the belief-o-matic helps you determine what religion is right for you!
http://www.secretsofsurvival.com/survival/collapse_of_civilization.html Know the secrets!
As of this writing you have 668 days 16 hours and 54 minutes to put a plan of action together. Good luck!
While many of my friends (even the sane ones) had stored water, bullets and genetically engineered foodstuffs, I myself was ill prepared. I had not stocked up on anything. I spent the evening alone with a bottle of Bush mill’s Black with Billie Holiday, The Gun Club, This Mortal Coil, and Morphine and Johnny Cash alternating on my soon to be dead, 5 disc changer. Twelve midnight came while Billie was pushing my soul to look at the “Strange Fruit”, and oddly enough she didn’t stop coaxing me. A few minutes of car horns and firecrackers from a few streets over was the only other sound and then my cell phone rang. Y2K, the invisible monster had not made the scene. I had survived the end of civilization.
Cut to last Thursday. A friend I have not talked to in a while called. He said he wanted to talk to the few that mattered, because Armageddon had begun. “What do you mean it has begun?” I asked. “Yeah, Iran has two warships going through the Suez Canal on their way to Syria! You, know Egypt is on its ear right now, so that just leaves the Iranians to do what they want, and Israel will blow those rafts outta the water!” , came his excited reply. He is a paper carrying political scientist that is hardly prone to conspiracy theory and can recite most modern Middle Eastern history without pause. He expounded on how the revolutions of democracy in the Arab world would be the United States undoing. Mostly because just as tired as they are of dictators in that part of the world, they are tired of having no money and will look to new avenues of gaining funds. Currently the only way to buy Arab oil is with US dollars. Meaning every country in the world has to use their funds to buy US dollars. There are those in the European Union which would like to see the Euro, become the currency of choice and China would of course like to see the Yen, but in Oil rich world the impoverished are tired of their lives and would like to see some hope come their way, so maybe the massive move to a more democratic reality will bring a call to have their own currency take the helm.
How will this be our undoing? We do not have to buy dollars we print them. Oil will go through the roof for us in price if we have to buy someone else’s currency as our already fictional dollar values will vanish. Most of our population depends on cities, which depend on supply to meet our demands and supply means oil. Are we on that verge? Have the last 35 years of debate over alternative fuels, greenhouse emissions, and dependence on foreign fuels without quick action finally kicked our keisters? Possibly, and possibly we had no choice in the matter.
The Mayans and the Hopis have given us the end of time scenarios. There is a lot of… to put it nicely “stuff” out on the net now that the Bible puts the final battle between good and evil in 2012. Predictions of solar storms picking up in that year will be knocking out power grids and taking down satellites at an alarming rate. The “super volcano” in Yellowstone has been swelling and the ground has lifted over the last few years. Although scientist say we are not in emanate danger, the calendar created by folks whom with stone tools measured the lunar year to within 34 seconds of accuracy may suggest otherwise. Thrown in that we are overdue for a major catastrophe according to some physicists and the poles magnetic fields are on the move and the recipe starts to take on the form of congealed doomsday gravy that cannot be ignored! Or can it?
Can we ignore the end of times long enough for 12/22/2012 to happen? I would like to give you the sober and sane answer of yes, but know one here truly knows. I will probably be just as ill prepared the night prior, but unlike some I will have done things a little different leading up to that day.
My spirit will be good. Take that religiously, philosophically, or politically. I have already apologized to those I should. Those that I love know it. Unlike most of my fellow Americans, the race of acquisition for the sake of acquisition is over. My family is currently in the process of saying no to life on credit and eating foods brought to us by diversified conglomerates. We are searching ways to live on the grid, without being chained to it.
I am doing what I want to do, and starting to pursue the aspects of life I ignored. I am in my first band in years and I don’t have to be the singer, it has no plans of being “signed” will probably never be goofy enough to play a show, and it’s my favorite music project I have ever come to be a part of. I am writing fiction in the wee hours and reading the books I always said I would. I am practicing 3 new languages with plans for a fourth. My children are being given opportunity to set their ambitions without my over lording their dreams. The twins want to be artists, and the six year old currently wants help building a “machine that will make vegetables taste like hotdogs!”
I am watching my politicians thoroughly decimate what we got right in this country and have come to the conclusion that my own decisions in every scenario is what got me to the place I am in. A beautiful family, extraordinary friends and sorry if arrogance hurts you, but an understanding that I live in a time when not being a sheep and having an intellect above the rush of many is seen as treason. Oh well.
This is how I hope it plays out. The last week of the world as we know it the family and I will read books, eat some adventurous meals, and listen to some of our favorite music and talk. I will hope to take my wife to a nice restaurant; you know the kind before kids. The friends should all don their best ironic t-shirts and have a party. Maybe the goofy band could play a song or two. Many snobbish hops elixirs should be consumed that evening. If or when the sun rises on the 22nd of December 2012 and my eyes open I will only have two things to determine if I need to start building a tribe or if breakfast will be healthy or fried.
Here are a few sources you may want to visit before obliteration:
http://www.2012store.net/?gclid=COz1vbHemacCFYGW7QodAymccg they are still allowing credit card transactions at this time!
http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Quizzes/BeliefOMatic.aspx the belief-o-matic helps you determine what religion is right for you!
http://www.secretsofsurvival.com/survival/collapse_of_civilization.html Know the secrets!
As of this writing you have 668 days 16 hours and 54 minutes to put a plan of action together. Good luck!
Monday, January 31, 2011
Comfort Food for the Soul
I do not make resolutions in the implied sense of sitting down and going through a laundry list of things that need refurbished in my life. I often embark on such adventures without any plan and like the well plotted courses of others I have failed and I have succeeded.
Entering the New Year there was on my mind a resolve to react differently in the world, I knew I would return to these “broadcasts” when the static of our state of hyperbole had eased within me a little. A dysfunctional government, the shootings in Arizona, the Middle East in a new turning point I was getting unsure of when the time would come.
Then it dawned on me the time was easing in through all those situations and more to come. The static is controlled by me alone. I have always lived by fight or flight, and in most cases of flight it was only after I had my word. I realized my influence in this world is beyond my control. My actions and words only impact those who allow it. I will no longer spend time debating my own decision with someone outside the situation. No crazy making on my part and I will demand that rule of my interactions as well. I will always be available as a friend, but I refuse to take part in debate and argument that has an outcome of no consequence to the world.
3 days ago I went out with 12 other folks. We represent a wide range of socio-economic, philosophical, political, and religious backgrounds. Our in commons have been bolstered by life experience. I have another similar group of friends that combined with the first group makes up the arranged family we all look to when our own does not fill the need. Thinking of both groups the disagreements are few or dealt with quickly, the laughter is organic and the “lets do this again,” is sincere. Each one of these folks are beautiful to me in ways both unexpected and needed. This family makes one rich the kind of wealth that actually matters when the final tallies are taken.
I will still be challenged, craziness will present itself, but I know what I have in life makes me happy. My resolve now is simply never losing sight of this wealth.
Entering the New Year there was on my mind a resolve to react differently in the world, I knew I would return to these “broadcasts” when the static of our state of hyperbole had eased within me a little. A dysfunctional government, the shootings in Arizona, the Middle East in a new turning point I was getting unsure of when the time would come.
Then it dawned on me the time was easing in through all those situations and more to come. The static is controlled by me alone. I have always lived by fight or flight, and in most cases of flight it was only after I had my word. I realized my influence in this world is beyond my control. My actions and words only impact those who allow it. I will no longer spend time debating my own decision with someone outside the situation. No crazy making on my part and I will demand that rule of my interactions as well. I will always be available as a friend, but I refuse to take part in debate and argument that has an outcome of no consequence to the world.
3 days ago I went out with 12 other folks. We represent a wide range of socio-economic, philosophical, political, and religious backgrounds. Our in commons have been bolstered by life experience. I have another similar group of friends that combined with the first group makes up the arranged family we all look to when our own does not fill the need. Thinking of both groups the disagreements are few or dealt with quickly, the laughter is organic and the “lets do this again,” is sincere. Each one of these folks are beautiful to me in ways both unexpected and needed. This family makes one rich the kind of wealth that actually matters when the final tallies are taken.
I will still be challenged, craziness will present itself, but I know what I have in life makes me happy. My resolve now is simply never losing sight of this wealth.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
President Obama...I Get It
To all the progressive liberals crying in their Wheaties, today about Obama’s tax deals cut with the GOP , reap it babies! You have had two years to change it and you could not. It is not up to Obama alone to win over a miniscule amount of Republican votes to move on legislation, he has had a majority for the last two years that has been completely partisan in every aspect and done little reaching across the aisle. On the midterm elections the Donkey party ran from Obama and the few accomplishments the administration has gained and now openly criticizes the President’s Clintonesque deal. The party of “pretty please” has never mustered enough strength to overcome the Republican blockade and paid little attention to moves made by the GOP on their side of the aisle.
The midterm elections have swept both parties out of the house in recent history because of imbalances of policy. Clinton moved to the middle and forced into the public eye the fact that the Newt Gingrich led Republicans were blocking all progress in our government and had to meet Clinton or commit political suicide. Yes letting the tax breaks end was popular in most polls, just as a little over half of America support the Healthcare reforms in polls, but as your President pointed out yesterday Gallup Polls do not run America, Congress does. We the people may support ideas, but it is achievement we vote for.
Democratic Representative Grijalva yesterday was quoted as saying, “I think the Republicans would have caved.” A couple of left leaning blogs today are crying the Republicans would have reinstated unemployment before Christmas. I say you are delusional. The Republicans do not melt. They dig in, a Christmas without unemployment and a stall in the economic recovery may be caused by the GOP, but they would point to the Democrats not creating jobs and taxing the top job creators as the reason it all went down. Then it is back on the Democratic plate to explain, and you cannot explain it. The numbers are plain for all to see, but all the Republicans have to do is say the numbers come from biased sources and not fact based and most voters buy into it. It’s a load of bunk, but it has worked since Reagan and it will continue to work as long as the Democratic party fails to communicate to the voter. Rush, Beck, Coulter, and Palin collectively have proven that you can appeal to worst fear scenarios without a factual base and American voters (not necessarily the people) buy in. The Tea Party membership on a whole has displayed the total inability to understand what legislation actually helps so the 4 personas mentioned above are more than glad to step in and create an understanding.
The numbers and outcomes are published for all to see, but few go to look. I wonder if our Democratic leadership even takes the time.
Here are the findings of the Congressional Budget Office and the Center On Budget Policy Priorities, both non-partisan entities that the GOP comes out against anytime the numbers do not meet Republican goals as partisan. Never mind both groups have equally bad reports on Democratic aims.
The short-term effect on letting the tax cuts for $1 million per year and above lapse and extending unemployment, child tax credit, earned income credit, and the higher education tax credit. $30 billion less added to the deficit from 2010-2015 than extending all the tax cuts. 500,000 more jobs created in the first year.
The long-term effect of making the above tax credits permanent and letting the tax cuts lapse. $441 billion less to deficits in the years 2010-2020 and 1.2 million jobs created next year.
We the people have been fed the crap for years that allowing the top to keep more money creates more jobs. It was called trickle down once upon a time. Clinton taxed the top and economic growth happened. Why? If the middle has the money the consumer market moves. The top works in the world of profit margin. If they are paying the same tax as the rest of us then they hire to meet the demand and make their margin. If they can make their margin by paying lesser taxes and the middle does not have the money to buy not only does the job creation incentive go away, but profit margin increase can only occur by cutting jobs. Have we seen jobs created grow in the last decade since these magic tax cuts have happened? No, the Democrats have failed to jump up and down on this, but Republicans have beat that drum until everyone is singing along.
In 2009 the CBO produced a report on the distribution of income from Reagan through the end of 2008. The top 0.01% (11,000 households) earned an average of 8.6 million per year and accounted for 411.9 billion dollars of income per year. The bottom 20% (24.1 million households) earned an average of $17,000 per year and accounted for 384.5 billion dollars per year.
Looking at the top 0.01% their income level rose 384% over the top 0.01% in 1979. The 20% of Americans that are in the exact middle of American income had their income raise 15% in the same amount of time. Looking at the dollar tells the story even more. A gallon of gas in that time frame has seen a 115% price change, milk 147% change, bread a whopping 320% change. See the top 0.01% dollar has not lost but gained in spending power while the rest of us have lost. 44 cents of the dollar earned by the top is earned through capital gains which is taxed at 17% ordinary paychecks are taxed at 35%. Combine the amounts the top is paying 26 cents on the dollar in taxes while the middle is paying 35 cents. Give your self the same tax break on your annual take home pay and you will see how much nicer your life could be.
Something for nothing, no incentive to get a job, rewarding the lazy, all talking points in the conservative media for not extending unemployment benefits to the unemployed. Never mind that the GOP just forced a possible repeal of estate taxes on the wealthiest that could more aptly wear the above talking points. The unemployed are in a job market where the odds are against them getting a job, five applicants for every one job. Let alone many good job opportunities are being advertised with the words “unemployed need not apply.”
Wake up Democrats, your ass whooping came a month ago, and the Republicans make everyone of their shortcomings look like your fault. You are only feeding their machine by bemoaning your president’s actions. The economy will profit (most likely not prosper) with the UI extension. The many tax credits that were saved yesterday will make a difference in the middle as well. When the Republicans take over next month and start working on killing the extension and the credits it will be up to them to explain why the middle needs another punch in the gut while the top gets a fanny massage. Unfortunately they will explain it in a united front filled with gloom and doom about Obama’s socialist agenda and the American voter will buy it. Even more unfortunate the Democrats will still be standing with mouths agape with no argument whatsoever.
The midterm elections have swept both parties out of the house in recent history because of imbalances of policy. Clinton moved to the middle and forced into the public eye the fact that the Newt Gingrich led Republicans were blocking all progress in our government and had to meet Clinton or commit political suicide. Yes letting the tax breaks end was popular in most polls, just as a little over half of America support the Healthcare reforms in polls, but as your President pointed out yesterday Gallup Polls do not run America, Congress does. We the people may support ideas, but it is achievement we vote for.
Democratic Representative Grijalva yesterday was quoted as saying, “I think the Republicans would have caved.” A couple of left leaning blogs today are crying the Republicans would have reinstated unemployment before Christmas. I say you are delusional. The Republicans do not melt. They dig in, a Christmas without unemployment and a stall in the economic recovery may be caused by the GOP, but they would point to the Democrats not creating jobs and taxing the top job creators as the reason it all went down. Then it is back on the Democratic plate to explain, and you cannot explain it. The numbers are plain for all to see, but all the Republicans have to do is say the numbers come from biased sources and not fact based and most voters buy into it. It’s a load of bunk, but it has worked since Reagan and it will continue to work as long as the Democratic party fails to communicate to the voter. Rush, Beck, Coulter, and Palin collectively have proven that you can appeal to worst fear scenarios without a factual base and American voters (not necessarily the people) buy in. The Tea Party membership on a whole has displayed the total inability to understand what legislation actually helps so the 4 personas mentioned above are more than glad to step in and create an understanding.
The numbers and outcomes are published for all to see, but few go to look. I wonder if our Democratic leadership even takes the time.
Here are the findings of the Congressional Budget Office and the Center On Budget Policy Priorities, both non-partisan entities that the GOP comes out against anytime the numbers do not meet Republican goals as partisan. Never mind both groups have equally bad reports on Democratic aims.
The short-term effect on letting the tax cuts for $1 million per year and above lapse and extending unemployment, child tax credit, earned income credit, and the higher education tax credit. $30 billion less added to the deficit from 2010-2015 than extending all the tax cuts. 500,000 more jobs created in the first year.
The long-term effect of making the above tax credits permanent and letting the tax cuts lapse. $441 billion less to deficits in the years 2010-2020 and 1.2 million jobs created next year.
We the people have been fed the crap for years that allowing the top to keep more money creates more jobs. It was called trickle down once upon a time. Clinton taxed the top and economic growth happened. Why? If the middle has the money the consumer market moves. The top works in the world of profit margin. If they are paying the same tax as the rest of us then they hire to meet the demand and make their margin. If they can make their margin by paying lesser taxes and the middle does not have the money to buy not only does the job creation incentive go away, but profit margin increase can only occur by cutting jobs. Have we seen jobs created grow in the last decade since these magic tax cuts have happened? No, the Democrats have failed to jump up and down on this, but Republicans have beat that drum until everyone is singing along.
In 2009 the CBO produced a report on the distribution of income from Reagan through the end of 2008. The top 0.01% (11,000 households) earned an average of 8.6 million per year and accounted for 411.9 billion dollars of income per year. The bottom 20% (24.1 million households) earned an average of $17,000 per year and accounted for 384.5 billion dollars per year.
Looking at the top 0.01% their income level rose 384% over the top 0.01% in 1979. The 20% of Americans that are in the exact middle of American income had their income raise 15% in the same amount of time. Looking at the dollar tells the story even more. A gallon of gas in that time frame has seen a 115% price change, milk 147% change, bread a whopping 320% change. See the top 0.01% dollar has not lost but gained in spending power while the rest of us have lost. 44 cents of the dollar earned by the top is earned through capital gains which is taxed at 17% ordinary paychecks are taxed at 35%. Combine the amounts the top is paying 26 cents on the dollar in taxes while the middle is paying 35 cents. Give your self the same tax break on your annual take home pay and you will see how much nicer your life could be.
Something for nothing, no incentive to get a job, rewarding the lazy, all talking points in the conservative media for not extending unemployment benefits to the unemployed. Never mind that the GOP just forced a possible repeal of estate taxes on the wealthiest that could more aptly wear the above talking points. The unemployed are in a job market where the odds are against them getting a job, five applicants for every one job. Let alone many good job opportunities are being advertised with the words “unemployed need not apply.”
Wake up Democrats, your ass whooping came a month ago, and the Republicans make everyone of their shortcomings look like your fault. You are only feeding their machine by bemoaning your president’s actions. The economy will profit (most likely not prosper) with the UI extension. The many tax credits that were saved yesterday will make a difference in the middle as well. When the Republicans take over next month and start working on killing the extension and the credits it will be up to them to explain why the middle needs another punch in the gut while the top gets a fanny massage. Unfortunately they will explain it in a united front filled with gloom and doom about Obama’s socialist agenda and the American voter will buy it. Even more unfortunate the Democrats will still be standing with mouths agape with no argument whatsoever.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Diver Down
It was a beautiful night in an unbelievable setting spent with old friends until the wee-est of hours. We swapped the remember when tales, the innuendo banter and the lexicon of pop culture addiction like pros. Like most nights like this or in predictable scripts of ensemble casts the moment came where someone saw either the opportunity to show off a little or invite their friends into a spiritual experience.
Our idyllic setting possessed cliffs and emerald waters below with a platform inviting one to throw their self into Neptune’s embrace. There was one and then two, both of which beckoned to us onlookers to come on, it was life changing, freeing pure wonderful. Number three lined up and froze, again and again, but would not be denied and finally took flight. Then four and five all sharing in the thrill and chattering like squirrels in their excitement.
I got the, I’ll go if you go, and then another source told me I would be sorry and finally the wuss label. None of which has ever really worked on me. I was actually getting all the enjoyment and spiritual bliss I needed watching the others go. The daredevil stuff has never given me that rush or opened the door of life experience. I have my history with it some of which was in pretty destructive times. The ole, look at me! I need your help! Not my friends though. These were grown adults doing something that freed them for not just the few seconds before the splash, but actually letting go of some of those unseen bonds we all carry.
My desire I am learning to pursue once again. I am choosing desires from a more rational place than before. Purges of a life’s collection of things, actually learning to sleep, become a more social creature that requires little attention. My past was based on self destructive behaviors and I was the poster-child of look at me histrionics and self fulfilling fates. Pushing the world and all things good for me as far away as I could was the regimen, bad boyfriend, bad friend, bad attitude and a death wish was my view for a good number of years. It wasn’t working for me anymore. Short of death what could one do? I became the complete opposite; working jobs I loathed fighting to climb ladders I despised and every time the prize was in reach a change of direction. I never jumped off a cliff to shed fears, but I would readily throw myself off one as a way of keeping myself to me. I layered myself in pity, objects, clothes and body to push the world away. Trading destruction for destruction until a few years ago, when I realized how few people knew me. That for someone who was semi well travelled, who had history with so many folks along the way I had very few friends. My family only saw me intermittently between shifts at work. I had a huge pile of stuff that had more bad memories connected to it then a sense of accomplishment.
So I decided I needed to shed the layers get to know the world around me and be a part of it. I am a better friend, father, and husband. I am finding the not so secret adventures offer the same thrills as the daredevil ones of yore. I am realizing the fear I could not pin down was succeeding at life, like I would be a sell out for being happy as opposed to living the sell out life in misery. I’ve learned I can still be all that I envision and involved with the world at the same time. It seems like a silly epiphany, but the utter distrust I have carried all these years it is my cliff dive. It was a step in a spiritual direction which I shared with good friends from the past and the present on a beautiful night in an unbelievable setting in the wee-est of hours.
Our idyllic setting possessed cliffs and emerald waters below with a platform inviting one to throw their self into Neptune’s embrace. There was one and then two, both of which beckoned to us onlookers to come on, it was life changing, freeing pure wonderful. Number three lined up and froze, again and again, but would not be denied and finally took flight. Then four and five all sharing in the thrill and chattering like squirrels in their excitement.
I got the, I’ll go if you go, and then another source told me I would be sorry and finally the wuss label. None of which has ever really worked on me. I was actually getting all the enjoyment and spiritual bliss I needed watching the others go. The daredevil stuff has never given me that rush or opened the door of life experience. I have my history with it some of which was in pretty destructive times. The ole, look at me! I need your help! Not my friends though. These were grown adults doing something that freed them for not just the few seconds before the splash, but actually letting go of some of those unseen bonds we all carry.
My desire I am learning to pursue once again. I am choosing desires from a more rational place than before. Purges of a life’s collection of things, actually learning to sleep, become a more social creature that requires little attention. My past was based on self destructive behaviors and I was the poster-child of look at me histrionics and self fulfilling fates. Pushing the world and all things good for me as far away as I could was the regimen, bad boyfriend, bad friend, bad attitude and a death wish was my view for a good number of years. It wasn’t working for me anymore. Short of death what could one do? I became the complete opposite; working jobs I loathed fighting to climb ladders I despised and every time the prize was in reach a change of direction. I never jumped off a cliff to shed fears, but I would readily throw myself off one as a way of keeping myself to me. I layered myself in pity, objects, clothes and body to push the world away. Trading destruction for destruction until a few years ago, when I realized how few people knew me. That for someone who was semi well travelled, who had history with so many folks along the way I had very few friends. My family only saw me intermittently between shifts at work. I had a huge pile of stuff that had more bad memories connected to it then a sense of accomplishment.
So I decided I needed to shed the layers get to know the world around me and be a part of it. I am a better friend, father, and husband. I am finding the not so secret adventures offer the same thrills as the daredevil ones of yore. I am realizing the fear I could not pin down was succeeding at life, like I would be a sell out for being happy as opposed to living the sell out life in misery. I’ve learned I can still be all that I envision and involved with the world at the same time. It seems like a silly epiphany, but the utter distrust I have carried all these years it is my cliff dive. It was a step in a spiritual direction which I shared with good friends from the past and the present on a beautiful night in an unbelievable setting in the wee-est of hours.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Citizenship 101
The 14th amendment to the Constitution serves many purposes. One of which was to overturn the Dred Scott decision, which stated the child of slave parents could not be considered a citizen of the United States. The 14th amendment was a major step in African-American history although it by no means solved the problems the members of that race would face in America it was a strong opening shot in the next century of African-American struggle.
Today I find the GOP has voiced and gained some support in the repeal of the amendment in an attempt of forcing tougher enforcement on illegal aliens. The Dred Scott question has been reworded to ask, “Should the children of illegal aliens born in the U.S. be considered a citizen of the U.S.? “ Obviously there was nothing legal about the presence of the African-Americans. They were kidnap victims detained against their will. Illegal aliens are here by their own choice, but I find myself asking what choices do they have in their home countries? That’s not a bleeding heart question to ask one’s self. I cannot place myself in their shoes; I have adequate shelter, medical care, food for my family and clothes for my back. Maybe if those facts were not facts at all, I would be willing to risk anything to get to a land where I could find work that would supply all those things for my family. I would be willing to take jobs no one else wanted and work 3 or 4 of them at a time to scratch out an existence.
I also received a chained email today from someone that wants me to chain it along. The email contains a supposed letter to the editor about illegal immigration today comparing it to virtues and good of the old Ellis Island brand of immigrant. The letter was not published according the chain starter due to the liberal leanings of the paper. It goes on to rant of the current immigrants’ lack of integration into American society. How they hold to the flags, music and native tongues of their former countries and refuse to learn English and assimilate to our way of life. Not like the Ellis Island groups whom did not look for a handout from the government and in times of war did go back and fight for their homelands, but proudly fought for America as Americans.
The letter leaves out the fact the Ellis Island groups were just as maligned and mistrusted as many of today’s groups. It does not say anything about the first major group the Irish living in dire poverty in the major cities or in some of the most untenable land throughout Appalachia making due on the jobs no one else wanted, or the more highly skilled Germans that lived in a step better conditions, but along with the Irish was attacked politically and physically including in famed riots in my home city of Louisville for being Catholic. It does not bring up the speeches of Teddy Roosevelt brow beating the hyphenated Americans who “have to be all American as there is no such thing as a half American.” Meaning you are an American live and speak the way we do or leave.
The letter also fails to state the three major groups of immigrants that “fought for America as Americans.” Italians, Poles, and Jews dominated by far the groups of immigrants into America prior to the Great War (WWI). Maybe if the author of the letter had looked at history they would realize the Italians shared a body of land, but not nationality as at that point Italy was still a loose confederation of states and not a unified country. Many of the immigrants came from the poorest regions. At the turn of the last century New York was home to more Italians then Rome. It is said that a common Italian dialect was learned amongst the immigrants for the first time, and in truth they became Italian first and Italian-American next. The Poles were in essence refugees. Poland had been carved into three different sections by three different empires. Russia, Prussia(Northern Germany), and Austria. At the outbreak of the war many Polish immigrants returned to Europe to join independent forces fighting to free Poland in the Blue Army and in Haller’s Army. The Jews had not had a true homeland for 2000 years and found themselves victims of many of the governments of Europe and readily joined the American cause to go home and right some wrongs. The letter does not say anything about the purveying attitudes of most Americans at the time that the conflict was a foreign one and one we should avoid. There was a swift return to American isolationism afterwards. It says nothing about the current numbers of Latin and Filipino volunteers fighting for America in Iraq and Afghanistan to gain citizenship. What I was most shocked by was the letter was sent to me by someone I love and respect. Someone born of marriage of a true immigrant and a first generation American born of Polish immigrants should not be so quick to aid in slamming the door on the rest of the world.
Both sides of my family fought in the Revolutionary War and as far as I know every conflict since, I am the descendent of nobility and indentured servants. My families therefore were parts of the first wave of illegal aliens. We showed up staked our claims and pushed the indigenous to our outer edges. That is my heritage. I cannot support the repeal of the 14th amendment, the idiocy in Arizona or the arguments of people who use economics and immigration to support racism.I am a citizen by the virtue of survival of the first illegal aliens.
Today I find the GOP has voiced and gained some support in the repeal of the amendment in an attempt of forcing tougher enforcement on illegal aliens. The Dred Scott question has been reworded to ask, “Should the children of illegal aliens born in the U.S. be considered a citizen of the U.S.? “ Obviously there was nothing legal about the presence of the African-Americans. They were kidnap victims detained against their will. Illegal aliens are here by their own choice, but I find myself asking what choices do they have in their home countries? That’s not a bleeding heart question to ask one’s self. I cannot place myself in their shoes; I have adequate shelter, medical care, food for my family and clothes for my back. Maybe if those facts were not facts at all, I would be willing to risk anything to get to a land where I could find work that would supply all those things for my family. I would be willing to take jobs no one else wanted and work 3 or 4 of them at a time to scratch out an existence.
I also received a chained email today from someone that wants me to chain it along. The email contains a supposed letter to the editor about illegal immigration today comparing it to virtues and good of the old Ellis Island brand of immigrant. The letter was not published according the chain starter due to the liberal leanings of the paper. It goes on to rant of the current immigrants’ lack of integration into American society. How they hold to the flags, music and native tongues of their former countries and refuse to learn English and assimilate to our way of life. Not like the Ellis Island groups whom did not look for a handout from the government and in times of war did go back and fight for their homelands, but proudly fought for America as Americans.
The letter leaves out the fact the Ellis Island groups were just as maligned and mistrusted as many of today’s groups. It does not say anything about the first major group the Irish living in dire poverty in the major cities or in some of the most untenable land throughout Appalachia making due on the jobs no one else wanted, or the more highly skilled Germans that lived in a step better conditions, but along with the Irish was attacked politically and physically including in famed riots in my home city of Louisville for being Catholic. It does not bring up the speeches of Teddy Roosevelt brow beating the hyphenated Americans who “have to be all American as there is no such thing as a half American.” Meaning you are an American live and speak the way we do or leave.
The letter also fails to state the three major groups of immigrants that “fought for America as Americans.” Italians, Poles, and Jews dominated by far the groups of immigrants into America prior to the Great War (WWI). Maybe if the author of the letter had looked at history they would realize the Italians shared a body of land, but not nationality as at that point Italy was still a loose confederation of states and not a unified country. Many of the immigrants came from the poorest regions. At the turn of the last century New York was home to more Italians then Rome. It is said that a common Italian dialect was learned amongst the immigrants for the first time, and in truth they became Italian first and Italian-American next. The Poles were in essence refugees. Poland had been carved into three different sections by three different empires. Russia, Prussia(Northern Germany), and Austria. At the outbreak of the war many Polish immigrants returned to Europe to join independent forces fighting to free Poland in the Blue Army and in Haller’s Army. The Jews had not had a true homeland for 2000 years and found themselves victims of many of the governments of Europe and readily joined the American cause to go home and right some wrongs. The letter does not say anything about the purveying attitudes of most Americans at the time that the conflict was a foreign one and one we should avoid. There was a swift return to American isolationism afterwards. It says nothing about the current numbers of Latin and Filipino volunteers fighting for America in Iraq and Afghanistan to gain citizenship. What I was most shocked by was the letter was sent to me by someone I love and respect. Someone born of marriage of a true immigrant and a first generation American born of Polish immigrants should not be so quick to aid in slamming the door on the rest of the world.
Both sides of my family fought in the Revolutionary War and as far as I know every conflict since, I am the descendent of nobility and indentured servants. My families therefore were parts of the first wave of illegal aliens. We showed up staked our claims and pushed the indigenous to our outer edges. That is my heritage. I cannot support the repeal of the 14th amendment, the idiocy in Arizona or the arguments of people who use economics and immigration to support racism.I am a citizen by the virtue of survival of the first illegal aliens.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
The Fiddle and the Fire
It is said one cannot choose their family. While this is true I do not feel particularly cheated. True a birth into a family like the Kennedy clan or the Vanderbilt fortune would have provided easier roads, I received the blessing of being born into two families of strong willed, open minded, dirt under the nails characters. I grew up on stories of the families. I found the blood history every bit as interesting as Treasure Island, cowboys and Indians and viewed my lineage as one filled with heroes. I shared just one story with some friends a few months ago about one of my grandfathers. One of the friends told me that if this was just one of a hundred or so stories I needed to start a book. So I decided at least to share that story here as well.
My grandfather Seth Conway Blevins was an agri-businessman, tobacco grower and the lead fiddle and banjo player for a bluegrass group called the Kentucky String Warmers. Apparently they played quite often and all over the region. On Sunday’s around lunch the band had an hour long radio program on a rural radio station wedged squarely between two hours of fire and brimstone gospel.
Although my grandfather died when I was 2 I have vague recollections of him, and have lived on stories of him for years. He apparently was a very quiet intense person. On stage they said he was kind of shy and just played and stared straight ahead. The band called him "Giggles" because of the stone face he wore.
When he and my grandmother were visiting family in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, the family asked him to play after dinner. He sat against the wall where the wood burning stove was and started playing. My grandmother said the family all sang and danced all around the room while Seth sawed out one song after another stomping his foot on the floor to keep time.
The back story is nothing in my grandfather's mind was more important than getting the song right and he would not stop playing once he started a song. The beat he was keeping and the dancing of the family had shook the floor boards enough that the old iron stove hopped a little and the flue came loose from the wall. My family saw what was happening and started to yell at my grandfather who just stared ahead, stomped and played. The flue pipe hit the floor beside him and sparks and flame shot all around the room which was filling with smoke. The curtains nearby caught on fire and by the time the family got some water in from the well the paper on the wall all around my grandfather was beginning to smolder, but he sat there stomping and playing anyway. While they killed the fire all around him, he only played faster. When he was done he was mad water had got on the fiddle. Which eventually swelled from the moisture and came apart, but he had gotten through the song.
This could be the source of my hard minded charge forward while everything is going wrong, a trait which is both a blessing and a curse.
My mom still has that particular fiddle, which is in pieces in its original case. If you open the case you can still smell a hint of the coal smoke.
My grandfather Seth Conway Blevins was an agri-businessman, tobacco grower and the lead fiddle and banjo player for a bluegrass group called the Kentucky String Warmers. Apparently they played quite often and all over the region. On Sunday’s around lunch the band had an hour long radio program on a rural radio station wedged squarely between two hours of fire and brimstone gospel.
Although my grandfather died when I was 2 I have vague recollections of him, and have lived on stories of him for years. He apparently was a very quiet intense person. On stage they said he was kind of shy and just played and stared straight ahead. The band called him "Giggles" because of the stone face he wore.
When he and my grandmother were visiting family in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, the family asked him to play after dinner. He sat against the wall where the wood burning stove was and started playing. My grandmother said the family all sang and danced all around the room while Seth sawed out one song after another stomping his foot on the floor to keep time.
The back story is nothing in my grandfather's mind was more important than getting the song right and he would not stop playing once he started a song. The beat he was keeping and the dancing of the family had shook the floor boards enough that the old iron stove hopped a little and the flue came loose from the wall. My family saw what was happening and started to yell at my grandfather who just stared ahead, stomped and played. The flue pipe hit the floor beside him and sparks and flame shot all around the room which was filling with smoke. The curtains nearby caught on fire and by the time the family got some water in from the well the paper on the wall all around my grandfather was beginning to smolder, but he sat there stomping and playing anyway. While they killed the fire all around him, he only played faster. When he was done he was mad water had got on the fiddle. Which eventually swelled from the moisture and came apart, but he had gotten through the song.
This could be the source of my hard minded charge forward while everything is going wrong, a trait which is both a blessing and a curse.
My mom still has that particular fiddle, which is in pieces in its original case. If you open the case you can still smell a hint of the coal smoke.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Don't Look Back in Anger...I heard you say.
I am a happy person I promise! My personal existence is dotted with laughter and optimism. I am aware of many blessings. I have many ideas, interest, and pursuits. I collect friends and acquaintances from all walks of life and I am genuinely interested in who they are and getting quality time with them. My favorite bloggers let me peek into their lives and usually do so to the positive side. A visit to the Jerasphere can improve one’s day in a heart beat or going to Life Is How You describe It, can bring about laughs and introspection, the Sweden dot Kcomposite blog can tackle some big issues and with pure comedy. So why do I seem so angry?
I haven’t posted for two weeks trying to answer that very question. I still have no answer. The world and America I is in a pretty suck place right now and I feel compelled to speak of things from time to time. I also suffer from attention debilitating problem of seeing the common thread in all things and from all sides offered. I figured I would post a list of my beliefs whether that turns you on or off and let full disclosure spill out.
Gay Marriage – I do not think we heterosexuals have been such a glowing example of the sacrament that we could ever tell another orientation they should be disallowed. The oft quoted portion of the bible comes from a set of laws for the tribes of Israel geared towards increasing the spread of their people, religion and economic value in the Middle Eastern basin. The same set of laws allowed for disobedient children to be stoned to death, marriage to more than one woman, and denouncing the abomination of mixed fabric garments. I don’t know how you feel, but I would bet there is more than a fair share of polyester blends at anti gay protest.
Abortion - Is not something I personally support in many moral aspects, but I do believe it should remain legal in the aspect that I feel you cannot legislate a clear definition that addresses every set of circumstances and the greater good to society is served by allowing women to deal with their circumstances as they see fit.
Repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – People call it an antiquated policy, but truth is we are quite young in world history. Antiquated would mean it served a purpose at one time or another. If you look into antiquity in a military mindset you will come across the Spartans and Alexander the Great. Alexander’s bi-sexuality is well documented and he is considered one of the most successful military figures in human history. The Spartan warriors engaged in same sex affairs as a part of their military doctrine. It is an ignorant policy and not worthy of debate. Repeal and move forward.
The Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act – Both took rights away from us. Any good propagandist would tell you naming something fuzzy when it is full of thorns leads to less opposition, since my opposition to a dullard equates to I am against patriotism and security at home. I have many new problems with the Democrats as they have made no move to repeal either one.
Government Regulation – Industry has to be regulated. Each and every time since our founding fathers government has loosened the grips on industry human rights and economies take a nose dive. Start at laissez faire, hit the industrial revolution, and check the depression, new deal, S & L collapses up to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is not anti-capitalist it is anti-fascist. (See Hitler, Mussollini)
The Media – Each side gives a slanted view and the truth is only peppered in to make the whole dish digestible. We have to go outside of our borders to find the truth.
Reagan – One of our most popular presidents, who went against every campaign promise in his bid for president and broke every mantra he put to the world in his political career. He was a hypocrite that changed the direction of his party to a historical apologist group who cannot admit there is very little conservative or fiscally responsible about their track record since 1980. He was not a hero.
Music Snobbery – Guilty as charged. I see musician’s as artist. I see people who play other’s work as people with the talent to be a musician, but choose not to be. Mariah Carey is not an artist. Unfortunately Lady Gaga is. I know many vocal talents worthy a listen, my wife included who would take offense at my viewing their talent at less than artistry, but I desire to hear them beautifully singing their own inspirations and beliefs not some unknown from a song writing stable trying to get back at the one that got away. Here are some wonderful artist P.J. Harvey, Patty Smith, Bjork, Crissy Hynde that would make a great Divas special. Don’t get me wrong there are some entertaining vocalists out there. Try Edith Piaf, Marlene Dietrich, The Andrews Sisters, and David Lee Roth all beautiful ladies with golden pipes.
American Cars – Suck compared to most Asian and European cars. I will not be guilted into buying American if we are producing substandard quality with unimaginative design.
Buy Locally – Yes it is more expensive, but supply and demand dictates that. Starbucks sucks. WalMart sucks. Vegetables at Kroger suck. If more bought locally quality goes up. Local economy goes up. Prices go down without uncompromised quality and you are supporting someone you can talk to face to face.
High Fructose Corn Syrup – It is unhealthy. It does change the flavor. And cocaine comes from all natural products as well so stop expounding its healthful benefit. Outlaw the shit so I can get sugar cane colas without driving to a specialty market.
Troops- You can question the war and Gitmo without trivializing the military’s importance. You can support the troops while questioning the government’s use of them.
Military Funeral Protest – Groups who choose to protest homosexuality by showing up at a military funeral with signs proclaiming the damnation of everyone who has learned to breathe with their mouth closed are the greatest argument for justifiable homicide I have ever seen.
There are a few of the things that have been clogging my brain bucket of late. It feels good to pour out some of the crud at times. Maybe I’ll just have to bleed out the poison from time to time. Now I am going to let my thoughts relax and return to the fire-bad tree-pretty world that MonkeyMom goes to.
I haven’t posted for two weeks trying to answer that very question. I still have no answer. The world and America I is in a pretty suck place right now and I feel compelled to speak of things from time to time. I also suffer from attention debilitating problem of seeing the common thread in all things and from all sides offered. I figured I would post a list of my beliefs whether that turns you on or off and let full disclosure spill out.
Gay Marriage – I do not think we heterosexuals have been such a glowing example of the sacrament that we could ever tell another orientation they should be disallowed. The oft quoted portion of the bible comes from a set of laws for the tribes of Israel geared towards increasing the spread of their people, religion and economic value in the Middle Eastern basin. The same set of laws allowed for disobedient children to be stoned to death, marriage to more than one woman, and denouncing the abomination of mixed fabric garments. I don’t know how you feel, but I would bet there is more than a fair share of polyester blends at anti gay protest.
Abortion - Is not something I personally support in many moral aspects, but I do believe it should remain legal in the aspect that I feel you cannot legislate a clear definition that addresses every set of circumstances and the greater good to society is served by allowing women to deal with their circumstances as they see fit.
Repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – People call it an antiquated policy, but truth is we are quite young in world history. Antiquated would mean it served a purpose at one time or another. If you look into antiquity in a military mindset you will come across the Spartans and Alexander the Great. Alexander’s bi-sexuality is well documented and he is considered one of the most successful military figures in human history. The Spartan warriors engaged in same sex affairs as a part of their military doctrine. It is an ignorant policy and not worthy of debate. Repeal and move forward.
The Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act – Both took rights away from us. Any good propagandist would tell you naming something fuzzy when it is full of thorns leads to less opposition, since my opposition to a dullard equates to I am against patriotism and security at home. I have many new problems with the Democrats as they have made no move to repeal either one.
Government Regulation – Industry has to be regulated. Each and every time since our founding fathers government has loosened the grips on industry human rights and economies take a nose dive. Start at laissez faire, hit the industrial revolution, and check the depression, new deal, S & L collapses up to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is not anti-capitalist it is anti-fascist. (See Hitler, Mussollini)
The Media – Each side gives a slanted view and the truth is only peppered in to make the whole dish digestible. We have to go outside of our borders to find the truth.
Reagan – One of our most popular presidents, who went against every campaign promise in his bid for president and broke every mantra he put to the world in his political career. He was a hypocrite that changed the direction of his party to a historical apologist group who cannot admit there is very little conservative or fiscally responsible about their track record since 1980. He was not a hero.
Music Snobbery – Guilty as charged. I see musician’s as artist. I see people who play other’s work as people with the talent to be a musician, but choose not to be. Mariah Carey is not an artist. Unfortunately Lady Gaga is. I know many vocal talents worthy a listen, my wife included who would take offense at my viewing their talent at less than artistry, but I desire to hear them beautifully singing their own inspirations and beliefs not some unknown from a song writing stable trying to get back at the one that got away. Here are some wonderful artist P.J. Harvey, Patty Smith, Bjork, Crissy Hynde that would make a great Divas special. Don’t get me wrong there are some entertaining vocalists out there. Try Edith Piaf, Marlene Dietrich, The Andrews Sisters, and David Lee Roth all beautiful ladies with golden pipes.
American Cars – Suck compared to most Asian and European cars. I will not be guilted into buying American if we are producing substandard quality with unimaginative design.
Buy Locally – Yes it is more expensive, but supply and demand dictates that. Starbucks sucks. WalMart sucks. Vegetables at Kroger suck. If more bought locally quality goes up. Local economy goes up. Prices go down without uncompromised quality and you are supporting someone you can talk to face to face.
High Fructose Corn Syrup – It is unhealthy. It does change the flavor. And cocaine comes from all natural products as well so stop expounding its healthful benefit. Outlaw the shit so I can get sugar cane colas without driving to a specialty market.
Troops- You can question the war and Gitmo without trivializing the military’s importance. You can support the troops while questioning the government’s use of them.
Military Funeral Protest – Groups who choose to protest homosexuality by showing up at a military funeral with signs proclaiming the damnation of everyone who has learned to breathe with their mouth closed are the greatest argument for justifiable homicide I have ever seen.
There are a few of the things that have been clogging my brain bucket of late. It feels good to pour out some of the crud at times. Maybe I’ll just have to bleed out the poison from time to time. Now I am going to let my thoughts relax and return to the fire-bad tree-pretty world that MonkeyMom goes to.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Just a Small Town Girl
I came to Facebook late. It just did not appeal to me communicating through such an impersonal medium. I actually only joined to check out the pics of an ex-girlfriend’s kids whom I was quite crazy about and I wanted to see them all grown up. Easy enough....A few days later my email was flooded with friend invites. Since the invites actually outnumbered the junk enlargement offers I decided to accept them and catch up with some folks.
Then came a surprising and welcomed invite from a young lady we will call Bubbles. Surprising in the sense I was complimented that she remembered me and welcomed because Bubbles was by all my memories a super nice person.
We had a history without the details that make history interesting. We lived on the same street in a very small town in Kentucky. We rode the same bus. Occasionally we found ourselves at the same church functions. That is the makeup of our prior history.
It was the 80’s and I thought I was a punk rocker damned to live in the cultural void of a rural town. Try no stop lights! Bubbles, was a smart somewhat conservatively dressed good girl. I was writing bad slogans on my jeans and a little to sulky. Bubbles went to church every week and did her homework. I wrote bad poetry about the color black and walked to the next town to climb in girl’s windows. Bubbles got good grades and made friends easily. I shot for the also ran GPA and got asked if I was a Satan worshiper… a lot. I thought of Bubbles as a really nice person who would see me as a loser. Bubbles now assures me her perception was I was too cool to approach. Apparently our history could have been more colorful had we recognized the John Hughes film that lay right at our feet.
Accepting her request has led to nearly two years of great conversation that contained very little of the horse shit people wade through to get to really know someone. I found that we nearly went to the same college. That our small town butts have both travelled abroad. Our politics and spirituality seem to be parallel and usually stay unspoken. We both know the trials of dating as a parent after a failed marriage and having children requiring a diagnosis of some type. We share a love for silly and improper subjects and genre-less music. Bubbles can swill beer like a man and can tell a good dirty joke. I can somewhat handle my end when the talk switches to quantum physics.
I could say she came down to my level, or claim a half full glass and say I rose to hers. The truth is we left our small town and refused to avoid each other’s path this time. While facebook can be a mind numbing waste of time is does have its pay offs. Bubbles you doth rock. You are not so bookish I am not so mysterious and our history goes on.
Then came a surprising and welcomed invite from a young lady we will call Bubbles. Surprising in the sense I was complimented that she remembered me and welcomed because Bubbles was by all my memories a super nice person.
We had a history without the details that make history interesting. We lived on the same street in a very small town in Kentucky. We rode the same bus. Occasionally we found ourselves at the same church functions. That is the makeup of our prior history.
It was the 80’s and I thought I was a punk rocker damned to live in the cultural void of a rural town. Try no stop lights! Bubbles, was a smart somewhat conservatively dressed good girl. I was writing bad slogans on my jeans and a little to sulky. Bubbles went to church every week and did her homework. I wrote bad poetry about the color black and walked to the next town to climb in girl’s windows. Bubbles got good grades and made friends easily. I shot for the also ran GPA and got asked if I was a Satan worshiper… a lot. I thought of Bubbles as a really nice person who would see me as a loser. Bubbles now assures me her perception was I was too cool to approach. Apparently our history could have been more colorful had we recognized the John Hughes film that lay right at our feet.
Accepting her request has led to nearly two years of great conversation that contained very little of the horse shit people wade through to get to really know someone. I found that we nearly went to the same college. That our small town butts have both travelled abroad. Our politics and spirituality seem to be parallel and usually stay unspoken. We both know the trials of dating as a parent after a failed marriage and having children requiring a diagnosis of some type. We share a love for silly and improper subjects and genre-less music. Bubbles can swill beer like a man and can tell a good dirty joke. I can somewhat handle my end when the talk switches to quantum physics.
I could say she came down to my level, or claim a half full glass and say I rose to hers. The truth is we left our small town and refused to avoid each other’s path this time. While facebook can be a mind numbing waste of time is does have its pay offs. Bubbles you doth rock. You are not so bookish I am not so mysterious and our history goes on.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Meaning in a Throwaway World or The Swollen Thumb of Progess
I want to be less dependent on the world. I want to leave the HAP (Hire a Pro) world and fix and maintain the things around me. I want my possessions to be an extension of me. What better way to create a legacy or at least voice to everyone who you truly are than to define, create or modify the things in life to reflect your personality and meet your needs and desires?
The DIY bug has floated in my brain for years. I have constantly thought about my upbringing and what we used to do when I was kid. My grandparents were agricultural people and their world consisted on self reliance, recycling before it was a movement, and self taught skill. We used to feed ourselves off the bounty of our gardens, from the output of our chickens and trades of goods and produce or services with other farmers. Our fences stayed mended with limited trips to a hardware store or lawn tools contained a wide array of manual implements and the power tools had a hacked or rigged aftermarket addition to get the performance levels we needed.
Somewhere in the decade that I received Pong which morphed into the Atari 2600 and then Intellivision things took a slow change. My duties as my father’s remote control for the television ended. We survived the Beta vs. VCR debate and like so many of you opted for the woefully lesser VCR. Dinners were no longer an hour ordeal of preparation because the microwave appeared and HBO was starting to creep into all of our lives. The change slowly made the nights of shucking corn with three generations of my family involved… disappear. The kitchen that was filled with the whistles and humidity of canning vegetables vanished. I never again crossed the railroad tracks and climbed two fences with a load of my grandmothers strawberry jam and peach preserves to rouse Old Mrs. Davis to barter for a couple of jars of her honey. It is this decade that I failed to teach myself the things my grandparents knew and my parents were on the road of forgetting.
Can I go back in time? Yes. Can I learn these skills that just a couple of decades ago thrived but have slowly disappeared? Yes. Can I use diversion tools like the internet to do this? Yes. Will it happen quickly? No, and I am increasingly happy for that truth.
Mark Frauenfelder is a self taught writer and illustrator who created the popular Boing Boing blog. He has written for numerous magazines and is the current editor in chief of Make magazine. Just a few weeks ago I heard him on NPR discussing the DIY ethic and its current growth in America. He was on to pitch his book, Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World. I was hooked to his interview because unlike a lot of the gurus of the DIY world he wasn’t there with a green agenda or to damn anyone for over consuming and being headed down the path of hoarding. He was talking about his own transformation from dreamer to doer and the path he took is readily available to any of us. There was no stepped program and his agenda seemed only to get us dreamers over the hurdle of the fear of failing. He quite easily points out the importance of failure as a way to learning.
In the book he tells us how to bring on the courage to try things, how he moved his family to a remote paradise in the South Pacific, how he returned to the grind and started creating his paradise, grow his own food, hack his creature comforts, raise chickens, beekeeping, made his own string instruments and even visit some easy fermenting processes. He is not a fanatic though. At no point does he preach against anyone’s way of life. He does however demonstrate the reward of all the above while keeping his feet firmly planted in a world of the majority. The book is self help without pretending to be. It is social commentary without hoping to be, it is as close to a must read as anything I have encountered. Mark delivers an almost diary like view into whims and necessity addressed and met in a rewarding manner by just trying. Most appealing not every project in the book is a total success, yet they become successful through the learning process. Some of the projects are ongoing and final outcome has yet to present a measure, but overall it tells us the rugged individualism of the past can make a comeback. Buy the book even if you are not interested in DIY it cracks open some of the mysteries of why life can remain empty with so many diversions available to us all.
Me? I was on the track before the book. I know nothing about kitchen remodels other than they are expensive and I needed one. I am 85% through it and pleased and instead of cussing a swollen thumb obtained in the process I see it as a badge of honor. My bathroom gets tackled next. My food garden is being planned and my list of wants has changed to my list of modifications. Mark’s book served as the manifesto I needed and fear and doubt I now reserve for the government.
The DIY bug has floated in my brain for years. I have constantly thought about my upbringing and what we used to do when I was kid. My grandparents were agricultural people and their world consisted on self reliance, recycling before it was a movement, and self taught skill. We used to feed ourselves off the bounty of our gardens, from the output of our chickens and trades of goods and produce or services with other farmers. Our fences stayed mended with limited trips to a hardware store or lawn tools contained a wide array of manual implements and the power tools had a hacked or rigged aftermarket addition to get the performance levels we needed.
Somewhere in the decade that I received Pong which morphed into the Atari 2600 and then Intellivision things took a slow change. My duties as my father’s remote control for the television ended. We survived the Beta vs. VCR debate and like so many of you opted for the woefully lesser VCR. Dinners were no longer an hour ordeal of preparation because the microwave appeared and HBO was starting to creep into all of our lives. The change slowly made the nights of shucking corn with three generations of my family involved… disappear. The kitchen that was filled with the whistles and humidity of canning vegetables vanished. I never again crossed the railroad tracks and climbed two fences with a load of my grandmothers strawberry jam and peach preserves to rouse Old Mrs. Davis to barter for a couple of jars of her honey. It is this decade that I failed to teach myself the things my grandparents knew and my parents were on the road of forgetting.
Can I go back in time? Yes. Can I learn these skills that just a couple of decades ago thrived but have slowly disappeared? Yes. Can I use diversion tools like the internet to do this? Yes. Will it happen quickly? No, and I am increasingly happy for that truth.
Mark Frauenfelder is a self taught writer and illustrator who created the popular Boing Boing blog. He has written for numerous magazines and is the current editor in chief of Make magazine. Just a few weeks ago I heard him on NPR discussing the DIY ethic and its current growth in America. He was on to pitch his book, Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World. I was hooked to his interview because unlike a lot of the gurus of the DIY world he wasn’t there with a green agenda or to damn anyone for over consuming and being headed down the path of hoarding. He was talking about his own transformation from dreamer to doer and the path he took is readily available to any of us. There was no stepped program and his agenda seemed only to get us dreamers over the hurdle of the fear of failing. He quite easily points out the importance of failure as a way to learning.
In the book he tells us how to bring on the courage to try things, how he moved his family to a remote paradise in the South Pacific, how he returned to the grind and started creating his paradise, grow his own food, hack his creature comforts, raise chickens, beekeeping, made his own string instruments and even visit some easy fermenting processes. He is not a fanatic though. At no point does he preach against anyone’s way of life. He does however demonstrate the reward of all the above while keeping his feet firmly planted in a world of the majority. The book is self help without pretending to be. It is social commentary without hoping to be, it is as close to a must read as anything I have encountered. Mark delivers an almost diary like view into whims and necessity addressed and met in a rewarding manner by just trying. Most appealing not every project in the book is a total success, yet they become successful through the learning process. Some of the projects are ongoing and final outcome has yet to present a measure, but overall it tells us the rugged individualism of the past can make a comeback. Buy the book even if you are not interested in DIY it cracks open some of the mysteries of why life can remain empty with so many diversions available to us all.
Me? I was on the track before the book. I know nothing about kitchen remodels other than they are expensive and I needed one. I am 85% through it and pleased and instead of cussing a swollen thumb obtained in the process I see it as a badge of honor. My bathroom gets tackled next. My food garden is being planned and my list of wants has changed to my list of modifications. Mark’s book served as the manifesto I needed and fear and doubt I now reserve for the government.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Ah, the World Cup! The eyes of the world are trained on South Africa, well most of the eyes anyway. We tend to look away in the good ole USA. Soccer or futbol is easily the most popular sport in the world, inciting fans, countries and continents to impassioned action.
Here in our country I have been hearing how it is the fastest growing sport since my elementary school days. This for the most part is true if one only measures the growth in youth leagues, high schools and in colleges. I know my love grew for it when I was quite young and that love has spread from play to avid fan, but I gave up long ago on the hope it would take America by storm. Other than our Woman’s national team a decade ago it would seem soccer in this country has found its fan base and will not spread beyond that group.
Last week as everyone knows the American team received a bad call in World Cup play against Slovenia that kept them at a draw instead of a straight win. For 24 hours it was the talk on sports radio, television news and even made it to a few water cooler conferences. One foreign commentator on ESPN’s coverage suggested with the buzz the bad call had been a gift in the fact that American’s finally cared and was paying attention to their team. Today all the talk was about a marathon match at Wimbledon and America’s extra time winning goal against Algeria took a solid back seat to tennis.
Although I have accepted the downgrading of soccer’s importance in my country, the acceptance only came after questioning why it was so. The answer was simple. We are not that good at it. Americans focus on domination in sport. In soccer we are always an underdog.
We have fielded some great teams, but even in their greatness the European powers of the sport see us only as a slow curve in their road to victory. The Brazilians and Argentines of South America see us as place to play out their pro careers when they are no longer physically capable of playing in Europe and on their home continent.
Many sport fans in America do not understand the game and cite the low scores and players writhing on the field in supposed mortal pain after barely being touched as reasons not to watch. The parity of the world’s players and a game plan followed are some of the reasons for the low scores. The recent dismantling of the North Korean team by Portugal 7-0 should have fed some of those desires. The death throes of uninjured players on the field gives the players time to catch their breath reset and start again. There are no time outs and substitutions are limited to 3 players. Essentially the players are running a mini marathon while keeping in mind a game plan, individual assignment and knowing one mistake made will be aired over and over on billions (yes billions) of television sets around the world. Want to get some perspective of the expectations and pressure put on these players? Just read up on the 1994 Columbian World Cup team.
Here is the final word. America is poised for a deep run in this world cup. They are the first American team to win their first round grouping in 80 years. Keep in mind the 1930 World Cup was the first time for the event and that American team finished 3rd overall. The highest finish by any non South American or European team in world cup history. America plays Ghana at 2:30 Saturday, the teams are close in ability, but Ghana will have the support of the African continent. Winning that one will cause the remaining teams to take us more seriously. Italy and France have already gone home, Germany has struggled, and England already learned we came to play. Spain and Brazil still see us as upstarts, but remember quite well the matches with the Americans from last year, and well know we are dangerous.
Let’s support the team and put the fear in the rest of the world that we are on the doorstep of taking over their beloved game. After all when it is over you still have Nascar and some of the marathon low scoring snooze fest pro baseball has to offer.
Here in our country I have been hearing how it is the fastest growing sport since my elementary school days. This for the most part is true if one only measures the growth in youth leagues, high schools and in colleges. I know my love grew for it when I was quite young and that love has spread from play to avid fan, but I gave up long ago on the hope it would take America by storm. Other than our Woman’s national team a decade ago it would seem soccer in this country has found its fan base and will not spread beyond that group.
Last week as everyone knows the American team received a bad call in World Cup play against Slovenia that kept them at a draw instead of a straight win. For 24 hours it was the talk on sports radio, television news and even made it to a few water cooler conferences. One foreign commentator on ESPN’s coverage suggested with the buzz the bad call had been a gift in the fact that American’s finally cared and was paying attention to their team. Today all the talk was about a marathon match at Wimbledon and America’s extra time winning goal against Algeria took a solid back seat to tennis.
Although I have accepted the downgrading of soccer’s importance in my country, the acceptance only came after questioning why it was so. The answer was simple. We are not that good at it. Americans focus on domination in sport. In soccer we are always an underdog.
We have fielded some great teams, but even in their greatness the European powers of the sport see us only as a slow curve in their road to victory. The Brazilians and Argentines of South America see us as place to play out their pro careers when they are no longer physically capable of playing in Europe and on their home continent.
Many sport fans in America do not understand the game and cite the low scores and players writhing on the field in supposed mortal pain after barely being touched as reasons not to watch. The parity of the world’s players and a game plan followed are some of the reasons for the low scores. The recent dismantling of the North Korean team by Portugal 7-0 should have fed some of those desires. The death throes of uninjured players on the field gives the players time to catch their breath reset and start again. There are no time outs and substitutions are limited to 3 players. Essentially the players are running a mini marathon while keeping in mind a game plan, individual assignment and knowing one mistake made will be aired over and over on billions (yes billions) of television sets around the world. Want to get some perspective of the expectations and pressure put on these players? Just read up on the 1994 Columbian World Cup team.
Here is the final word. America is poised for a deep run in this world cup. They are the first American team to win their first round grouping in 80 years. Keep in mind the 1930 World Cup was the first time for the event and that American team finished 3rd overall. The highest finish by any non South American or European team in world cup history. America plays Ghana at 2:30 Saturday, the teams are close in ability, but Ghana will have the support of the African continent. Winning that one will cause the remaining teams to take us more seriously. Italy and France have already gone home, Germany has struggled, and England already learned we came to play. Spain and Brazil still see us as upstarts, but remember quite well the matches with the Americans from last year, and well know we are dangerous.
Let’s support the team and put the fear in the rest of the world that we are on the doorstep of taking over their beloved game. After all when it is over you still have Nascar and some of the marathon low scoring snooze fest pro baseball has to offer.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Talent, Reality and a Lack of Judgement
I don’t watch a lot of television, my family does and I am nearby so I get the secondhand dumbing down. The observations that one gets not involving themselves directly with the broadcast are very telling of just how much of a joke we are living in.
There is a show called America’s Got Talent. I have never seen the actual show, but one thing I have caught in the promos is a panel of 3 judges watch and rate would be Gong Show rejects. It is not the repackaging of an old concept that cracks me up it is the title of the show and the current judges. AMERICA’S Got TALENT yes, but in judging? Piers Morgan, Sharon Osborne and Howie Mandel are the judges this season. Piers and Sharon were both born in England and Howie is Canadian.
Is the panel a commentary on the fact that we have talent, but couldn’t find 3 people in America that could spot it? All 3 judges may be American citizens I am not sure of their status, I just find it funny. Then I remembered in past years David Hasselhoff was a judge, so I hit Google to see if he was too busy suddenly to be our homegrown representative of judging talent. Turns out he was “released” from his judging obligations by the network for showing a pattern of making poor decisions (judgments) in his personal life.
Are we good judges? Taylor Swift is one of the hottest recording acts going. No one points out she is tone deaf. Her songs are not unique in a world of unicorn rainbow covered 15 year old girls notebooks, where the prose often bends to the modern take on Cinderella. Avatar is the biggest movie ever, yet Ferngully gave a more complete and deeper take on the same message. The Twilight series is the biggest thing in print and with each release the most anticipated serial in the theatres, yet the books really kind of suck and the movies seem to be an excuse to make soft porn for 12 year old girls and 45 year old would be cougars aching to see some barely legal flesh. The two biggest movie releases of the past weekend were The Karate Kid and the A-Team. One a bad 80’s movie that was able to grab people’s hearts and added “wax on, wax off” to our philosophical lexicon, the other a bad 80’s television show. Maybe we do need judges from other places to steer us.
The next observation gave me a good take on the American automotive industry. An Acura commercial addressing the personal investment and statement one makes when entering the world of luxury cars. It reminded me of the birth of Acura, Lexus and Infiniti a couple of decades ago. It is like Honda, Toyota and Nissan collectively got together and said we make great cars and we offer affordability and dependability, but the upper class in America only buy European cars so they will never see us as a luxury product. What we must do is change our grills and taillights change the names of the cars, charge thousands of dollars more and we will be in the luxury market as well. All three companies are chugging right along. Mitsubishi did not go that route and the Mitsubishi dealerships are on decline. Isuzu did not do this and they have disappeared. Ford on the other hand knew through Mercury and Lincoln that they could not reproduce the dependability the luxury car market demands, so they bought Volvo, Rover, Jaguar, Aston Martin and set about dismantling what was right about those companies. In an apparent bid to not make a better product, just make everyone else’s worse. GM on the other hand had written the playbook that the triplets from the land of the rising sun were using and had been producing the same 4 of 5 vehicles under multiple brand names at different price points for years. Except without quality and dependability as an issue. To answer Ford’s acquisition frenzy GM bought Saab and reintroduced its European subsidiary Opel to our market. While Saab only had a niche market in America, GM managed to widen that market with a poorer quality product than Saab previously produced. GM used Opel to build the bigger and more reliable than before Saturns. Opel also designed the Saturn Sky and Pontiac Solstice two of the better looking things GM produced just before it shit canned both Pontiac and Saturn. A lack of critical thinking seems to be the cornerstone of our capitalism.
Reality television has owned television for the past decade, yet it seems one of the only shows that even gets close to reality is Parenthood. Actors in this show play characters faced with real life ups and downs you know…realistic stuff written by writers. I wonder if the writers are American?
Maybe there is no true social commentary here at all; maybe we are all just practicing God’s advice of judge not lest ye be judged.
There is a show called America’s Got Talent. I have never seen the actual show, but one thing I have caught in the promos is a panel of 3 judges watch and rate would be Gong Show rejects. It is not the repackaging of an old concept that cracks me up it is the title of the show and the current judges. AMERICA’S Got TALENT yes, but in judging? Piers Morgan, Sharon Osborne and Howie Mandel are the judges this season. Piers and Sharon were both born in England and Howie is Canadian.
Is the panel a commentary on the fact that we have talent, but couldn’t find 3 people in America that could spot it? All 3 judges may be American citizens I am not sure of their status, I just find it funny. Then I remembered in past years David Hasselhoff was a judge, so I hit Google to see if he was too busy suddenly to be our homegrown representative of judging talent. Turns out he was “released” from his judging obligations by the network for showing a pattern of making poor decisions (judgments) in his personal life.
Are we good judges? Taylor Swift is one of the hottest recording acts going. No one points out she is tone deaf. Her songs are not unique in a world of unicorn rainbow covered 15 year old girls notebooks, where the prose often bends to the modern take on Cinderella. Avatar is the biggest movie ever, yet Ferngully gave a more complete and deeper take on the same message. The Twilight series is the biggest thing in print and with each release the most anticipated serial in the theatres, yet the books really kind of suck and the movies seem to be an excuse to make soft porn for 12 year old girls and 45 year old would be cougars aching to see some barely legal flesh. The two biggest movie releases of the past weekend were The Karate Kid and the A-Team. One a bad 80’s movie that was able to grab people’s hearts and added “wax on, wax off” to our philosophical lexicon, the other a bad 80’s television show. Maybe we do need judges from other places to steer us.
The next observation gave me a good take on the American automotive industry. An Acura commercial addressing the personal investment and statement one makes when entering the world of luxury cars. It reminded me of the birth of Acura, Lexus and Infiniti a couple of decades ago. It is like Honda, Toyota and Nissan collectively got together and said we make great cars and we offer affordability and dependability, but the upper class in America only buy European cars so they will never see us as a luxury product. What we must do is change our grills and taillights change the names of the cars, charge thousands of dollars more and we will be in the luxury market as well. All three companies are chugging right along. Mitsubishi did not go that route and the Mitsubishi dealerships are on decline. Isuzu did not do this and they have disappeared. Ford on the other hand knew through Mercury and Lincoln that they could not reproduce the dependability the luxury car market demands, so they bought Volvo, Rover, Jaguar, Aston Martin and set about dismantling what was right about those companies. In an apparent bid to not make a better product, just make everyone else’s worse. GM on the other hand had written the playbook that the triplets from the land of the rising sun were using and had been producing the same 4 of 5 vehicles under multiple brand names at different price points for years. Except without quality and dependability as an issue. To answer Ford’s acquisition frenzy GM bought Saab and reintroduced its European subsidiary Opel to our market. While Saab only had a niche market in America, GM managed to widen that market with a poorer quality product than Saab previously produced. GM used Opel to build the bigger and more reliable than before Saturns. Opel also designed the Saturn Sky and Pontiac Solstice two of the better looking things GM produced just before it shit canned both Pontiac and Saturn. A lack of critical thinking seems to be the cornerstone of our capitalism.
Reality television has owned television for the past decade, yet it seems one of the only shows that even gets close to reality is Parenthood. Actors in this show play characters faced with real life ups and downs you know…realistic stuff written by writers. I wonder if the writers are American?
Maybe there is no true social commentary here at all; maybe we are all just practicing God’s advice of judge not lest ye be judged.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
A Capitalist and a Mirror
So I found myself in a 3 day string about the oil spill. It has been educational and telling once again where divisions seem to exist. I have found some wonderful facts about BP along the way as well. Like they have a protocol in place in how to herd and maintain media placement during environmental crisis. Nice. They have a plan for dealing with media on the books, but no working plan to stop leaks. I found out BP has been the recipient of 97% of the OSHA violations issued to the energy industry in the last 3 years. That a few years ago they bought up enough heating and cooking propane to corner the America market and then withheld supply to artificially raise the price by 50%. Their Alaskan pipeline has had numerous reported leaks due to corrosion. They pled guilty to criminal charges in the Texas City refinery explosion that killed fifteen. The platform explosion was at first a mishap, then something they were working minutes before to try to avoid, then the story changed to hours before, and now it would seem they knew of gas leaks into the well almost a week before and it was the direct action they took that caused the explosion and the spill. Great company!
The truth is I thought so. My wife and I both noticed better gas mileage when we used BP gas. Since I was happy with those results I almost bought in fully to their “green campaign” a few years ago with the Hello Kitty like children and green backgrounds, talking about cleaner burning fuels, but never going so far as to say “hey we are GREEN!” Ah, the power of suggestion such an evil and empty mistress you are.
In the thread an editorial link was thrown in that compared the many large corporations and the poor practices they engage in to the BP mess. I was shocked to see that develop into another finger pointing, political bashing, fault finder without a sober discussion going on. The accountability of bad business when it is big business falls to the consumer. Our government (regardless of party affiliation) is funded by these corporations. Our government has and will again use the resources supplied by taxpayers to help solve the quagmires created by these companies. We will bitch about it, we will get hung up in threads, and then we will stop at the nearest BP and fill up.
I am not advocating the revolution. I am just saying in the most sober terms. Do not buy the products of the companies that piss you off. Try a little influence in your circle of living. Find the local alternative, the little guy or gal in your neighborhood who charges more for whatever service so she/he can stay in business among the faceless out there. While it is a little harder with oil, maybe we just pretend gas is $5 a gallon and react accordingly. Walk when we can. Save up for the hybrid. Ride the bike.
Another thing that strikes me in all this is the surprise when the giants stumble and the shock when the truth comes out. I started thinking about the companies I have supported over the years. I decided to check them out through news filters around the world.
I started with Coca Cola. Something I have long loved and yes I am admitting that in public. A quick search brought up the SINALTRAINAL union in Colombia. Paramilitaries trained in the School of America facility in Georgia and hired by Coca Cola, have kidnapped, detained, tortured, and murder SINALTRAINAL Union organizers in their plants located in Colombia. Similar claims are arising out of Guatemala. In India Coke has deep drilled into the water table causing a water shortage, and the company dumps waste water into the Ganges and local water sources as well. I will check out more as I go, but for now no Coke no BP. Now I can bitch all I want.
So could you. Look we are in the mess we are in, because we see freedom as being able to get a hold of small pleasantries anytime we want. Too much of a good thing is too much. Avoid life's little pleasures and regain some freedom.
The truth is I thought so. My wife and I both noticed better gas mileage when we used BP gas. Since I was happy with those results I almost bought in fully to their “green campaign” a few years ago with the Hello Kitty like children and green backgrounds, talking about cleaner burning fuels, but never going so far as to say “hey we are GREEN!” Ah, the power of suggestion such an evil and empty mistress you are.
In the thread an editorial link was thrown in that compared the many large corporations and the poor practices they engage in to the BP mess. I was shocked to see that develop into another finger pointing, political bashing, fault finder without a sober discussion going on. The accountability of bad business when it is big business falls to the consumer. Our government (regardless of party affiliation) is funded by these corporations. Our government has and will again use the resources supplied by taxpayers to help solve the quagmires created by these companies. We will bitch about it, we will get hung up in threads, and then we will stop at the nearest BP and fill up.
I am not advocating the revolution. I am just saying in the most sober terms. Do not buy the products of the companies that piss you off. Try a little influence in your circle of living. Find the local alternative, the little guy or gal in your neighborhood who charges more for whatever service so she/he can stay in business among the faceless out there. While it is a little harder with oil, maybe we just pretend gas is $5 a gallon and react accordingly. Walk when we can. Save up for the hybrid. Ride the bike.
Another thing that strikes me in all this is the surprise when the giants stumble and the shock when the truth comes out. I started thinking about the companies I have supported over the years. I decided to check them out through news filters around the world.
I started with Coca Cola. Something I have long loved and yes I am admitting that in public. A quick search brought up the SINALTRAINAL union in Colombia. Paramilitaries trained in the School of America facility in Georgia and hired by Coca Cola, have kidnapped, detained, tortured, and murder SINALTRAINAL Union organizers in their plants located in Colombia. Similar claims are arising out of Guatemala. In India Coke has deep drilled into the water table causing a water shortage, and the company dumps waste water into the Ganges and local water sources as well. I will check out more as I go, but for now no Coke no BP. Now I can bitch all I want.
So could you. Look we are in the mess we are in, because we see freedom as being able to get a hold of small pleasantries anytime we want. Too much of a good thing is too much. Avoid life's little pleasures and regain some freedom.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
CheeseBurgers, Out With the Old, and Hysterical Preservation: Welcome to the Ville
My house is old. Not quite a century, but pretty near it. My kitchen has seen a few updates over the last 90 years, but update no longer fits the description. It is the classic galley design. The original was a porcelin sink perched atop 48 inches of wood. Two overhead cabinets, a small fridge to the left and cornered right was where the stove sat. Somewhere in the fifties a few more overhead cabinets were added and two base cabinets were saddlebagged around the sink base. It was around this time the heavy formica tiles were placed over the original hand embossed linoleum, along with a quarter of inch of adhesive material. In the seventies the stove moved to where the fridge sat and the fridge was moved to the far wall. This did create the classic triangle, but alleviated the operable "eat in" description. A bad goldenrod sheet linoleum covered the bad formica tiles. The 90's found a tri-tone blue laminate counter top, a poorly constructed pantry by the stove and a two by four framed alcove for a dishwasher. Oddly enough the sheet linoleum was left and the walls were painted the same goldenrod hue.
My wife and I purchased the home six years ago and have been rehabbing it at a snail's pace every since. The kitchen was operable and clean, so our only touch at the beginning was to paint the walls a margarita hue (which proved to be little improvement). As we have explored and researched possible changes along the way other area eateries have been faced with changes as well.
Kaelin's only a few blocks from where I live was a Louisville landmark, and claimed to be the birthplace of the cheeseburger. Numerous other cafes and grills make the same claim. A couple which would trump Kaelin's by nearly a decade except with a technicality. The cheeseburgers listed before Kaelin's were listed in the menus as a hamburger with melted cheese on the West coast and a hamburger on cheese buns in the East. Kaelin's seemed to be the first to call it a cheeseburger. The establishment was bought a little over a decade ago from the original family and the name and cheesburgers remained until it abruptly closed last year, and was re-opened as some kind of sports bar.
The Douglas Loop (so called because it was the trolley turn around for the downtown to highlands trolley) is anchored on one corner by the Twig and Leaf. In the twenties cafes of chrome, steel, glass brick started springing up in the Northeast of the country. These were made common by the long bar that surrounded a semi open kitchen where one could perch upon vinyl covered swivel stools or slouch in the fixed booths that ran along the outer wall. The Twig is an example of that type of structure. It isn't five star, but for decades has provided Louisville a place to hang on while avoiding the hangover, and shines at breakfast. CVS drugstores has expressed interest in buying the property and tearing it down to drop one of their big box unimaginative turd stores in the area. While capitalism is good and the Douglas Loop is a mixed service economic area, The Twig is a somewhat irreplacable piece of history that services many happy families and hipsters alike. The effort to "save" the Twig seems to be a grassroots facebook page. To my knowledge no civic leaders have picked up the greasy spoon banner as of yet. I know the food can be found at almost any truckstop, or Waffle House, but the Twig & Leaf does offer an original dish to Louisville's cheeseburger history. "The Womb from the Tomb" is an open faced two beef patty, melted cheese covered in chili salute to a stroke waiting to go.
On the other hand the most infamous cheeseburger in Louisville would be found at Genny's Diner known as the "Sweet Daddy Burger". One and a quarter pounds of triple layered cheeseburger about the size of a football. The owner of this diner has been all over our news because a decade ago he bought the Queen Anne Victorian that sat at the edge of his parking lot with the intention of tearing it down for more parking. Unfortunately for him he held on to the property for a couple of years and the area was deemed a historical preservation district. Instead of being able to tear it down he was slapped with heavy code violations a couple of hefty fines and a home incarceration for not bringing the property up to code. Most recently he was told he must either sell or give the property away. The estimate for making the once beautiful house habitable again is $500,000. Now while it was a formerly grand example of Victorian architecture it is a huge shack, whose only claim to historical is its age. Nevermind the block it sits in is a nod to pre-restrictive building and once restored the house will look like a beauty queen sitting in a pig sty.
The point a local business is punished at every angle to preserve the already lost, and the city seemingly looks away while another local business is in danger of being lost to big out of town business.
My own kitchen. It is old enough to fall under the crazy preservationist, but its history is a private one that offers little to the current community. I did hand wash the original linouleum and say a farewell as I buried it under the 2010 additions. My kitchen is now up to a more modern standard and is a fitting place for my addition to Louisville's cheeseburger legacy "The Arrogant Bastard". Ground free range organic beef and organic hot italian sausage, topped with melted gruyere cheese, sauteed baby bellas, onions and shallots carmelized in balsamic, with German hot senf. Created for consuming with stout beers and conversations about why everyone else is just dead wrong.
My wife and I purchased the home six years ago and have been rehabbing it at a snail's pace every since. The kitchen was operable and clean, so our only touch at the beginning was to paint the walls a margarita hue (which proved to be little improvement). As we have explored and researched possible changes along the way other area eateries have been faced with changes as well.
Kaelin's only a few blocks from where I live was a Louisville landmark, and claimed to be the birthplace of the cheeseburger. Numerous other cafes and grills make the same claim. A couple which would trump Kaelin's by nearly a decade except with a technicality. The cheeseburgers listed before Kaelin's were listed in the menus as a hamburger with melted cheese on the West coast and a hamburger on cheese buns in the East. Kaelin's seemed to be the first to call it a cheeseburger. The establishment was bought a little over a decade ago from the original family and the name and cheesburgers remained until it abruptly closed last year, and was re-opened as some kind of sports bar.
The Douglas Loop (so called because it was the trolley turn around for the downtown to highlands trolley) is anchored on one corner by the Twig and Leaf. In the twenties cafes of chrome, steel, glass brick started springing up in the Northeast of the country. These were made common by the long bar that surrounded a semi open kitchen where one could perch upon vinyl covered swivel stools or slouch in the fixed booths that ran along the outer wall. The Twig is an example of that type of structure. It isn't five star, but for decades has provided Louisville a place to hang on while avoiding the hangover, and shines at breakfast. CVS drugstores has expressed interest in buying the property and tearing it down to drop one of their big box unimaginative turd stores in the area. While capitalism is good and the Douglas Loop is a mixed service economic area, The Twig is a somewhat irreplacable piece of history that services many happy families and hipsters alike. The effort to "save" the Twig seems to be a grassroots facebook page. To my knowledge no civic leaders have picked up the greasy spoon banner as of yet. I know the food can be found at almost any truckstop, or Waffle House, but the Twig & Leaf does offer an original dish to Louisville's cheeseburger history. "The Womb from the Tomb" is an open faced two beef patty, melted cheese covered in chili salute to a stroke waiting to go.
On the other hand the most infamous cheeseburger in Louisville would be found at Genny's Diner known as the "Sweet Daddy Burger". One and a quarter pounds of triple layered cheeseburger about the size of a football. The owner of this diner has been all over our news because a decade ago he bought the Queen Anne Victorian that sat at the edge of his parking lot with the intention of tearing it down for more parking. Unfortunately for him he held on to the property for a couple of years and the area was deemed a historical preservation district. Instead of being able to tear it down he was slapped with heavy code violations a couple of hefty fines and a home incarceration for not bringing the property up to code. Most recently he was told he must either sell or give the property away. The estimate for making the once beautiful house habitable again is $500,000. Now while it was a formerly grand example of Victorian architecture it is a huge shack, whose only claim to historical is its age. Nevermind the block it sits in is a nod to pre-restrictive building and once restored the house will look like a beauty queen sitting in a pig sty.
The point a local business is punished at every angle to preserve the already lost, and the city seemingly looks away while another local business is in danger of being lost to big out of town business.
My own kitchen. It is old enough to fall under the crazy preservationist, but its history is a private one that offers little to the current community. I did hand wash the original linouleum and say a farewell as I buried it under the 2010 additions. My kitchen is now up to a more modern standard and is a fitting place for my addition to Louisville's cheeseburger legacy "The Arrogant Bastard". Ground free range organic beef and organic hot italian sausage, topped with melted gruyere cheese, sauteed baby bellas, onions and shallots carmelized in balsamic, with German hot senf. Created for consuming with stout beers and conversations about why everyone else is just dead wrong.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Depending On An Unreasonable Man
Convention and common sense could be seen as two paths of “tried and true”. Safe outcomes and measured decisions, can build respect among many. A solid life will be stamped and approved by many, and few will ever question until the history disappears shortly after.
What about the lane changers? There are those who will reinvent at the drop of a hat, or cause one to hate or love them passionately for years to come over the smallest action. The debate rages for years about their merit long after they are gone. The people who do not feel the need to report in, but blazes ahead are the people who truly live life.
I have disappointed people, burned bridges, and been the recipient of misconceived notion. Yet I awake every morning open to the idea of breathing and unable to wear the shame. I can apologize and I do, but I cannot fix mend or create with my head hung. I also know I have inspired, made a difference, and in an unorthodox fashion remained a constant.
The world around me is splitting into sides and the sides are both creating list of what defines a good person, a true person, a respectable one. These sides want a lock step commitment of conformance to a cause. I want to tell both sides right here right now, conformity is not a key component to any cause worth lifting a flag for, and it is mine and everyone else’s right to disagree.
Swallow your tea bags. Dump out your cold ass coffee. You feel you are a revolutionary standing up for your rights and it is my view both sides have a blind spot on freedom and instead are engaged in standing on someone else’s. Take your lily white asses to the streets and chant your impotent slogans, but do not think me a fence sitter for not committing to your measures. Give me the shaky life of the outsider as it means I will not drown in a sea of foolishness. Your need to “convince me” shows me your fear. Good luck with that, and before you tell me to love it or leave it, find out what “IT” is, and then fuck off.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to him. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionist
What about the lane changers? There are those who will reinvent at the drop of a hat, or cause one to hate or love them passionately for years to come over the smallest action. The debate rages for years about their merit long after they are gone. The people who do not feel the need to report in, but blazes ahead are the people who truly live life.
I have disappointed people, burned bridges, and been the recipient of misconceived notion. Yet I awake every morning open to the idea of breathing and unable to wear the shame. I can apologize and I do, but I cannot fix mend or create with my head hung. I also know I have inspired, made a difference, and in an unorthodox fashion remained a constant.
The world around me is splitting into sides and the sides are both creating list of what defines a good person, a true person, a respectable one. These sides want a lock step commitment of conformance to a cause. I want to tell both sides right here right now, conformity is not a key component to any cause worth lifting a flag for, and it is mine and everyone else’s right to disagree.
Swallow your tea bags. Dump out your cold ass coffee. You feel you are a revolutionary standing up for your rights and it is my view both sides have a blind spot on freedom and instead are engaged in standing on someone else’s. Take your lily white asses to the streets and chant your impotent slogans, but do not think me a fence sitter for not committing to your measures. Give me the shaky life of the outsider as it means I will not drown in a sea of foolishness. Your need to “convince me” shows me your fear. Good luck with that, and before you tell me to love it or leave it, find out what “IT” is, and then fuck off.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to him. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionist
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Ahhh..Sweet Freedom how Oppressive You Can Be
In the last year I have made the attempt to be a blogger. Seduced by the freedom of expression and wanting to give to the world my piece of mind. I have made several attempts under various names, running through ideas like most Americans run through fad diets.
A really close friend knowing my past involvement in music and had read the other blogs suggested I spend this space critiquing new releases. I believe his words were, "what I'd like to see is your take on new music, with your wit and insight it could be huge for you!" I think he visited once, and the simple fact is I feel nothing extraordinary can come from one more music fan gushing about the newest releases. My insight to the matter is music is in one of those stalled points where it needs a revolution. For a few weeks on Tuesday mornings I would cyphon through the new stuff and attempt to write about it and quickly found myself bored and trapped in something akin to a job. If most of the music is shite it is oppressively hard to be witty about it. Am I suggesting there is no more good music? No. I am suggesting there is an over abundance of really bad music. Everything seems to be formatted to things from the last forty years without making any improvements. Bread and Emerson Lake & Palmer might as well be current. Pop music, country music, rap, jazz all seem to be at a dead stand still. The friend that suggested this introduced me to the band Fun, who garnered much critical praise and was on the critics top 10 list for 2009. It is listenable music at best. For me it is Cheap Trick not giving their interpretation of Queen, but Cheap Trick impersonating Queen. I cut my musical teeth on bands that were tired of Queen and Cheap Trick.
Maybe it is that infancy of opinion I would like to reflect in these blogs. I fell in to the all too American problem of formatting a freedom. The art of blogs to me is to ignore the very public audience and let the voyeurs trip over the words. I am currently pursuing a future in law and I am supposed to avoid such openness because once it hits the web it is "there forever and it may comeback to haunt you!" The truth is if I am true to myself and the freedoms I am supposed to garner as an American such fears have no place in my life. The insurance of life is the course can be changed at any given moment.
What is freedom worth if you are afraid to use it?
A really close friend knowing my past involvement in music and had read the other blogs suggested I spend this space critiquing new releases. I believe his words were, "what I'd like to see is your take on new music, with your wit and insight it could be huge for you!" I think he visited once, and the simple fact is I feel nothing extraordinary can come from one more music fan gushing about the newest releases. My insight to the matter is music is in one of those stalled points where it needs a revolution. For a few weeks on Tuesday mornings I would cyphon through the new stuff and attempt to write about it and quickly found myself bored and trapped in something akin to a job. If most of the music is shite it is oppressively hard to be witty about it. Am I suggesting there is no more good music? No. I am suggesting there is an over abundance of really bad music. Everything seems to be formatted to things from the last forty years without making any improvements. Bread and Emerson Lake & Palmer might as well be current. Pop music, country music, rap, jazz all seem to be at a dead stand still. The friend that suggested this introduced me to the band Fun, who garnered much critical praise and was on the critics top 10 list for 2009. It is listenable music at best. For me it is Cheap Trick not giving their interpretation of Queen, but Cheap Trick impersonating Queen. I cut my musical teeth on bands that were tired of Queen and Cheap Trick.
Maybe it is that infancy of opinion I would like to reflect in these blogs. I fell in to the all too American problem of formatting a freedom. The art of blogs to me is to ignore the very public audience and let the voyeurs trip over the words. I am currently pursuing a future in law and I am supposed to avoid such openness because once it hits the web it is "there forever and it may comeback to haunt you!" The truth is if I am true to myself and the freedoms I am supposed to garner as an American such fears have no place in my life. The insurance of life is the course can be changed at any given moment.
What is freedom worth if you are afraid to use it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)