Let's see. What things of note happened this week?
The nation reacted in predictable ways to the Va Tech shootings. I don't think I've ever been at a loss for words the way I was on Monday at work, while Fox News repeated the same gruesome details over and over again. I'm not picking on Fox News, but network news in general. A New York Times article the next day made a really good point about the network news coverage. It's as if we have a protocol now for how to cover a school shooting. The I-Report link for CNN was lit up, every reporter and news anchor had their own thing to say about it, and even the Fox News graphics department only took about an hour to have a flashing "Campus Massacre" graphic to intro each of their various segments.
I think the main thing that haunts me about this particular act is the proximity to my own life. I have friends who know people who died, and being 2 degrees removed from this sort of tragedy is a strange feeling. It just feels so much closer than Columbine, which I was too young to grasp, and any of the mass killings around the globe since then (Baghdad, Darfur, Madrid, Chechnya, Madrid, London, etc.) that I felt no personal connection to. I don't think I really have anything else of value to say about this, so maybe I should just shut up. I hope my cynicism doesn't offend anyone.
Onward. The Supreme Court is on the move!!! The Christian Right is seeing the glory of the coming of the Roberts Court! In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court voted to outlaw partial-birth abortions. As much as I am pro-choice, I have to admit that I agree with this decision. This is a practice that should not have to persist in today's medical world. However, the implications of this vote do not sit as well with me. Naturally this is the first time that Bush's appointments in the court have been felt so directly, not to mention the absence of Sandra Day O'Connor. Read this article if you want the details:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/washington/19scotus.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1177154533-3Tk6FHBPeNb1fy4Ov6r3uA
Wow, that's a long link. Crazy-ass internet. Anyway, I still don't think Bush will be able to keep his election promises to the Christian Right, but we may feel the reverberations of his appointments for a long time.
Hey everyone, it's baseball season! Don't you smell that freshly cut grass (not that kind of grass. 4-20 was yesterday). Baseball makes me so happy. My family has ordered MLB Extra Innings again, which means at least one TV in my house will be devoted to baseball every day until the end of October. I love it. Maaaaahhhhhh I love it so much.
Alex Rodriguez. FUCK YEAH A-ROD. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.
Boston sure had on some ugly uniforms last night. Boston sure had on some ugly faces last night. I love to hate you, Boston. Don't ever change.
Brooks Peel and I are not giving up hope on YOUR Pittsburgh baseball Pirates. Jason Bay, keep on fighting my comrade! We shall see victory yet!
Will someone please break Barry Bonds. Just break him. Use a crowbar or a golf club or a light saber. Just break him. He represents everything that I hate about modern baseball. He's dumb as a post, beefy and self-laudatory, not to mention doped up and artificial, but he's going to hold the most coveted record in American sports. Not cool, Barry. In the words of the Philadelphia Phillies fans last year, "Ruth did it on hot dogs and beer, Aaron did it with class."
That's all for today. I have a long time before I go to work. How about some laundry?
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
A post for me
Those of you who know me well probably already know that I had a terrible weekend. The details aren't important nor are they appropriate for this blog, but let's just say I learned a lot about myself all at once. Chapel Hill has once again become a source of sadness for me more than it is a source of joy. My presence here is a constant reminder of what I have not accomplished that I could have.
In the end, it has given me good reason to set into motion the various changes in my life that will have to occur in order for me to be successful during the summer. For those of you that don't know, I am headed back to NCSU for summer school. I will be taking a full load in both sessions. I am currently completely mentally unprepared for this task.
That's fine. That's what Monday is for. Resolve. Discipline. Momentum. Maybe I'm really ready this time. One day at a time.
So here I go. I'm standing on the edge of another affirmation. Another promise to myself. This may be my last chance to pull things together. Let's see what I have in me.
In the end, it has given me good reason to set into motion the various changes in my life that will have to occur in order for me to be successful during the summer. For those of you that don't know, I am headed back to NCSU for summer school. I will be taking a full load in both sessions. I am currently completely mentally unprepared for this task.
That's fine. That's what Monday is for. Resolve. Discipline. Momentum. Maybe I'm really ready this time. One day at a time.
So here I go. I'm standing on the edge of another affirmation. Another promise to myself. This may be my last chance to pull things together. Let's see what I have in me.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Listening to the thunderstorm and thinking...
I think it’s about time I write down some thoughts on my own spirituality. For years I have been saying that I am agnostic, that I am of the opinion that nothing is certain and therefore nothing is worth believing. I’m not sure if I ever put it in those words, but that’s essentially what I’ve tried to convince myself of. I suppose I am still agnostic in some respects: I don’t presume to know what will happen to me once I die nor do I presume to know the reason for my existence. I still believe that little is certain, but I am becoming more certain of aspects of my own spirituality.
First of all, I have become convinced of the existence of a higher power and my connection to it. As one might expect, no one event brought me to this conclusion, but rather a series of occurrences and a lot of sporadic contemplation of these occurrences. I simply cannot take the ineffably beautiful life that I have been given to be a cosmic accident. Many aspects of spirituality defy logic, but it also defies logic to think that the complex wonder of the human mind came from a random alignment of chemicals.
I believe that religion sprang out of the human mind when it became capable of contemplating its own existence. There is nothing less discoverable than human origin and human destination, and yet humanity has spent its entire existence trying to obtain a definitive answer. I propose a blissful neutrality. If every person on earth would accept that they do not know the meaning of life and will not ever know the meaning of life then we as a human race could get down to the aspects of the human condition that we can control. If I were to affirm my faith in a higher power, the first point of my affirmation would be that none of our beliefs about our purpose on this earth have any more substance to them than anyone else’s. The next point would be that the only way humans will achieve the spiritual peace that we all seek is to accept that life is too beautiful to be explained.
So I suppose that if I am waging a religious war, then my enemy is spiritual certainty. The human mind is not designed to find the truth and then stay put forever. The human mind is designed to walk around the edge of truth, look at it from different angles, different distances, and at different times of day to see how the shadows hit it. Just when you think you know what it's all about, that is the time when your mind should tell you that stagnation is the enemy. Think again. The people who are absolutely certain of things that cannot be proven in this world are the people I can't seem to get anywhere with. Ironically, I feel that I am simply not open-minded enough to accept "blind faith" as justification for action. When it comes to organized religion, most faith is blind. Don't kid yourself and don't tell me to play along. I can open my mind to a lot of things, but indoctrinated closed-mindedness is not one of them.
The bottom line is that I do not live in a Christian country. I live in a country where the state is separate from the church and the people are free to think what they want as long as they do not infringe upon the freedom of others. Right?
First of all, I have become convinced of the existence of a higher power and my connection to it. As one might expect, no one event brought me to this conclusion, but rather a series of occurrences and a lot of sporadic contemplation of these occurrences. I simply cannot take the ineffably beautiful life that I have been given to be a cosmic accident. Many aspects of spirituality defy logic, but it also defies logic to think that the complex wonder of the human mind came from a random alignment of chemicals.
I believe that religion sprang out of the human mind when it became capable of contemplating its own existence. There is nothing less discoverable than human origin and human destination, and yet humanity has spent its entire existence trying to obtain a definitive answer. I propose a blissful neutrality. If every person on earth would accept that they do not know the meaning of life and will not ever know the meaning of life then we as a human race could get down to the aspects of the human condition that we can control. If I were to affirm my faith in a higher power, the first point of my affirmation would be that none of our beliefs about our purpose on this earth have any more substance to them than anyone else’s. The next point would be that the only way humans will achieve the spiritual peace that we all seek is to accept that life is too beautiful to be explained.
So I suppose that if I am waging a religious war, then my enemy is spiritual certainty. The human mind is not designed to find the truth and then stay put forever. The human mind is designed to walk around the edge of truth, look at it from different angles, different distances, and at different times of day to see how the shadows hit it. Just when you think you know what it's all about, that is the time when your mind should tell you that stagnation is the enemy. Think again. The people who are absolutely certain of things that cannot be proven in this world are the people I can't seem to get anywhere with. Ironically, I feel that I am simply not open-minded enough to accept "blind faith" as justification for action. When it comes to organized religion, most faith is blind. Don't kid yourself and don't tell me to play along. I can open my mind to a lot of things, but indoctrinated closed-mindedness is not one of them.
The bottom line is that I do not live in a Christian country. I live in a country where the state is separate from the church and the people are free to think what they want as long as they do not infringe upon the freedom of others. Right?
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Great Gig in the Sky?
Ok Nick Drake. I get it. You were a fantastic musician with a really fucked up personal life. You were shy to the point of being dysfunctional in a profession where shyness is preyed upon. I still love your music and I still wish you could have written more. Some of the songs on "Five Leaves Left" make me want to sit down with you at a coffee shop or something and ask you how you think things are going to turn out. I want to ask you whether it's alright with you for me to play "Day is Done" at my funeral.
I want to ask you if God exists. You'd be an interesting person to hear the ultimate truth of existence from. You clearly weren't convinced about the afterlife when you wrote "Day is Done," but since then you have actually gotten the answer.
I hope that on whatever plane of existence we ascend or descend to after we die, if any, there is a concert hall where all the great musicians of history get together and play the material they've written in the years after they died, and some renewed versions of their earthly material.
Marvin Gaye would perform "God is Love" in a completely different way, slowing it down and choking and wincing a little bit every time he sings the word "father." It would make the transition into "Mercy Mercy Me" sound simultaneously labored and obvious. The ecology will reach a different level of nostalgia for the audience as they recall the world as they knew it.
Jeff Buckley could derive new meaning from every single song on "Grace." He'll climb on stage with his father and just let loose. Maybe his father will add some sweeping harmonies with his voice, filling in the massive and gorgeous chords that Jeff always left slightly open. I'm sure John Bonham will be happy to play drums if they can pull him away from his conversation with Buddy Rich. Maybe halfway through the performance Nina Simone and Leonard Cohen would join Jeff on stage so that they could do "Lilac Wine" and "Hallelujah" with unimaginable power. More likely, however, they would just let the structure crumble and call upon the communal spirit of music that connected them all in the first place until everyone in the hall couldn't help but cry. It will be a tough performance, considering that many of the questions that Jeff poses about our spiritual origins and destination on "Grace" will have been answered (sooner than he could have guessed). If that is the case, I'm sure Jeff will agree that there's no better time to ask some new questions and search the fretboard for the answers.
I could write a book about this. I had better stop before I get in too deep.
I'm sitting in Open Eye trying to think of a reason to get out of this chair.
I want to ask you if God exists. You'd be an interesting person to hear the ultimate truth of existence from. You clearly weren't convinced about the afterlife when you wrote "Day is Done," but since then you have actually gotten the answer.
I hope that on whatever plane of existence we ascend or descend to after we die, if any, there is a concert hall where all the great musicians of history get together and play the material they've written in the years after they died, and some renewed versions of their earthly material.
Marvin Gaye would perform "God is Love" in a completely different way, slowing it down and choking and wincing a little bit every time he sings the word "father." It would make the transition into "Mercy Mercy Me" sound simultaneously labored and obvious. The ecology will reach a different level of nostalgia for the audience as they recall the world as they knew it.
Jeff Buckley could derive new meaning from every single song on "Grace." He'll climb on stage with his father and just let loose. Maybe his father will add some sweeping harmonies with his voice, filling in the massive and gorgeous chords that Jeff always left slightly open. I'm sure John Bonham will be happy to play drums if they can pull him away from his conversation with Buddy Rich. Maybe halfway through the performance Nina Simone and Leonard Cohen would join Jeff on stage so that they could do "Lilac Wine" and "Hallelujah" with unimaginable power. More likely, however, they would just let the structure crumble and call upon the communal spirit of music that connected them all in the first place until everyone in the hall couldn't help but cry. It will be a tough performance, considering that many of the questions that Jeff poses about our spiritual origins and destination on "Grace" will have been answered (sooner than he could have guessed). If that is the case, I'm sure Jeff will agree that there's no better time to ask some new questions and search the fretboard for the answers.
I could write a book about this. I had better stop before I get in too deep.
I'm sitting in Open Eye trying to think of a reason to get out of this chair.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
We can think with two heads
I'd really like to hear recordings or watch videos of me singing karaoke when I'm drunk. I want to know if my sense of pitch and timing actually improves as much as I feel like it does.
My voice is back! And by that I mean that the 5-6 full notes that I had lost off of my full-voice high range have returned heartily and have brought with them about 4 notes of head voice that I am not used to having. With all the driving I do (to work, from work, to Raleigh, from Raleigh, to 503C N. Greensboro St and from 503C N. Greensboro St), it's no wonder my range is improving. I sing in the car. I mean I really really sing in the car. It's not good for my voice because it's difficult to achieve full breath support in a seated position, but that hasn't stopped me. I have gotten to the point where I really don't care about people watching me from other cars. In fact, sometimes I make eye contact with them while I am singing. This freaks them out a little and they turn away. Whatever. They all do it too, just not as conspicuously.
Is it just me, or are there a lot of cute girls coming out of the woodwork? I've met some pretty awesome ladies in the last few weeks. Thanks ladies, for being cute and awesome.
Ok, here's the issue I want to address today: at what point does a man expressing physical attraction for women (not a woman, mind you, but women in general) take the jump from playful to disrespectful?
The reason I pose this question: I work in a restaurant. A lot of pretty girls come into this restaurant to eat, and the male waiters tend to talk very openly about girls they find attractive. I am very careful not to turn the conversations dirty every time, and in fact I rarely am the catalyst of dirty conversations. I usually say something like "The girl at table 12 is cute." The word "cute" can be replaced by other words (pretty, gorgeous, smokin, bangin, etc.) showing the degree of my personal attraction to the girl in question. I personally don't think that any of these words imply any kind of disrespect for that girl. As a waiter I am not in a position to converse with every good looking girl that comes into the building, and thusly I cannot be blamed for basing my attractions entirely on looks.
All of this seems fairly obvious to me. Yet I am still chastised by some female members of the staff for being so shallow. These girls seem to think that I am incapable of seeing past looks when it comes to relationships and that I am therefore some sort of horny pig. The way I see it, judging coworkers on their behavior at work, especially at a job like waiting tables, is in itself very shallow. But beyond that, I think men are entitled to a little bit of banter about the opposite sex without being assumed to be womanizers. Being attracted to a girl physically does not speak to my willingness to pursue that girl any more than not finding a girl physically attractive speaks to my unwillingness to pursue her.
I am not ignoring, however, the double standard that plagues women in this society, especially in these situations. I may be in the minority when I say that it would take a lot more than a girl telling me what guys she's attracted to in the restaurant for me to think that she's some sort of sex addict. I guess what I'm really saying is that the ability of a man to be sensitive and respectful and the ability of a man to be lustful are not mutually exclusive. As with most such issues, the majority of men are somewhere in the middle. It's not fair to assume that each man is on one extreme or the other.
If any girls are reading this, I'd love to hear some feedback. (and I'd love to have your phone number too. We could have some chicken, maybe some sex...you know...see what happens.)
My voice is back! And by that I mean that the 5-6 full notes that I had lost off of my full-voice high range have returned heartily and have brought with them about 4 notes of head voice that I am not used to having. With all the driving I do (to work, from work, to Raleigh, from Raleigh, to 503C N. Greensboro St and from 503C N. Greensboro St), it's no wonder my range is improving. I sing in the car. I mean I really really sing in the car. It's not good for my voice because it's difficult to achieve full breath support in a seated position, but that hasn't stopped me. I have gotten to the point where I really don't care about people watching me from other cars. In fact, sometimes I make eye contact with them while I am singing. This freaks them out a little and they turn away. Whatever. They all do it too, just not as conspicuously.
Is it just me, or are there a lot of cute girls coming out of the woodwork? I've met some pretty awesome ladies in the last few weeks. Thanks ladies, for being cute and awesome.
Ok, here's the issue I want to address today: at what point does a man expressing physical attraction for women (not a woman, mind you, but women in general) take the jump from playful to disrespectful?
The reason I pose this question: I work in a restaurant. A lot of pretty girls come into this restaurant to eat, and the male waiters tend to talk very openly about girls they find attractive. I am very careful not to turn the conversations dirty every time, and in fact I rarely am the catalyst of dirty conversations. I usually say something like "The girl at table 12 is cute." The word "cute" can be replaced by other words (pretty, gorgeous, smokin, bangin, etc.) showing the degree of my personal attraction to the girl in question. I personally don't think that any of these words imply any kind of disrespect for that girl. As a waiter I am not in a position to converse with every good looking girl that comes into the building, and thusly I cannot be blamed for basing my attractions entirely on looks.
All of this seems fairly obvious to me. Yet I am still chastised by some female members of the staff for being so shallow. These girls seem to think that I am incapable of seeing past looks when it comes to relationships and that I am therefore some sort of horny pig. The way I see it, judging coworkers on their behavior at work, especially at a job like waiting tables, is in itself very shallow. But beyond that, I think men are entitled to a little bit of banter about the opposite sex without being assumed to be womanizers. Being attracted to a girl physically does not speak to my willingness to pursue that girl any more than not finding a girl physically attractive speaks to my unwillingness to pursue her.
I am not ignoring, however, the double standard that plagues women in this society, especially in these situations. I may be in the minority when I say that it would take a lot more than a girl telling me what guys she's attracted to in the restaurant for me to think that she's some sort of sex addict. I guess what I'm really saying is that the ability of a man to be sensitive and respectful and the ability of a man to be lustful are not mutually exclusive. As with most such issues, the majority of men are somewhere in the middle. It's not fair to assume that each man is on one extreme or the other.
If any girls are reading this, I'd love to hear some feedback. (and I'd love to have your phone number too. We could have some chicken, maybe some sex...you know...see what happens.)
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