…and I thought the line at Starbucks was long…
It was a 3 hour wait.
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…came up in conversation this morning, so I thought I’d share it.
As an adolescent I was once visiting a friend when there was a knock at the door. My friend’s mother (Mrs. Williams) answered the door discovering two smiling Jehovah’s Witnesses.
“Hello” one said. “We’d like to talk to you about God.”
Mrs. Williams, without hesitation, replied “Sure! What would you like to know?”
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…is the name of my wife’s walking team. They are walking 60 miles in 3 days to raise money for breast cancer research.
My mother-in-law discovered she had breast cancer this year. She learned this about 4 months after her husband past away.
My wife Kim felt convicted to do something, and this was what she came up with.
I have participated in a number of ‘walk-a-thons’ growing up. I am, after all, an Eagle Scout, and you just can’t get there without walking a few dozen miles for some cause or another.
But this walk is much more than I expected. Both in terms of the number of participants and in terms of the excitement level.
These teams created more ‘punny’ breast t-shirts than one should ever endure. But I am happy that the 5000 (+/-) women and men have found a way to contribute.
On the flip side; I read a book by Warren Ellis recently that left me feeling even more cynical than usual. Between this 3-day walk, that book (A Crooked Little Vein), not to mention the current election season, I find myself wondering if there were a cure for breast cancer that was simple an affordable would we ever hear about it? I mean, as I watch and listen to the political back and forth I wonder if anyone in power (both the politicians and the CEOs…in this case… of pharmaceutical companies) really want to help anyone other than themselves?
Actually, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy toward Bill Gates, Bono, and Sting when I consider how much they have individually done to raise social consciousness. It makes me wish I liked/trusted windows (which I can’t ever since my first powerbook G4)…or for that matter, that last Sting CD (Sacred Heart…not the lute CD which was pretty good!), though I did buy a copy of Sacred Heart…
Anyway, it’s a good thing there are people out there, like my wife, who do what they can in spite of cynical bastards like me trying to steal their joy and their self-created power over adversity. Once again, to quote Brad Meltzer: ‘ordinary people change the world’.
Kim, I am very proud of you. Go kick ass!
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I’ve been inundated with messages from friends and family about the coming election.
Some support Obama, some support McCain.
The reality is: these guys are saying the same things…it is merely their methods that differ. Both adamantly oppose the ideals of the Bush administration in terms of economic policy, energy concerns, health care, and foreign policy. And who wouldn’t looking at his colossal failures over the last 6-7 years.
Both of them are heroes (I’m stealing this line from Brad Meltzer) One of them actually fought against tyranny with his bare hands, the other; a symbol of hope for half of the country, and the rest of the world. On a recent podcast an Australian fellow said that just by nominating Obama America has demonstrated its willingness to rise above its mistakes.
So, most people I know who are in favor of McCain have sent me information about one of three anti-Obama messages:
1) Scare tactics…Obama is ‘in league with terrorism’…that is nuts, and those of you who are propagating this myth should seriously re-evaluate yourselves and your motivations.
2) Economics…if you elect Obama the economy will get worse…that’s also nuts. The fact of the matter is that current Republican economic policy is what got us into this mess to begin with. The idea that we can live on credit is a Republican ideal that has directly or indirectly caused every recession we’ve seen in the last 20 years (maybe more, those are just the ones I’ve lived through).
3) Obama supports big government…the government is bigger than ever thanks to the Republican led executive and legislative branches, specifically, Bush has initiated more government programs than any Democratic president...EVER…and he cut taxes to do it (wait…something seems wrong there, I’m going to slash my budget, then pay more money…I don’t know, can’t quite put my finger on it…)…the democratic house hasn’t been in office long enough to fix this even if they could or would….(one more thought: several die-hard Republicans are quick to say “cutting taxes doesn’t mean cutting revenue…we cut taxes to bolster the economy…when the economy does well, we make more money in taxes”… trouble is, this doesn’t work. That’s why the Republicans have ALWAYS run the country on a deficit…when the democrats are in office we have a surplus…and I personally have paid more in taxes under Bush than I did under Clinton with the same total income)
The Obama fans are just as guilty. They have all sent me one of three anti-McCain messages:
1) Scare tactics…I actually received an e-mail claiming Al Queda is supporting McCain for president. According to this crap misinformation Al Queda’s plan all along has been to force the US into a global war on terror thus straining the economy….what!? If only the terrorists were that smart or forward thinking…then they might reason through what they are doing and realize that there are other, more powerful ways to initiate change than strapping bombs to themselves and hoping for 72 virgins in the afterlife.
2) Energy/environment…McCain wants to destroy the world by drilling oil, he has no intention of supporting alternative fuels based on these bills he voted for a million years ago….blah, blah, blah. Again, this is stupid. While I wish Bush had been more aggressive about alternative fuel research (as he promised to do in 2000) I believe the current energy situation may have finally proven to the conservatives (here I use the REAL meaning of the word ‘conservative’ as opposed to the bastardized meaning the political thinkers have placed on it…the word ‘conservative’ means ‘cautious about change or innovation’) that we need to change our attitude about alternative fuels.
3) Economics…If McCain gets into office he’ll continue to support the Bush agenda of giving tax breaks to large corporations and giving corporations incentives to move their production plants to foreign soil. This one is tricky…full of half truths. I believe McCain would give tax breaks to large corporations (he has said as much), but hopefully he would undo the mess Bush has gotten us into by generating incentives to promote foreign labor for American products thus bringing jobs back to the US.
So, who am I voting for? I believe that the republicans do some things really well (military, tax relief, etc.). I also think the Democrats do some things really well (Foreign relations, balanced budget, etc.).
I believe that we need to rotate which party is in office to get the benefits of both (though I wish there was a party that actually did everything well). Right now I think we’ve had too much Republican influence in our Government for too long…which is a shame, because McCain may be the best Republican candidate to come along in…well, EVER. Obama may not be the more experienced of the two, but he is forward thinking, and I believe we need to develop a new model for how to govern ourselves in this rapidly changing world. (side note: several McCain supporters are quick to point out McCain’s experience, but these are the same guys who turned a blind eye to W’s lack of experience eight years ago. That guy said more naive crap during the debates with Al Gore than Palan could ever dream of)
I think the heart of our problems in Iraq stem from our military fighting a 20th century war in the wrong millennia. I think our economic problems stem from too many people being concerned about their own money instead of realizing that if the world is in good shape financially it’s better for everyone in the long haul. I think that this country was founded by people who wanted the freedom to live and worship as they wanted (If not, that’s still a beautiful idea, isn’t it?), and I cannot support a party that would tell people how to live…I also cannot support a party that would knowingly redistribute the hard earned wealth of another….conversely, if that wealth was stolen by misrepresentation and deceit, I hope those thieves are stripped of everything they have.
As a result, I will vote for Obama. But not because I believe in him, but rather because our government is broken (4 more years of republican economics, energy policy, and social tyranny will kill us), and I believe that for right now, he is the lesser of two evils. In 8 years I will probably be saying ‘4 more years of democratic economics, military ineptitude, and social anarchy will kill us’…but we’ll see).
What is the solution? The founding fathers created the constitution so the government could change when necessary…is it time?
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I have a friend (who shall remain nameless) who has talked about Google as though they were the second coming for a long time now. Don’t get me wrong, I think Google is great, and they’ve definitely made me a believer with some of their cloud apps (Google docs rule!), and I even kind of like the idea of Android, their phone based OS, but I’m not certain it is very practical, and worse, I have real privacy issues.
Anyway, last year I bought an iPhone, and this particular friend of mine immediately began ridiculing me. See, I used to oppose all things Apple until I started traveling a lot. The Apple notebook was actually the least expensive/most reliable option, and once I began using their products I was overwhelmed by their superiority.
Still, my friend criticized stating that Google would soon put out a phone far superior to Apple’s.
I patiently explained that Google was not going to make a phone, but rather a phone operating system.
He argued that the OS WAS the phone. I stated that it would not be a google phone, but rather a phone made by some 3rd party company that would use ‘Android’ and that the word ‘google would never appear on the exterior of the phone…furthermore, because too many companies would be involved, it would just be ‘windows’ all over again…the beauty of the iPhone (would be more beautiful if AT&T were not involved) is that because it is physically and electronically put together with a single vision in mind, it works, and it works really well (I know all the complaints people have about it not working from time to time, but I submit that when it fails it is always user error…even if the error is simply that the user has not shut the device down in too many days).
So, at last the new ‘google phone’ is here, and my friend finally understood what I was talking about. He had a similar experience to Neil Gaiman, who posted this on his blog.
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I just printed the first rough draft of Gestures and put it on my iPod so I can hear how it flows, how the mixes are so far, etc. 4 of 8 tracks are completely finished, the others are missing final drum tracks. 2 tunes need guitar, and one track needs harmonica. I’m happy this recording is nearly finished. I’m really pleased with some of the tracks, and some of them are just good experiments. I’m looking forward to the recording’s release so I can write about each of the tunes more specifically on this blog.
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11 PM Saturday Night:
I’m on stage with Justin Rosolino and 3 other musicians. We’re playing a small venue in New York City. This is the second time I’ve been to New York and I’m happy/sad to say that I saw a lot of more of the city this time than I saw the last time. The last time I was in New York I was there with TLC. We stayed at the Trump Plaza. I had my own bed, the venue held thousands of people.
This gig with Justin is going shockingly well considering none of us has slept more than 4 hours in 3 days.
9:30 PM Thursday Night (2 days earlier)
I’m carrying my Bass out to an SUV in the parking lot of Church of the Apostles in Atlanta GA. This is 2003, and I’ve been playing at CotA for a little over a year. Elliot Moon, the drummer at CotA, and I have become friends, and we are about to go play a concert for another friend of ours named Justin Rosolino.
I don’t mind telling you that I’m quite impressed with Justin. I’ve been a working musician for a while, and the last local singer songwriter I’d heard who’d impressed me this much was John Mayer (about 3 years before John hit the big time). I liked Justin’s material more, because the first time I heard John he wasn’t much more than a Dave Matthews clone. Justin’s material was fresh, and I wanted him to succeed.
So when Justin asked me to play a gig with him in New York I agreed to do it for very little money. Then, he’d asked me what kind of car he should rent to get the band to New York. See, Justin would already be in the city, so it would be up to myself and the other 3 band members to meet him there.
I told him that in order to fit a drummer, with drums, a bassist, a string player carrying a cello and viola, as well as an electric guitarist we’d need a good sized SUV. When I got to the parking lot I found the absolute smallest SUV money can buy. I waited and watched as the guitarist and violist tried to cram our gear into the car. Finally, I could stand it no more. I took over and squeezed the gear in…yes, we fit it all in the back, drum set and all.
So, to avoid sitting in this horrible environment longer than necessary we decided we’d drive straight to New York…we knew Justin had a place for us to stay when we got there.
4 PM Friday:
We arrived in New York and we were looking forward to a nap before the rehearsal that night at 9 PM. Elliot called Justin to get the location of the room we were staying in. Justin informed us that we couldn’t actually go to the room till after the rehearsal. So with 5 hours to kill we wandered around New York. To save gas, we did so on foot.
9 PM Friday:
The rehearsal was horrible. Justin could do little more than laugh at all of our performances.
12 AM Saturday:
We arrived at Justin’s friend’s home. We discovered that we (all four of us) were to sleep in the living room. 2 on the sofa, 2 on the floor with the sofa’s back pillows. But before sleep, Justin’s buddy wanted us to stay up and watch porn. He seemed perplexed when we opt out of the porn and just wanted to go to sleep. Nevertheless, the ritual of being good house guests lasted until 2 AM when we finally crawled into our sleeping positions.
2:02 AM Saturday:
There was a knock at the door. I overheard that a punk band was coming in to mix their record in the room directly above us
4 AM Saturday:
Still awake. I put a Bela Fleck record on my iPod…trying to drown out the punk music and sleep.
8 AM Saturday:
Justin entered the room to rouse us. We have our last rehearsal for tonight’s show in an hour. When I sat up he looked at me and started laughing. He says “Alan, the expression on your face is giving me ‘the bird’”.
9 AM Saturday:
Rehearsal went much better this time. Justin was pacified.
12 PM Saturday:
Justin headed out for the wedding he must attend as a guest before this gig. We were informed where we must be and when. Then we were told we must vacate the premises.
1 PM – 10 PM:
We continued to wander around New York City aimlessly.
11 PM:
This is where the story began. Thank God this gig has started!
12 AM Sunday:
We piled into the tiny SUV and head back to Atlanta. Thankfully, the guitarist is staying in New York, and the Violist is riding with Justin in Justin’s car.
4 AM – 10 AM Sunday:
Justin had a friend in DC we stayed with. More sleep. Yay (exclamation filled with sarcasm)!
2 PM Sunday:
Justin’s car breaks down…I s#!@ you not.
9 PM Sunday:
Elliot and I arrived back in Atlanta. We had to return the SUV before Justin is charged for another day. As we arrive at CotA to pick up our cars we find the parking deck locked with our cars inside.
10 PM Sunday:
Thankfully Elliot knew who to call. We got a hold of a security guard at CotA who is going to let us out.
11PM Sunday:
Home in bed. Will I ever play a gig with Justin again?
Only if I make the travel arrangements…
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Archive for October, 2008