Truth Perceived

2006, 2007 and maybe the 2008 Folk Music Review

2007-03-30T01:06:00.000-05:00

Being an amateur reviewer of music I am usually not privy to music before it is released to the general public. Consequently, I review songs, which were released in the 70s, or earlier if the mood suits me. Recently this all changed when I received the latest album from CST (Central Standard Time, a contemporary acoustic folk duo). The last review I read said something about “puckish insouciance”. I figure they locked up the English teacher audience with that review, so now I thought I would write a review of their latest album for the layman, or at least the non-English experts.

To get the straight scoop here is their website. I don’t have time to read it myself so I’m going to work from memory here, since I have followed this band from its infancy back in the waning days of the previous millennium. Other aficionados of CST’s work may read this and say, “You left a lot out, and what you didn’t leave out was often wrong!” To which I write, “Get your own blog.” I don’t have time to write out the whole history of CST here so I’m just going to say they have released three albums when those who have been keeping track know they have “released” at least five. Their first album was “Second Whisper”, a remake with different cover art and a couple extra songs, of their debut album, released on a limited basis. The producer of this album was surely a dolt. This is not a reflection of the music by any means just my feelings about the executive producer. Then they turned around nine months later and released a double platinum album “Folk Singing”. Then, today, nearly a decade later, their latest album (which I have been listening to for a couple weeks now) is available and currently being sold at a concert at Luther College (currently as I write but not likely as you read).

When I pirated the music I didn’t get the album name or any of the song names for this latest work. So for the purposes of this review I will have to make them all up. Having spoken at length to the members of CST I have some ideas about what they may have been planning to call this CD and they have been playing some of these songs for years so I think I know the names. I once suggested that they release an album called “All Hail Mark”. I can only assume they chose this album to do that with. The cover art was supposed to be me, standing in front of a field of hundreds of people, bowing to me and my arms are stretched to the sky. I have not posed for any such picture so I assume they photo-shopped it together.

To wrap up the history of CST this is how I view their body of work: With “Second Whisper” they met. In “Folk Singing” they found their sound. Now with “All Hail Mark” they are just showing off. Typically, these days an album is just a single or an LP with somewhere between eight to a dozen throw away songs. The last decade CST spent in the studio has been well spent, because this album has no discard songs. The only possible exception is the song “Back at this Farm”. It’s a good song but it makes me really sad and I don’t know why. It’s powerfully emotional without specifically ever saying what is so so so so sad.

“Happier Without Me” is a farewell to an old lover song. The guitar has a deep driving beat. The rhythm is moving on its own and then to add the lyrics it’s indescribable without actually listening to it. The line, “There’s no blame to assign, and if there is its all mine…” is awesome, and is only a harbinger of things to come from this group (in my opinion). Listening, I’m reminded of Simon and Garfunkel… back when they were still together. “Time and Again” of AHM was especially reminiscent of “Homeward Bound” of S&G fame, while at the same time being almost completely different.

“To Be Alone” is another song evoking powerful emotion more specifically in this case about a relationship gone bad. Eminently relatable is “Long Way Home Tonight” expressing the desire to slow down and enjoy life for what it is. I would like to think I was standing next to Charlie when he conceived of “Standing On Top of the World” but that sort of wishful thinking should be reserved for something both plausible and relevant. If for no other reason, I give it points because I have been waiting a long time for a song referencing Yurtle. Certainly Theodor Geisel has created the definitive work on turtle stacking with Yurtle the Turtle and it’s about time someone regaled it in song.

I could go on and on about each individual song, but I’m tired. So I’ll just say run out and buy this gem. It’s reminiscent of the Beatles first good album, which I believe was “Rubber Soul” in the way it weaves back and forth from the serious to the light hearted, from slow to up-tempo. So, go out and buy “All Hail Mark” or “Rubber Soul”. You will not be sorry, unless of course, you only like hip hop.

I am willing to accept bribes from Paul, Ringo, Matt or Charlie to delete one of the albums from the previous purchase suggestion.

Aliens Among Us

2006-05-11T20:47:00.000-05:00

I recently got the chance to spend some time with a new comer to America. His name is Ricardo Gonzalez Sanchez the Third (not his real name (not the same Ricardo Gonzalez Sanchez the Third as the one in this post)). Ricardo's "American Dream" is just like ours. At least I assume it is because Ricardo doesn't speak any of the languages I am fluent in. FYI, I will list the languages I speak fluently, in alphabetical order: English. It doesn't matter how loudly I speak or how many times I repeat myself Ricardo just doesn't understand. He also shows little interest in learning English. I'm not one to pass judgmentdgement, but if he plans on living in America, from now on, he needs to learn English.

After spending some time around Ricardo, I would say that he has no marketable job skills. "Unskilled laborer" would be a kind description of him. Ricardo has no green card, no work visa, no drivers license, no ID of any kind. Ricardo has never paid taxes and yet I found out that he is entitled to healthcare at the local hospital. If there is an emergency and he needs care, the hospital is obligated to provide it. I read this. It's posted on the wall right inside the front door. Luckily Ricardo can't read English either, so he doesn't know he can use the hospital. It is likely, however, that some do-gooder would call 911 for him if there was an emergency, so the fact that he can't read English is not certain to keep him out of the local community health center.

There is no end to the veritable parade of social services Ricardo will find himself "entitled" to... once he learns English. I hate to come across too negative about Ricardo. It is true that he is not adding any positive economic value, and as far as I can tell, he does not have a five or ten year plan. He does seem to be a fast learner though, and has come a long way in a very short time. With help, from someone with connections, Ricardo was able to get a social security number. One thing that bothers me about Ricardo is that since he seems bright and is catching on quickly, he will probably learn English. His mother probably lies awake at night hoping that Ricardo will get the best education the American taxpayers can provide. Educated or not, he will drive wages down by taking a job away from someone who has lived in this country a lot longer (probably someone like me, I've lived here all my life). Not that Ricardo would want my job. I sit in a cubicle all day.

Sadly, after seeing where Ricardo lives, and spending time with him, I feel like I want to help him. I thought it would be a good lesson in economics and good-old-fashioned American values to pay him a few dollars to mow my lawn. My wife felt this was a bad idea. She said she was concerned for the safety of our young son. I told her that we can't judge people just because they look different and they don't speak English. She said she wasn't passing judgment, and Ricardo was not mowing our lawn. I told her that he has a social security number, and everything we pay him could be a tax write off.

So... I'm mowing my own lawn this summer, and I can't help but think that I'm part of the problem in this country. Ricardo Gonzalez Sanchez the Third's real name is Charles. He is my two month old son. He was born here in Iowa. It will likely be a decade and a half, maybe two, before he gets a real job. Before he goes to work full time I plan to send him to at least twelve years of public education. He will probably eat school lunch subsudized by the state and federal government. I think it would be great if he went to college and it would be awesome if he got someone else to pay for that too. After 22 years of living off the kindness of others and the public dole he could join the work force and become an econonmically productive member of society.

Instead of having a child of my own I could have helped a young guy sneak across the border and he could start picking fruit right away. It's unlikely he would ever attain a level of education necessary to take my job and I would be insuring that I could afford oranges for years to come.

A few more, for the impatient among us.

2006-03-09T12:51:00.000-06:00

Charles John
Born 03/04/06 4:02am
8lb 7oz
20 in

Horizontal stripes make me look fat.

The frog stole my outfit.

I can't roll over without someone sticking a camera in my face.

03/04/06

2006-03-06T11:39:00.000-06:00

4:07 am

Still trying to decide if this place is better than where he came from. The verdict is still out on that one.

One minute later someone finally found a blanket.

That afternoon... Baby sleeping... Mom doing well... Dad... Trying to figure out where he can take a seven hour nap.

The doctor shows up to see how mom and baby are doing. Dad becomes a photographer, a role which is more becoming than photographee.

Monday, baby learns how to sleep well, and head is almost back to normal.

My Cat Doesn’t Even Know Its Own Name!

2006-03-01T22:34:00.000-06:00

To be precise, none of my wife’s three cats know their own name. My guess is that they don’t know each other’s names or mine either. Yesterday I was yelling at George (the cat). Try as I might to inspire George to come to me, he would have none of it. His ears would not even perk up at the sound of his name. This would naturally lead me to believe that George is deaf, but he does come running if I pour food in his bowl. Therefore, George is not deaf, but rather he is egg like.

Egg like can be good. Have you ever talked to a carton of eggs? I have. It’s rather refreshing sometimes. No matter what I say they don’t frown, express shock, or get angry. They just sit there blankly and refuse to interrupt.

Just the other day I had a carton of eggs out and I was lamenting the impending birth of my first child. I relayed the story about how my wife was telling me to clean out my closet so she could fill it with baby stuff. From now on my wife and I will share a closet. So I said, “It’s not fair that the baby gets a whole closet while I have to share a closet.”

My wife, in an effort to console me I am sure, said, “Well, it’s not like you have your own room either.”

The whole process of getting ready for the baby is a humbling one. Wherever I was in the pecking order, I have been taken down a peg… A WHOLE PEG!

The eggs were unresponsive, so I fried one up. The others were still not talking. Like I said, the eggs betray no emotion. They didn’t scowl or frown. It’s like talking to a dog without the drool. Wal-Mart patrons are a different breed all together, completely unlike eggs. Recently we were at Wal-Mart (buying baby stuff). My wife told me to get the Vaseline, (babies need Vaseline) while she looked for something else. Not wanting to forget my task, as I pushed my cart across the store I made up a song to remind me what I was doing. It went something like, “Vaseline, Vaseline, Vaseline, Vaseline…” I was moving to the beat of the song as I pushed my cart up and down the pharmacy isles.

As I came around a corner I met a woman who gave me a weird look. She proceeded to put eight bottles of antacid in her basket and walked off. She glanced back at me one more time when she reached the end of the isle. I looked at the shelf and said rather loudly, “Generic petroleum jelly, how can I go wrong?” She looked at the end cap display and grabbed a jumbo bottle of Gold Bond Medicated Powder, and briskly exited the isle. I noticed that generic petroleum jelly is about half the price of Vaseline. Babies love jelly.

I pushed my cart toward the checkout. I met my wife and we stood in line. As I considered my experience it occurred to me why so many people see Wal-Mart in such a negative light. I stared at my petroleum jelly and realized that Wal-Mart was my enabler. The president has told us we are addicted to oil. There I was, buying oil (in jelly form) for a child who is not even born yet. The president was right. I am addicted to oil. I threw away the petroleum jelly as soon as we got home. I didn’t want to pass my faults to the next generation. No petroleum jelly for my child. Our president has picked up the mantle of his hero Jimmy Carter. I too will stand with him and fight the evildoers, one jar of petroleum jelly at a time.

The cat apparently smelled that sweet smell of petroleum jelly because he was clawing at the wastebasket. I told him to get away and was reminded that he doesn’t know his own name. Rather than naming our cats George, Ringo and Lennon, we could have just named them after their colors, Black, Orange, and Cow (because he is white with black spots like a dairy cow). We could have saved a lot of time with that strategy. Instead we spent countless hours coming up with the perfect name for each cat. That way we would know which one was ignoring us.

I like to use paint with a low lead content.

2006-02-16T21:53:00.000-06:00

When I paint I find it’s best to do it in a room with little or no ventilation. I do my best thinking when it’s just me and a fuming can of paint. Case in point, this post is being written in a room I am painting, as I take a short break. This is a unique opportunity to capture my thoughts. Usually I don’t remember exactly what I thought, when I am done painting. I only remember that the thoughts were truly profound.

It occurs to me that some people use their blogs as a tool to promote the public good. For this reason I have chosen to use this post as a public service message. Here it is. When painting, especially if you are think painting, like me, it is important to understand the dangers of lead based paint.

Lead is toxic and known to cause many health problems most notably in small children. You may ask, “What health problems,” and, “Why small children in particular?” To which I answer, “Look it up.” This is a “warning message” about lead not a detailed informational piece. Before I go any further I should say this, DON’T USE LEAD BASED PAINT! At most lead should be a minor ingredient added for color or taste. The same goes for gasoline. It’s not necessary to buy premium, but for your children, for the world, buy unleaded gas.

I went to the store to see how easy it is to buy the silent killer that is lead based paint. I knew full well the dangers that potentially lurked around each corner. After visiting the hardware store, two lumberyards and a paint store, I reviewed my findings. In four stores I could have unknowingly bought lead based paint zero times. Undaunted, I went to the local gas station and found that they don’t sell any gasoline with lead in it.

It turns out that lead hasn’t been added to residential paint since 1978 and leaded gasoline has been illegal to sell for on-road vehicles since 1995. With this knowledge my thoughts drifted where the thoughts of most people would. Where did all of this lead come from during the heyday of lead paint and leaded gasoline? And where does the lead go now? To answer these burning questions I set out to visit a lead mine in Park Hills, Missouri. The mine is located within the Ozarks in an area known as the Old Lead Belt. My wife packed me a lunch. It contained neither Ranchragious Pringles nor Cheezums Pringles. I stopped at a Quick Stop for some gas and some Cheezums Pringles, unleaded gas premium chips.

When I arrived at the mine, I noticed right away that the lead industry has been devastated by our overzealous legislative branch, which does all it can to stifle one industry after another in its prime. I spoke to the mine foreman, Ricardo Gonzalez Sanchez the Third (not his real name). I remarked to him that I was curious about why his family gave three generations of Sanchez that same name. He reminded me that Ricardo Gonzalez Sanchez the Third was not his real name. I let it drop. He told me how lead is mined and a bit about the history and tradition of this respected industry. There are more than 1,000 miles of abandoned tunnels in this Missouri mine. Which doesn’t seem like a lot until I considered that I didn’t plan to drive 1,000 miles in my whole round trip, and that’s above ground.

Going through the mine I was surprised to find that lead is dug out of the ground and extracted from wooden tubes, which resemble the large oversized novelty pencils sold at tourist traps. I asked Ricardo about this. He told me that the “novelty pencils” are dug out of the ground and hauled up to the surface where the wood is burned off and the miners are left with pure lead. It was a great system but now there isn’t enough volume in the business to make lead mining profitable. No one will buy oversized novelty pencils with real led in them and the wood is of such poor quality that there is no market for it either, even if you could get the lead out without destroying it.

I said, “Hey Blinkin, let me ask you this…”

He said, “Did you say ‘Abe Lincoln’?”

I said, “No. I said ‘Hey Blinkin’!”

He said, “Who’s Blinkin?”

I said, “That’s my nick name for you, because you have a bit of an eye twitch.”

He said, “I would prefer you called me Ricardo.” (not his real name) I relented. This Blinkin (Ricardo) was a shrewd man.

I asked Ricardo who buys lead these days. He told me that most lead is sold to bullet makers and alchemists these days. He explained that they don’t buy much right now, but as soon as they perfect their ability to turn lead into gold demand will go through the roof. I looked at him with the sort of patronizing nod and smile that you give a child who has just accomplished something which adults do every day without a second thought.

As I was leaving I watched Ricardo slowly lumber back to the bunkhouse. I yelled, “Hey Ricardo, get the lead out!” He didn’t respond. I drove away chuckling to myself.

About 50 miles down the road I realized someone had stolen my wallet. Suspecting it was Ricardo I headed back to the mine. When I got to the mine I asked around for Ricardo, but no one had heard of anyone with that name. I had been duped. With no money I ran out of gas just south of Iowa City on the way home. I had to hitch hike the rest of the way home. Luckily, on Mulberry Street in North Liberty I was able to get a ride from an old man with a three-foot beard riding in a carriage that resembled an outhouse.

So This is Christmas, What Have You Sung?

2005-12-24T18:42:00.000-06:00

Tonight while we are all nestled and snug in our beds we might as well take a brief look at some of the wonderful Christmas music that has been around for ages. Tonight, let us look at the beautiful caroling song “Here We Come A-Wassailing”. I have also seen this song referred to as “The Wassail Song”. I don’t like that title though. I like to have the title be the first line of the song. That way, I know how to start the song if I know the title or I can remember the title if I can sing the first line of the song. It just makes things easier. I like easier things.

The first verse of this old favorite of caroling songs is:

Here we come a-wassailing
Among the leaves so green,
Here we come a wand'ring,
So fair to be seen.

The first line is a proclamation of sorts. “Here we come!” The singers of this song want people to know they are on their way. And what are these people doing as they make their way toward you? They are “a-wassailing!” I always wondered what it meant to be “a-wassailing”. Well, this Christmas I looked it up. I found out that “wassail” is a verb. It means to indulge in wassail, or carouse. That wasn’t so helpful until I looked up “carouse”. It means, “a drunken revel.” The alternate definition of “wassail” is to sing carols from house to house at Christmas. I don’t see how that applies in this case. People, who were wandering around after they had too much to drink apparently originally, sang this song. My guess is that this song started out as a polite warning which wandering bands of intoxicated people would sing so that other people would know to steer clear if they so desired. What I don’t know is why Christians would adopt such a song as a staple when celebrating the birth of their Lord and Savior.

The second line of the song is odder yet, “Among the leaves so green.” Everyone knows the leaves are not green at Christmas time. There aren’t really any leaves around at all. The only green would be pine needles. Now the song starts to come together. The first two lines are essentially saying, “We’re here. We’re drunk. Now we will prove it by saying something stupid.”

Lines three and four indicate that these intoxicated folks are aware that they are merely wandering around and that they think quite highly of themselves. Vanity is one of the seven deadly sins. Once again I am troubled by the fact that this song has become synonymous with the birth of Christ.

The chorus:

Love and joy come to you,
And to you a wassail too,
And God bless you
And send you a happy new year,
And God send you a happy new year.

The chorus grants the listener a great many things, not the least of which is a wassail, which is a big keg of beer. Along with God’s blessings, we should also receive happiness, love, joy and beer. Just when I thought the Christmas Holiday lacked a good drinking song, one presents itself. Let’s all drink a pint for Jesus.

The next verse is a bit disturbing.

We are not daily beggars
Who beg from door to door,
But we are neighbour's children
Whom you have seen before.

It’s Christmas. You meet a group of wandering drunken people. They are singing. Part of their song informs you these people are not beggars. It seems to me that Christmas time is when you wouldn’t care if you met some beggars. Christmas is when many people are most free with their giving. Nonetheless, it is important that this group inform you that they are in fact your neighbors intoxicated children. It paints a lovely picture doesn’t it?

Here is another delightful verse:

We have a little purse
Made of ratching leather skin;
We want some of your small change
To line it well within.

People are sitting in their homes. They hear a ruckus outside. They think it is possibly the local beggars who would like something to eat. They open the door. Bam! They are attacked by a drunken band of singers who tell you they are your neighbor’s children. Then they ask you for money. Christmas is about unrestrained consumerism, not excessive imbibing. Who do these people think they are?

I would have to buy an unabridged dictionary to know what “ratching” means. I don’t think it’s important for the continuity of the song.

The final verse:

God bless the Master of this house,
Likewise the Mistress too;
And all the little children
That round the table go.

Now these intoxicated kids, who are trying to panhandle for some beer money, decide that since no one is forking over the dough they are going to break up the family by accusing a man of having a mistress. Also the phrase about “all the little children” is a bit of an allusion to one or more possible illegitimate children, perhaps with the aforementioned mistress. The man of the house likely then would pull out some sort of a weapon and fight back.

This is not a Christmas song so much as it is a “How To” manual for starting a bar brawl. My vote is, take this out of the Christmas repertoire. It’s too controversial!

Chicken Poop for the Cat Lover’s Soul

2005-12-16T17:33:00.000-06:00

I was scooping out the litter box today. Actually I was scooping out the litter boxes today. We have three cats and three litter boxes. It seemed equitable at the time. For a time we had three boxes and only two cats. That just wouldn’t do. One of the litter boxes was unloved (so to speak). I left town for a couple of days and rather than throw out a perfectly good litter box, my wife procured a new cat. Problem solved on her end.

Since my wife accepted a promotion to “mother to be” I have been doing the scooping of the litter boxes. It gives me a lot of time to think. I have to think about something other than what I am doing… But I can’t. So I think about what I am doing. I have come up with an experiment that I intend to try soon.

Here is what I intend to do:
A: buy a bag of cat food
B: empty contents into another container
C: label container “CAT FOOD”
D: feed cats normally
E: scoop out litter boxes carefully placing cat feces in the food bag
F: place label on food bag “POO”
F: when food bag labeled “POO” is full before food container labeled “CAT FOOD” is empty scream loudly, “I knew it!”
G: throw food bag labeled “POO” in trash can

My hypothesis is that the mass of feces generated by the cats is greater than the food consumed for a given period of time. If true, this would shed some light on why Schrödinger used a cat in his experiments. I will post my results after performing the experiment.

Another oddity with our cats occurred today while I was scooping. I finished scooping out one litter box (here after referred to as Box A) and began scooping out another litter box. I will call this one Box B. While I was scooping out Box B, one of our cats walked into and began to use Box A. Our relationship is currently such that neither of us finds this uncomfortable. Actually, I do find it a bit uncomfortable. Usually I try to look away.

I scoop out the last litter box (Box C), and notice that the cat is now curious about Box B. Finally, the cat steps into Box B and rather than using it for its intended purpose he begins to just dig around. After digging in a few places the cat leaves. I began to wonder if he had buried one of his toys in there for safe keeping. He should know better than that. In his short life, one of the few things he has gotten good at is making deposits in the litter box. So he knows what goes in there doesn’t stick around. I’ll probably never know what his thoughts were.

Here is a cat experiment, that kids who do not have the means or parental approval to do Schrödinger’s cat experiment, can do at home. You will need the following:
Bread
Butter
Toaster
Cat
Stapler

First toast some bread (click here for some interesting reading about toasters). Put butter on the toasted bread. If you are hungry eat the toast. Continue this process until you are no longer hungry. Then take the toast and staple it, butter side up, to the back of a cat. Toss the breaded cat at least three feet into the air and see which side the breaded cat lands on. Biology class has taught us that cats will always land on their feet, if dropped from higher than three feet off the ground. Childhood has taught us that toast will always land butter side down. Which force of nature will win out? Post your results in the comments section.

“No Thanks, I’m Diving” (Dumpster Diving)

2005-12-13T11:13:00.000-06:00

I have often heard that, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” I think it’s true for women too. I would like to have such nice stuff that even the stuff I throw away would be deemed to have great value. Alas, with the exception of some rare moments of hubris in my life where I threw away perfectly good stuff, when I toss something out it is junk.

If you don’t care to humor me with a brief tangent go ahead and skip to the next paragraph. Many people are aware that college is the place where furniture goes to die. I am not sure anyone knows this better than my friend Jon. He was so disturbed by the wanton destruction of his furniture that he finally just bought inflatable furniture his senior year.

If you have just skipped to this paragraph you should probably skip to the next one too. My experience was a little more positive than Jon’s. Staying on campus for summer break gave me the pick of what I came to call the “campus mall.” For most people college is not four uninterrupted years of school. There are distinct breaks, often in May, where people must either haul all their stuff away or leave it behind. This allowed me to trade up in my furniture selection. I was able to throw out a couch that no one in their right mind would pay a nickel for, and pick up one that could have easily brought me $15 on the open market in September. I spent the whole summer living in a dorm room with exactly 5 square feet of walking space, due to all of the furniture packed in it. Then in the fall I would share these bountiful furniture finds with my friends and we would live like kings (except for the microwave, which was a bad move). In the end though I had to part with some of my treasures when I graduated and moved out for good. Many a person was impressed with how much I could fit in my Dodge Shadow, but there were physical limits that even I could not overcome.

In summary, no one likes Millhouse.

Actually I can’t summarize because I haven’t written anything worth summarizing. So, I will continue with my comments about my trash being trashy. I will start with a “for instance.” For instance, we are getting new carpet in our house, four rooms the hallway and the stairs. This means that we have to find some place to put the old carpet. Since I live half a block from the court house and the police station I can’t just throw it outside and burn it. Instead I called up the city sanitation department and rented a dumpster. Compared to my trash can, this thing is huge. Yet the dumpster fills up rather quickly with carpet, and not just any cool or even mediocre carpet, but some of the rattiest orange shag this side of the Cedar River, between 5th and 6th Street, in the 100 block. So naturally I assume no one would take my old carpet because it’s JUNK.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind if people want to take my carpet out of the dumpster. That just leaves me more room to deposit more trash. Naturally I am not surprised that no one has come to take my old carpet. I am a bit upset that one of my neighbors, (who will remain nameless (and not just because I don’t know who they are)) decided to throw their trash in my dumpster. Who ever it was did such a poor job of putting their stuff in the dumpster that they couldn’t even close the lid properly. Had they been a bit more patient they could have wedged their trash (which incidentally is better looking than mine) into the remaining space and I may have never noticed. Which of my neighbors could have such brazen disregard for the autonomy of the dumpster?! Who can legitimately claim they understand the previous question?!

Due to the previous day’s fresh snow fall, I didn’t have to be Davie Crockett to track the foot prints of anyone who had approached the dumpster. There were several tracks leading to and from the dumpster that went directly to my back door! Those were most likely mine. There were also tracks leading from the dumpster across the alley and around my neighbor’s garage leading to… Well, I don’t know where, because I respect the property rights of others and didn’t follow them. It was obvious where the tracks went though. So I was left to believe that one of my neighbors is so unconcerned about this offence that they are willing to practically hang out a sign about how they loved to use my dumpster. Or it was someone who was crafty enough to walk through that particular neighbor’s back yard in order to throw me off the trail. Who could be so meticulous with their trash?

Did Christmas come early at our house this year, or am I being used. Only time will tell.

Chicken Poop for the Soul

2005-12-07T23:25:00.000-06:00

I have nothing insightful or humorous to offer today, but my fan expects a post at least once every eight weeks. Who am I to disregard the desires of my fan?

I was silently bemoaning my shortcomings today. Bemoaning is probably the wrong word. Who am I kidding? Bemoaning is the wrong word. Contemplating is the right word. So, I was contemplating my shortcomings. Silently. It turns out that this sort of thing takes a while. It’s not the quality of contemplation, but rather the quantity of contemplation that causes it to be a lengthy process.

I realize this is more of a January thing. For some reason I am hitting the New Year's reflection early this time. As I stated previously, this doesn’t improve the quality of my self-evaluation. Therefore, being proactive is not helpful. Any blogger who writes otherwise is trying to sell you something.

Right now you may be thinking, “Would you at least start moving in the general direction of your point, or failing that, any point!” To you I say, “I didn’t expect anyone to read this far.”

The conclusion I came to… Perhaps that’s a bit strong. The word “conclusion” implies a lot more than the evidence can back up. It is more appropriate to say that something occurred to me. My shortcomings can’t be solved on a two-hour Christmas Special. A miniseries might not even do it. It’s hard to say really, I’ll contemplate that tomorrow. My point is relevant regardless of how that contemplation turns out though.

I am the sum of a few strands of genetic code and roughly three decades of environmental stimulus. After smoothing out the rough edges for that long the only problems I have left are deeply rooted character flaws. That is not to say that there isn't a great deal to work on. 'Cause there is. For what is left, neither the problems nor the resolutions would be heartwarming enough for a good Christmas Special. So, like Charlie Brown, my half hour special ends much like it began. No resolution, just a confrontation with a number of thought provoking issues and a solemn prayer that a Christmas Miracle will greet this weary world.

Relaxation and Root Consumption

2005-09-05T11:56:00.000-05:00

Right now, I am on vacation and I must say that it has been a very great experience. Every so often I need to relax and enjoy life. This relaxation allows for the sort of free thinking that leads to ideas that have forever been right in front of me and yet they never occurred to me.

For instance, curly fries are a much more efficient use of potatoes than the regular straight fries. Perhaps we should, as a society, move boldly, without hesitation toward a standard of “curly” in our fry consumption.

From the Archives…

2005-08-25T17:14:00.000-05:00

Since there are those among us that have enjoyed the folk music review portion of this blog I have decided to post last year’s folk music review in its entirety. This review was originally published in my bimonthly newsletter on August 15th 2004. Since I did not charge for the newsletter and readership had remained flat for years I was constantly running in the red from postage costs and decided to discontinue the newsletter about the time I began blogging.

2004 Annual Folk Music Review!

Hello all. I trust everyone is enjoying their summer. Recently I spent a week hiking in the mountains of Banff National Park. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Being surrounded by clear mountain streams and practically no people is surely awesome, at least for brief periods of time.

While on my trip I often thought of Banff as paradise. That is why, this year, I have decided to review the song “Paradise” written by John Prine © 1971. This song was written long before the impending chaos of the Y2K scare of the late 1990s, and you can really tell that when you listen to it. For one thing, when I typed the lyrics into my word processor, it indicated there were some sentence fragments. I am the first to admit that people still use sentence fragments in music, but they don’t use them with the care free whimsy they used to. In the music industry today, there is a real sense that if you don’t finish each and every sentence, the listeners don’t know whether you are a patriot or a supporter of the terrorists. Mr. Prine had a freedom of expression that can only be appreciated through this unique historical frame of reference. It’s enough to make you weep just reading the lyrics, which is all you’re going to get to do here. Let’s begin as we always do with the first few lines of the song and remember fondly the catchy melody that goes along with them.

“When I was a child, my family would travel,
To western Kentucky, where my parents were born.
And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered.
So many times that my memories are worn.”

Catchy and beautiful, isn’t it. The first two lines are poetic and perhaps a bit nostalgic, but lines three and four demonstrate the author’s ignorance and disregard for the feelings of others. First, he refers to a Kentucky town as “backwards.” I have no doubt they are used to it by now, but that still doesn’t make it OK. He goes on to say that he has remembered the place so often that his memories are worn, as in “worn out” like a ten year old pair of blue jeans that you wear when you paint the house or when you want to look destitute. Modern science has shown that the human brain works in exactly the opposite way. The more often one recalls something the more vivid the memory. This was not unknown in 1971, so I can only assume that the author didn’t bother to check the facts before he just willy, nilly wrote down what ever popped into his head. Four lines in and we already know this guy’s parents are from Kentucky and he is not exactly a scholar.

Then the chorus:

“And Daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg county,
Down by the Green River, where Paradise lay.
’Well I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in askin'.
Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away.’"

What a whiner! This chorus was obviously a dialogue between the author and his father. Among other things it’s a case study in how pronouns prohibit clear communication. First of all we have established that the author is an adult because he was fondly remembering his childhood in the first line of the song. Yet he still expects his father to haul him around where ever he wants to go, in this case Muhlenberg County! The father, and in my opinion rightly so, tells his son he won’t be party to his delusional fantasies where he has somehow been relegated to the position of being the author’s chauffeur. However, he does perpetuate the problem by making up a lame excuse about how the whole county has been hauled away in a coal train. Mr. Peabody is apparently very wealthy, and has nothing better to do than to than drive his train around and have entire counties loaded into it, and then haul them away. Line three of the chorus clearly points out that the author is a procrastinator, along with being lazy and demanding.

Verse 2, I’m going to take this verse one line at a time:

“Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River,”

In what would they travel a boat, a canoe, or a raft? Was there a motor? Talk about being ambiguous! I’m trying to form a picture in my mind and I don’t even know how he traveled down the river.

”To the abandoned old prison down by Aidrie Hill.”

Who cares? This is totally a throw away line if I ever saw one.

”Where the air smelled like snakes: we'd shoot with our pistols,”

What does snake air smell like, and what kind of a parent gives a pistol to a child? I see now why he mentioned the prison in the previous line. His parents gave him a pistol and he started holding up liquor stores for extra spending cash as a child. It’s called “foreshadowing” and I learned all about it in composition class in school. This will obviously be the sad story of a child whose parents did not establish clear boundaries for him in his formative years, which led to his delinquency later in life. We may never know how much havoc he caused with that pistol.

”But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.”

Now I have a bit of egg on my face here. My earlier comment about the author’s delinquency was apparently all wrong. The only havoc reeked was a number of pop bottles broken, likely into many small pieces. This is not about the impending delinquency of a minor at all. This is about the author’s resentment for the soda bottling companies which cause millions of tons of trash to be created every year, while they get rich supplying liquid candy to an unsuspecting public who will one day see their teeth rot right out of their mouths. It’s ironic really since by shooting the pop bottles he was actually littering right in the middle of his “paradise.”

Then he goes right back to whining about wanting to go somewhere in the chorus, again. Then there is an instrumental break, then verse three.

“Then the coal company came, with the world's largest shovel,
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land.
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken.
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.”

The first line of this verse mentions the world’s largest shovel. I would have preferred that the next three lines of this verse were shovel stats. He is making a pretty outrageous claim here and then he does nothing to back it up. Rather than focus on this shovel, which is certainly the coolest part of the song to this point, he just moves on to other things going on in Muhlenberg County. It is in this verse that we find out that there is a reason for Mr. Peabody to haul away the entire Muhlenberg County. There was coal there! He was just trying to make a living. If you are against a man earning an honest living, then you must be against America. If you are against America you must hate mom and apple pie too. Well, that’s just stupid. Apple pie is good stuff! I especially like it when it’s made with that top crust that looks like a checker board. Mmmmmm! Well, we do love apple pie. We love mom and America too. So by definition we have to love Mr. Peabody and all that he stands for. What I see here is a small business man, who is burdened by an unfair system, which taxes people more just because they’re willing to work harder than the average Joe. He is hemmed in on one side by the IRS, another side by OSHA, his employees are likely unrelenting in their demand for higher wages and safe working conditions, and a fickle public who loves their coal in the winter when it warms their homes doesn’t want to hear about how it got there. Poor, poor Mr. Peabody, I feel your pain.

Then we have the chorus again with the whining from the son and the excuses from the father. It’s sad because this is the kind of learned behavior that will be passed from one generation to the next, and the next, and the next. Then verse four…

"When I die, let my ashes float down the Green River.
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam.
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin',
Just five miles away from wherever I am."

Who’s he talking to here, his dad? His dad will die of shame for having such a loser son long before he ever kicks the bucket. If it’s not his father, then it’s obvious that he just expects people to do things for him whenever he opens his mouth. We have already established his slothful character so this option seems most plausible. Finally here at the end of the song, just for good measure, we find the author’s grasp of geography lacking. The world doesn’t revolve around you buddy. Stuff isn’t just a certain distance away from you because you say it is.

Then cue the whiny boy chorus one last time and we’re done.

This song has found a special place in my heart in spite of the fact that it’s about a delusional, procrastinating slacker, with no real ambition in life. Maybe it’s because I can identify so much with him. I love it. It’s folksy and songsy all wrapped into one. I’ll give it four stars, what ever that means, and bid you adieu.

This issue’s prediction is that by Labor Day 2005 we will start seeing gasoline for more than $3 a gallon in some places across the country.

Annual Truth Perceived Folk Music Review!

2005-08-24T23:38:00.000-05:00

This year I will review “Charlie on the M.T.A.” also known as “The M.T.A. Protest Song” or just “The M.T.A. Song.” Jacqueline Steiner, and Bess Lomax-Hawes, I am told, originally penned the tune. As I understand it The Kingston Trio released it in 1959 with the lyrics I am familiar with. The song is wonderfully upbeat and peppy. It drew me in immediately. The first phrase of the lyrics indicate that one is about to be told a story about a man whose name is Charlie. This is in fact the case. At the end of the song one has heard a dizzying account of the man named Charlie.

My first experience with the song was at the house of a man named Dave. He was singing and playing his guitar and one of the songs he sang was “The M.T.A. Protest Song.” At first I thought it was an impromptu song about his son, whose name is Charlie. If you ever meet Dave, and hear him play the guitar, you might arrive at the same conclusion. That is, Dave is fully capable of making up a song on the fly and having it sound much like it must be a well-known folk song. I don’t know if he has ever done this, but just look at him, he looks like that kind of guy. He looks to have that mix of musical prodigy, wit, English language fluency and historical knowledge that creating brilliant impromptu folk songs would require. I remark about this at length only to demonstrate that my original thought was not stupid.

The song begins with the first verse (as you might guess):

“Let me tell you the story
of a man named Charlie
on a tragic and fateful day
He put ten cents in his pocket,
Kissed his wife and family
Went to ride on the MTA”

So what do we know so far? Good tune, and it’s a song about Charlie. Some people want more from their folk music. It turns out that this song was originally written for the mayoral campaign of Walter A O’Brian. He was a member of the Progressive Party. Some people connect the Progressive Party with communism, (especially during the McCarthy Era) but there is no evidence that O’Brian was a communist. I disagree and believe the evidence is in the song. Charlie had only ten cents, so obviously he didn’t approve of money, otherwise he would have more. If you need more proof of these socialist tendencies you need only turn to the fact that he was going to ride “public transportation.” Lest we vote commie too soon lets move on to the next stanza, or what ever this is in song lingo.

“Charlie handed in his dime
At the Kendall Square Station
And he changed for Jamaica Plain
When he got there the conductor told him,
‘One more nickel’
Charlie could not get off that train.”

Then we have the chorus:

“Did he ever return?
No he never returned,
And his fate is still unlearned.
He may ride forever
‘neath the streets of Boston
He’s the man who never returned.”

So now we know that Charlie is “the man who never returned” which you might think would ruin the end of the song. It’s hard to have a twist ending if you already know he is not going home. For me, though, I don’t think the lack of mystique hurts the song one bit. So I continued to listen even though this Charlie guy is incapable of doing anything for himself, like jump out a window, beg for spare change from other passengers, or sell things like his shoes. Sounds like a communist to me.

The song continues:

“Now all night long
Charlie rides through the tunnels
Saying, ‘What will become of me?
How can I afford to see
My sister in Chelsea
or my cousin in Roxbury?’”

Later the word “tunnels” was changed to “station” and “Saying” was changed to “Crying.” So the guy is not afraid to cry, very progressive even for the “Progressive Party” at that time. Also, why do they leave these trains running all night long? It’s 1949 how late do people stay up in Boston, and why don’t they call it the B.T.A. I also hope, for Charlie’s sake, there is a restroom on this train.

Wait till you read the next verse though, this one really shows the song’s true colors.

“Charlie’s wife goes down
to the Scollay Square Station
every day at quarter past two
and through the open window
she hands Charlie a sandwich
as the train comes rumblin’ through.”

Now we know that while Charlie is chatting it up with the other passengers all day, his wife is making and delivering sandwiches. I am not sure I have ever seen a song so clearly advocating the welfare system. Charlie’s wife, who doesn’t even rate having her name mentioned, is caring for children and providing sandwiches at 2:15 every day. She is obviously on welfare, and these are taxpayer-funded sandwiches. This points to futility of welfare and all socialist policies in general. If the state would give her a nickel to throw through that window the whole family could get off the public doll. Instead they give her a book of food stamps every month and perpetuate the problem. Yet another example of O’Brian’s communist leanings.

“As his train rolled on
underneath Greater Boston
Charlie looked around and sighed:
‘Well, I’m sore and disgusted
and I’m absolutely busted;
I guess this is my last long ride.’”

A banjo solo replaced this verse. So I have never heard it. It also makes me wonder if Dave was perhaps playing a banjo when I first heard this song. I don’t remember.

“Now you citizens of Boston
don’t you think it’s a scandal
that the people have to pay and pay.
Vote for Walter A O’Brian
and fight the fare increase.
Get poor Charlie off the MTA.”

Later when the song was released the phrase “Vote for Walter A O’Brian and fight the fare increase.” Was changed to “Fight the fare increase. Vote for George O’Brian!” The change was made during the McCarthy Era when the name Walter A. O’Brian conjured up images of the communists and one could get killed or worse for such things. Now we live in much more accepting times when people can make any sort of political statement and not fear reprisal.

While the song obviously plays to a liberal base intending to perpetuate the common individual’s reliance on government services, I give it high marks. I recommend it as a good listen any time you get the chance. If you play guitar or banjo and don’t know the song I suggest learning it. Good times.

Sycophancy of Tramp-Brigade

2005-07-29T14:55:00.000-05:00

Deep in the recesses of my memory I recall listening to music on vinyls which were also commonly referred to as records. One drawback of records is that most bands refuse to record entire albums containing only high quality compositions. Often albums are released with one or two excellent songs and a number of filler songs which the majority of people only listen to in order to fill the time between the excellent songs on the album. To skip songs on a record player one would have to pick up the needle and put it back down where the good song started. This would require getting up, walking to the record player, picking up the needle, having some knowledge of the song order and placing the needle back in the right place. All the while knowing that one false move could scratch the vinyl and ruin the record, thus a few minutes of suffering was often tolerated to avoid the risk of utterly destroying the music you loved.

If we fast-forward to the cassette era we also have developed the ability to fast-forward. It seems quaint now but at the time it meant we could move about the music listen to things more than once or skip things entirely. No longer would we worry about ruining our records but we did have to know the layout of the tape to find the desired song with any speed. To counteract the music industry’s unwillingness to produce albums without the appalling or at best mundane filler songs people made “mix tapes.” This would allow people to live life in complete bliss, listening to only their best loved songs, never having to stoop to the level of listening to any song that was not up to their high standards.

With the introduction of CDs, player technology was finally harnessed to allow for programming a “play list.” Since many albums have qualities similar to the last chocolate chip cookie to be scooped from the mixing bowl (the last cookie has between one and three chips on average (never grab a homemade cookie blindly from a cookie jar for this reason)) this bit of technology was a blessing. With a little effort the chocolate chip cookie that is the average album could be separated into “chips” and “other” thereby allowing easy listening without having to rerecord the music. Read/write CDs and affordable CD burners furthered this boondoggle of benefit with the ability to make a “mix CD” of the best songs, and then play an even more select subset those best songs. This way the not-so-super-duper-best songs could be separated from the super-duper-best songs.

One thing these mediums all had in common was that we were required to buy hours of average music in order to own our favorites. In spite of the fact that I have devoted several paragraphs here to the discussion of how horrible it was to live through these eras there was a bright side to this austere existence. It built character. By listening to music that was not my favorite, I would sometimes find that after a few plays of the album, I had a new favorite song. Some times what I originally thought was the last chocolate chip cookie was actually a cookie with some butterscotch and peanut butter chips and my desire for the different flavors changed with my mood over time. Albums that I bought years ago because I liked a particular song, I now listen to because I really enjoy different songs on the album.

Today I can go to itunes and buy nearly any song I want. I can buy all the music I want and never have to be exposed to anything that does not meet with my approval. It’s as though consumers have finally won. The victory, however, has left me empty. The convenient, economical value of buying the songs I love individually robs me of the joy that was listening to a new album for the first time. There was the impatient wait for the song that inspired my purchase and the discovery of the few other hidden gems as well as the larger themes or messages that coursed through the entire work. Today every song on my hard drive is ranked and I don’t have to listen to anything less than a four star song if I don’t want to (and why would I with all the “first-rate” music I have to choose from). My shining musical city on a hill has become a prison camp. I will never again have to listen to the strange or obscure. I will live a blissful stagnant life. My sense of community will slowly close like the drawstring on a hooded sweatshirt.

Who will save me from myself?

Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Mr. Peabody’s Coal Train

2005-07-10T21:50:00.000-05:00

I woke. It was Sunday. Went to church. It was outside. Outside church is interesting. We, and most everyone else, brought lawn chairs to sit on. Those who did not bring lawn chairs sat on folding chairs that were claimed from the church’s secret folding chair stockpile. After the service I watched people putting the chairs away so now I know where the folding chairs are stored. This fall when we join the congregation and receive a tour of the church grounds we will likely see the wine cellar, the holy water cistern and the folding chair shed. I’ll probably say something like, “Let’s keep it moving. I’ve seen this before.”

I digress.

We were at church, on the lawn. There were some trees. So naturally everyone picked the shady spots first since it was 11:00 and 85 degrees. As I write this, I wonder if as Christians we should have sat in the sunny places first and allowed the later arriving people to sit in the shade. I would like to claim that I sat in the sun for the benefit of others, but in fact it was because I arrived too late to get a good shady spot. So putting my education to work I sat in a spot where I knew the shade was going. Sadly, the service was too short to allow my plan to come to fruition. I was barely half shaded during the benediction. It was not a cleverly placed mid-service benediction either. It was tucked away, right at the end, like it was supposed to be. I have never complained that a church service was too short and this seems to be a silly place to start. So I wont. What I will comment on is the fact that we all sat down with our own chairs and placed them in what we felt were ideal viewing locations and for some reason we ended up forming rows. It was as though we missed the pews to such a degree that we formed our own makeshift versions of them.

Thus, a nagging question is: Is forming rows at a venue such as the aforementioned one a natural occurrence, either beneficial or not, or is this something we have been programmed to do?

Afterwards we went to Dell’s Diner. If you are ever in Waverly Iowa at breakfast or lunchtime I recommend eating at this fine establishment. They are not open for supper. It’s the kind of small town diner that you just don’t see much any more. They serve good, tasty food at a reasonable price and the service was down-home and friendly. It’s sad the time I have wasted passing the place by to eat at some other box of ticky-tacky restaurant when this was right under my nose.

Matt has written a wonderful bit about the Walmartization of the world. That’s where the “ticky-tacky” reference is from.

If we are naturally inclined to sit in rows then it makes sense why Dell’s Diner has no more than 12 tables and at least four of them were empty when we arrived at the peak of the lunch rush, and our McDonalds is always nearly full at the same time of day. Next time Matt is in town perhaps we can go eat there and he can talk about how he used to eat at the diner that occupied the same location prior to Dell’s and maybe the one prior to that. Perhaps we could also cover the topic of exactly how big the world’s largest shovel is.

Coke Addict

2005-07-08T16:46:00.000-05:00

My experiences with caffeine have been many and undocumented. Back in college I would drink a glass of Mountain Dew with breakfast, lunch and dinner. Prior to that I didn’t have many caffeinated beverages, my parents didn’t have soda in the fridge for casual daily drinking, and I never made a priority of spending my own money on soda pop either before or after school. Constant access to caffeinated beverages in the college cafeteria changed all that for me. Then when I graduated and found myself working in a cubicle all day. The monotony of work and the momentum of a long established habit collided and Mountain Dew (my beverage of choice) was usually not far from my desk. The machine at work stocked cans at the time (they have since changed to bottles) and within a month I was having a can in the morning and one in the afternoon plus glass with refills at whatever lunch establishment we chose to patronize.

One day, after about four years of loyal work, my manager just up and fired me, for no reason. It certainly wasn’t about the Mountain Dew.

Actually I didn’t get fired. That was just to see if you were paying attention. What really happened was that I felt my heart beating irregularly. Every once in a while it felt like it was trying to beat twice in a row without pausing and it kind of hurt. I went to the doctor and he suggested, among other things that caffeine could be causing this. So I quit. From that day forward, for six months perhaps, I didn’t have a single caffeinated beverage. Then one day when I was out and about I got a splitting headache and with no other remedies at hand I reached for my old friend, Mountain Dew. Within minutes my headache was gone and I was a happier person. I could think more clearly. The world seemed brighter. The air smelled fresher. My future seemed fraught with wonderful possibilities of greatness that had never occurred to me before. I was confronted with a new reality. Caffeine was not the devil I had made her out to be. Caffeine was instead perhaps a gift from the almighty to cure my ills. Still fearful of endangering my heart I only drank caffeinated drinks when I had a headache and pain medication was not readily at hand.

That’s how it’s been for the last few years. I drink caffeine only for headaches or if I am somewhere where it’s the only beverage available, which might happen once more often than never. Then about a month ago I came to work one Monday feeling run down from the weekend and thought, aside from being good headache medicine caffeine also makes me feel better. So I bought a bottle of Mountain Dew and drank half of it. I was awake, alert and alive. My mood became brighter. I walked with a spring in my step. I was more productive. Life was grand. The next day I had half a bottle of Mountain Dew on my desk. I felt it should not be wasted, and I was excited to repeat the prior day’s experience of productive work, and happy go lucky Mark was just a few sips away. So I drank it. The day was once again productive and fulfilling. The next day, Wednesday, I showed up to work with a bit of a headache and immediately got a Pepsi. It had been so long since I had tasted the sweet cola. I drank the whole bottle, but the affect was not as exhilarating as Monday or Tuesday. Thursday I arrived at work resigned to the fact that the price of happiness was one dollar for a 20 ounce bottle of Mountain Dew which I drank before lunch. After lunch I felt that another bottle would be overkill so I got a 12 ounce can of Coke from the machine. For some reason Pepsi and all the juice machines went to bottles in our office but cans of Coke are still available. Monday’s euphoria was not altogether foreign to me, but it was becoming more expensive than and not nearly as satisfying as it had once been. On Friday I got another bottle of Mountain Dew in the morning. For lunch I went to a restaurant, and ordered a Coke and refilled the cup before going back to work.

The increased intellectual acuity and improved mood I received from a mere 10 ounces of Mountain Dew on Monday was not quite attained with nearly 60 ounces of soda on Friday. I had to face the facts. I am an addict. I am unable to control myself. I would have to quit again. I would detoxify over the weekend and then only touch the stuff for rare medicinal purposes.

I’ve been on the wagon now for a few weeks again. My coworkers, with either no sympathy or no knowledge of my predicament, continue to drink large volumes of caffeinated beverages right in front of me. Sometimes they do it during long meetings when my mouth is dry and parched and I thirst for something, anything to drink.

I must find some other way to acquire the vast stores of intelligence and bliss that will forever be ten ounces of Mountain Dew away. Until then I will just be dim-witted, melancholy Mark.

Bird on a Wire

2005-06-28T11:33:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I was sitting in my back yard. I was relaxing on the future site of my deck. A veritable plethora of lines run through the air above my back yard. It would seem that the city got tired of burying phone and electrical lines half way through my block. The north half has buried utilities and the south side does not. It’s as though the ally is a set of tracks that I am living on the wrong side of.

Normally I consider these lines a detractor and would like to see them buried. Last night, however, I watched the birds perch on these lines. I have never really watched birds do that. I always thought they just grabbed on and sat there. Not so, for these birds anyway. These birds spent considerable energy trying to balance. Every breeze and every new bird landing on the wire would cause a motion that the sitting birds would have to compensate for; mostly it seemed by moving their tails up and down. I just thought the birds were resting up there on the wires. It would seem I was wrong. If this property of wires is ubiquitous then sitting on a wire requires a certain amount of energy and attention to balance and birds must not be resting up there. Perhaps it’s just a safe place removed from predators where they can get a view of the world and decide what to do next.

Homage to Charles

2005-06-22T12:58:00.000-05:00

In honor of Charlie many and varied compliments about my writing I have created a short quiz about him. Try it out and see how well you know my warped sense of Charlie. This is just my small token of thanks to you Charles.

Have Your Porch and Eat it Too...

2005-06-21T17:34:00.000-05:00

I coined this phrase back in heady days of 1995. It made less sense then than it does now, but back then things didn’t have to make sense. The stock market was on its way up, up, up. I could buy a soda for 50 cents. I listened to Pearl Jam. The Braves won their first series. Tom Hanks won his second best actor Oscar in a row. A lot of other stuff happened too, but it has nothing to do with the porch.

My girlfriend and I were strolling through a small Iowa town. We remarked to one another about what we would like in a house someday if we were to get married. I said that it was important that our house have a deck off the back where we could get away from the fast paced world and relax. We could sit on our deck and read, grill burgers, have parties, nap, watch the grass grow, and the trees change color. It would be just like being inside the house only we would get more fresh air. I could sit on my deck and drink my lemonade and relax. I would have a space for deck chairs. Oh yes, they would be mine.

She had other ideas. Her ideas were contrary and mutually exclusive. She pointed to a house and said she would like one similar to that! I was shocked. There was no hint that there was a deck at all, not even on the side, or even a back step on which to put a grill. I was aghast. She explained that we need a big front porch. It will have a porch swing and face the street. We could sit and relax and watch people go by on their evening walks. We could wave and talk to the neighbors. We could invite people up on our porch for pleasant conversation, and lemonade and cookies. I countered, that even though I had not mentioned it, that the cookies would fit and taste perfectly good on the deck in the back of our house. She smiled and said that the point was that the front porch would welcome people to our home and make us part of the community.

I was heartbroken, and she quickly stated the compromise that lead to the eventual title of this post. We could have a front porch and a deck in back. I knew it would never work, at least in hindsight, I know now that it never would have worked. In my despondent state of denial I said, “Eh, everybody wants to have their porch and eat it too.” It didn’t make any sense and she knew it. That’s the way conversations go. Every once in a while I say something that doesn’t make any sense.

The old saying, “Have your cake and eat it too,” never made much sense to me until I realized that it was actually backwards. You have to have the cake to eat it. What people want is to eat the cake and still have it. I propose we change the cliché to, “Eat your cake and have it too.”

Standing there in front of that porch clad house I knew that it was over, and yet I didn’t. For one thing I was three hours from home and she had driven so it was a bad time to start down the “breakup” line of discussion. Yet it was the beginning of the end. For all that my idea was the greatest I had ever conceived during my short but mentally prolific life, I was brought low by a woman who wanted a front porch for the very reason that I did not. (If you’re thinking, “Really? A deck? That’s the greatest idea you have ever had?” Then you don’t fully appreciate how awesome this deck was. Imagine the perfect deck. Everything you could want, and then every time you remembered you forgot something else that you really wanted, it’s there too! If you can imagine that then you’re still not even close to how awesome this deck was.) She was a front porch girl, and I was a guy with the dream of one day having a really big deck. That could sum up our outlook on life. That was the problem. She enjoyed people. She wanted to spend her leisure immersing herself in the community and for the most part I wanted to spend my leisure escaping from it.

So it didn’t work. It took a year for us to realize that.

Now I wonder if it’s a metaphor for our society. People say they used to know their neighbors and everyone else in town, and now they don’t recognize anybody. Maybe somewhere along the way we stopped building big front porches and when we did the community became less interactive. Or maybe I shouldn’t ramble so much…

Time Flies Like a Churro

2005-06-20T16:22:00.000-05:00

I have spent some time pondering my life and thinking about time passing since I read Carrie’s post “Time Does Fly…” This weekend it hit me. I was sitting in church and the minister talked about (Matthew 6:31) “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?” I would say that this has been the biggest difference between now and my carefree days of youth. In my youth I had problems, kids made fun of me at school, poor grades, and a brother who was far better than me at everything to name a few, but I never had cause to worry about whether or not I would be fed, and clothed. I never had the latest fashions, and that was really a good character building exercise that some would say has lasted to the present, when they see what I wear. I digress. The point is, until I graduated from college I never worried about what I would eat, what I would wear or a roof over my head. Even then it didn’t concern me much. Then I got married and decided it was time I began worrying about whether or not there was food, clothing, and shelter for my wife and me.

Reflecting on the Sermon on the Mount has caused me to believe that worry or concern is ultimately what has caused me to lose my child like wonder and abandon my big dreams for the daily grind. I need to have no worry about what I shall eat, drink or wear. This will free up my life for the more noble pursuits. That is what I will do from today forth. The small trivialities of life shall be left to take care of themselves and I shall spend my time on larger matters allowing me to live the life I dreamt so long ago… right after I figure out what to have for dinner.

Tune in next time for “Have Your Porch and Eat it Too.”

All in the Name of God Somehow

2005-06-17T18:16:00.000-05:00

Here is a story more important than anything I have to say today. I like to read it and weep.

George and Silent Dick's Secret Tax

2005-06-16T17:44:00.000-05:00

We hear a great deal about taxes. Who should be taxed, and how much, are points of great controversy here in the United States (there in the United States if this is being read by persons not currently within our borders). There is a secret tax that is little noted nor long remembered and for all the Republican posturing, about how taxation stifles economic growth, the truth of the matter is never wholly acknowledged. If we accept the conservative premise that every dollar that the government removes from the private sector economy is a burden, then it follows that taxation is not the most important issue when it comes to our burdensome government. It would seem that government spending, not taxation, is the key to the government’s economically burdensome policies. When the government spends a dollar it must get that dollar from somewhere. In the simplest terms (I have neither the knowledge nor inclination to describe the many nuances that permeate this process) the government has three choices to get their dollar.

They can tax their constituents.

They can borrow money.

They can print money.

The ideology of our current administration is that the first option is bad. People work hard for their money and they should be allowed to keep it. If we take people’s money from them they will buy fewer things. If people buy fewer things then businesses will produce fewer things. If businesses produce fewer things then they lay people off or reduce wages. The cycle continues until every one is out of work and nothing is getting done. The opposite is then true by definition. Tax people less and they will spend more, so businesses must produce more, so wages go up and more people are employed.

We need to find a better way to fund our government. We can’t take the risk of sinking our economy through taxation. So let’s borrow that dollar we need for our government. The problem with borrowing money (as anyone with a credit card can attest) is the interest. The financial markets work under the same supply vs. demand laws that all other markets do. So every dollar the government borrows is a dollar a private citizen can’t borrow to buy a house or car, and a business can’t borrow to build a new factory or buy more supplies. If we take the money people want to borrow then they will buy fewer things. If people buy fewer things then businesses will produce fewer things. If businesses produce fewer things then… I’ve seen this somewhere before.

If only there was another way to fund our government that did not take money from the people who need it in order to fuel our economy. As a child I didn’t understand why the government had to borrow money. They have a printer. Print all you want to spend, and when you’re done print some more. As an adult, it’s remarkably obvious why it doesn’t work that way. Every new dollar the government prints and spends with out removing another dollar from circulation devalues the currency. Inflation! The economy, as a whole, works much like an auction the amount of money is finite and the amount of goods is finite, then the government shows up with new money and as a result prices go up. If we raise people’s prices they will buy fewer things. If people buy fewer things then businesses will produce fewer things. If businesses produce fewer things then… Hummm, back here again.

It doesn’t matter from a global economic perspective how the government gets its cash, it still has to take it from the economy. Therefore, borrowing and inflation become a secret tax. We don’t see a line item like “FICA” on our check, or “sales tax” on our bill. We don’t receive a statement describing our reduced buying power with our property tax forms. It all just happens so slowly that we don’t even notice unless we are reading a stupid blog.

This isn’t an attack focused on the current administration alone. I just couldn’t resist the title after I thought of it.

If Not Formicah

2005-06-15T22:47:00.000-05:00

Ever since Jessica’s consecration I have been intrigued by the Bible verse (Micah 6:8) “Do justice love mercy and walk humbly with your God.” The three part doctrine flows off the tongue much the same way the greatest commandment does. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. It’s reads like a simple path to guide ones life. Yet there lurks a depth to this verse.

The verse can be entirely secularized with the removal of the last three words. “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly.” The first two commands are left completely intact and the third is mostly undisturbed. What we do remains unchanged. We just eliminate the specificity of the partner one might be humbly walking with. I feel from a Christian perspective it should read “…walk humbly with the Lord.” This would eliminate any ambiguity in the statement. If I were to say this verse to someone, his or her “god” may be different from mine. The phrase “your God” does seem to imply that there is more than one. Further more, as to the ease of secularization the passage, I find that it is a good measure of a leader. In my experience good leaders do justice, love mercy and walk humbly.

Back in the religious context I find that I am to “do justice” and “walk humbly” yet I am not told to “be merciful”. I am told to “love mercy”. Here the simplicity of the statement evaporates and I am left with questions about my salvation. Am I supposed to let others be merciful, and then when I see that they are, I should love it? Perhaps mercy is just not as universal as justice and humility, or for that matter walking. The great thing about a blog though, is that I can throw this stuff out there and people far more intelligent and learned will respond with all the answers.