notes from underground - societal whispers

2011-01-03T21:42:00.002-05:00

np: Destroyer - Kaputt

I've quoted this one particular Kathleen Edwards song on my blog before, but it never stops being relevant at good times. "Good things come when you aren't looking." Amen to that, sister.

2011 has already been an amazing year, and here it is a scant three days old. Some lovely interviews have fallen into my lap or been successfully procured for the radio show; A fantastic feature I've been hoping to implement on the radio show is finally going to happen as a monthly series; I continue to work at a place that makes me feel really glad to go to work each day.

And now, M.

That last part was a pure shocker - from the way that we met, to the fact that we actually got along rather swimmingly, to where we found ourselves last evening and now.

I won't go into a lot of detail; that's never been my style here, but at the same time, I'm a bit giddy not to at least share it in some vague way. So there.

--

I always have a plethora of books to pick up and start on, but I feel especially blessed in that regard now. I finally bought a copy of Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano, nearly a year after M.W. suggested it to me. I also have a book, The Lover, that M. loaned me as a way of introducing me to some of her favorite literature. I have Patti Smith's Just Kids that has been beckoning me for some time and, lastly, my mom's lovely Christmas gift, Jim DeRogatis' biography of Lester Bangs, Let It Blurt. Good things, indeed.

I really dig this new Destroyer album. Reminds me in turns, musically, of Aztec Camera and the Cure and even Simply Red. B. already wrinkled her nose at it a bit over our Christmas gathering, but I am already way more fond of it than its predecessor.

I made these promises to myself, these resolutions, and so far, three days in, I am being successful. I have written every day - twice here and yesterday at a new blog I'm concocting - and have managed to start exercising in a way that feels good. Strangely, or perhaps not so, I feel most accomplished about the writing. I'll feel better when I've crossed the first month or two, successfully, and feel like I'm growing.

So, here's hoping.

2011-01-01T16:22:00.002-05:00

np: Lissie - Catching a Tiger

So, this post serves as a memento of the goals I'm setting for this year regarding writing. I have some other resolution-esque things that I'll keep to myself, but this is a way of launching some particular ones. My friend Adam has always talked up the idea of being a consistent writer, even if it's just minor things, on a daily basis. I'd like to try and write something every day this year. That could be a blog post (like this one), a radio show write-up (like I already do every Wednesday), a song, a critical review (for Aquarium Drunkard), or any number of things. I want this to be open so that I'm not feeling tied to particular types of writing or pressured to add things to an already pretty loaded schedule. I have some ideas: I want to start a hot dog review blog for Triad area hot dog joints; I want to rekindle the old 'Notes from Underground' column for my radio show blog; I want to make a habit of working on more long-form pieces for AD as well. I will not count writing done for teaching unless it is creative. A lot of my lesson plan writing is creative, granted, but not in the same way. I don't want to count writing done for work as I want to make sure I'm pursuing something strictly for the enjoyment of it. These are all things floating around my head.

So, I will consider this a success if I a) write something, no matter what, every day and b) feel like I've created some really good writing, or at least the basis for some, by the end of the year.

I'm hoping to do a bit more writing here this year. This blog holds a lot of wonderful memories for me, so I want to keep it up to some extent. Maybe at least make it so all the main page posts are from the same year. That'd be a serious improvement.

Do I need to keep a journal of what I write each day? Perhaps. That's not my style, but it'd be a way of documenting how successful I am with this. We'll see.

So. Here we go.

2010-08-13T22:31:00.003-04:00

np: Liz Phair - "Strange Loop"

I've had this cough for over a month.

Which is not to say that I'm sick. Aside from the phlegm I've been dislodging and the near daily morning hoarseness, I haven't felt sick. I haven't felt weak or achey or anything of the sort. Just the distant, occasional coughing that brings up the discharge of my body's defense mechanisms.

I learned from C.K. earlier this week that she, too, had a cough very similar to mine - a lingering, background sort of thing. As did another former co-worker of mine from whom C.K. assumes she got the bug. The other coworker was recently diagnosed with pneumonia. This raises concerns on my part. C.K. was cleared by a doctor yesterday of not having that, so then the concerns died down a bit.

This evening I found myself in a familiar spot for when I'm sick - and indeed a familiar spot for the last month: at my closest Mexican restaurant eating sopa de pollo. Since L. introduced me to it over a year ago, it has been my go-to meal in times of illness. Very soothing and warm and filling. It contains probably my favorite fruit of the past few years, avocado. I can't eat enough of it at times, and having its savory, smooth texture in the broth with the chicken and rice scratches a deep, sensory itch.

This restaurant is used to me coming in by myself, and I usually take a book or some sort of reading material with me. Tonight it was William Gibson's Neuromancer which I haven't read in some time. My 12th grade students read Brave New World for their summer reading assignment and it got me thinking about my favorite dystopian novels and works. I haven't read this particular book since K.'s dad gave it to me in my late high school/early college years. It's a totem in that sense - a physical piece of ephemera to touch and remember him now that he's no longer here. More on that another time.

I thought about starting a hashtag on Twitter: #greatbookopeninglines. "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." It's funny to think about how children born in the last five years and onward will have a hard time understanding this line. I feel lucky to have been born when I was. I witnessed the great straddling line between the world before the omnipresence of the internet and afterward. I have used an actual, physical card catalogue to find physical books in a physical library. I have used encyclopedias to find information. Yet, I was young enough to be able to fully embrace the technology when it arrived rather than recoil from it in monocle-shattering horror. I've gone from elementary school computers that only seemed to operate when you inserted a 5 1/4" floppy disk of some variety - learning to fear the red light burning like a raging cyclops on the floppy drive; knowing it was absolutely essential to never, ever pull the disk out while the light was on - to using a computer the size of a thick candy bar that I carry in my pocket to send updates about what I'm doing out into the ether.

These are lovely times.

If only I'd stop coughing.

2010-01-18T14:37:00.002-05:00

2009-01-19T22:05:00.003-05:00

"Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, 'Wait.'..but..when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of 'nobodiness'..then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

On the eve of one of the most important events in the history of the United States, Dr. King's words, so long echoing the despair of the last eight (or is it 300+?) years, seem like a hopeful cry from out of the wilderness. Yet the cynic in me speaks its small, still voice. The cynic that has learned to hold all politicians at an arm's length. The cynic that has been bitten relentlessly by Kerry's lukewarm campaign, by Elliot Spitzer and John Edwards' downfalls. The cynic who aches to see the incoming President set new precedents for excellence, yet would tell me "I told you so," if he failed. That small, still voice that knows all too well, though in a far different and less immediate way, the "degenerating sense of 'nobodiness'" that the recent years have wrought.

I imagine that having been of voting age only from the 2000 election onward and experiencing nothing but the Bush administration is akin to having had the same experience under Nixon - only without the satisfying, demeaning ending for the lead villain. This actor has been strutting and fretting in a tragedy, not a comedy.

I hope the idealist in me triumphs. A lot is at stake. As a friend of mine put it, "he's got to be a Jackie Robinson." As the unfair double standard of achievement continues to be applied in our society, Obama does, indeed, have to go in aiming for heights that the average president has not enjoyed.

The inauguration is an incredibly historic and amazing thing to witness. The moment it's done, the clock starts ticking.

Please, soon-to-be Mr. President. We're counting on you.

2009-01-18T12:46:00.002-05:00

np: Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

Pitchfork.tv has a weekly feature where you can watch some documentary streaming on their site for one week. This week is Grant Gee's eponymous Joy Division documentary. It's kind of nice to watch documentaries like this online where you can start and stop as you wish. I started watching it last night and am up to part 5 - it's broken into roughly ten minute segments. I also have been finally watching The Prisoner - thanks to the passing last week of the show's main actor, Patrick McGoohan. AMC.com has all 17 episodes of the series streaming where you can watch it.

I read Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon this past week. I've never seen the film, though it's something I plan to remedy. I'm a big fan of Raymond Chandler's writing and this book fit right into that - one of those things you have to constantly remind yourself is not cliché because it actually came first. The hard-boiled detective - slappin' dames around and fast-talking their way out of all sort of conundrums. There's a hard misogyny to nearly all of it, but it's a pretty engrossing read. Sam Spade doesn't seem to be a character who really trusts anyone outside of himself. At least, if he does, it isn't apparent in the way he interacts with anyone else in the book. It's bizarre to see a character so misogynistic and yet incredibly wounded as well.

Spade was a blueprint in many ways for Chandler's Philip Marlowe, an infinitely more likeable character, even if he does retain a lot of Spade's misanthropy. It was hard to figure out exactly what was going on at times with Spade in The Maltese Falcon. He was honest and up front with nearly no one in the book - then again he wasn't alone in that fact. He seems to use the emotions of one character in particular in order to entrap them - even if it is debatable that she is using the same ploy on him.

This is only novel Spade appears in as a character - there are a few scattered short stories as well that I'll have to pick up. It'd be fascinating to have a sort of modernist revision of Spade's character - in the form of examining how he became the sort of character he is. And seeing the realistic results of his misogyny, not just the cooing 'man I love to hate' response that most of the women in the book give. Something for you people to consider if you're an aspiring novelist looking for an idea.

2009-01-18T01:04:00.002-05:00

My stomach feels odd. The dread hollow, not of hunger, but of paranoia. I don't think it's supposed to feel this way.

Answer the questions, please. I'd feel so much better if you would. It might make me feel like I am important in some way. Right now, I'm not sure I do.

And It Don't Mean Nothin' at All..

2009-01-10T17:00:00.005-05:00

np: The Rosebuds - "Nice Fox"

So, the second of my fearsome twosome has gone to join the first. Earlier this week I noticed that Potter wasn't being his usual don't-touch-me-ever,-stupid-human self. Neither was he eating or drinking very much. I noticed that he seemed to have an infection in one of his ears. So I took him inside to try and clean some of it out. The mere fact that I was able to touch and attempt to clean his ears without him running away, biting or clawing me should attest to how sick he was. I decided I needed to take him to the vet the next day after school. I took him outside in a towel to try and keep him warm in his cage and went to bed.

I went to check on him the following morning and found him barely moving at all. He had collapsed in one corner of his cage and was dull-eyed and miserable. I called work to let them know I'd be late (the blessing of first block planning) and took him to the vet. I dropped him off and not long after I reached school, received a call from the doctor. Potter had an ear mite infection and also hypothermia. The doctor guessed that the ear mites had infected his middle ear, knocking him off balance (as it would any creature) and making him not want to eat or drink. Thus, out on an unusually cold Carolina evening, resistance worn down from not eating, he succumbed to hypothermia. They warmed him and gave him fluids throughout the day.

That evening, the doctor called to let me know that Potter had responded somewhat, but not really. He said that if the damage had been something that was reversible that they would've seen more reaction from him. So we made the decision to put him to sleep. I gathered him from the vet this morning and laid him to rest beside Usagi in the garden.

Now I have an empty hutch and cage in the back yard. I have a supply of rabbit droppings for the spring garden - my last supply. I have an old metal milk container, quarter-full of rabbit food. I have the memories of my beautiful bunnies. I miss them both.

The Rosebuds song up at the top is off their latest album Life Like. The song is about a dead fox that they found in their yard, which they gave a burial, singing the song's refrain as they did. It's a beautiful song and something I sang to myself today as I buried Potter. My dad laid lettuce leaves in the hole where we buried him. Not the same as the tulip that I buried Usagi with, but appropriate all the same.

I've thought a lot about symbolism, naturally, over the years. All of the things that have remained from my relationship with Charlie have either gone away or transmogrified. The house, so specific a thing from our time, has become wholly mine in the ways I have made it represent me. The rabbits, the pets we bought together, are now both dead and buried in the yard. Even the most recent song I've written, one I'm terribly proud of, by the way, is a reflection of the settling of my thoughts about the relationship. And now, because of recent events, though sad as it is and I wish it hadn't happened, Potter's death is wholly appropriate.

Perhaps it's pretentious and egocentric to look into the tea leaves of day-to-day existence and read into them portents of your own life. But much in the same way that there is comfort in believing the human race to be the chosen life form of an omniscient and omnipotent God, there is comfort in believing that the events of your life make sense in the way that a grand and intertwining novel makes sense. All of them spokes that lead to a central theme and grand ending that is somewhere over the pages of the horizon.

Stifling the World in White Ago

2008-11-21T07:24:00.002-05:00

np: Kathleen Edwards - "Good Things"

A few weeks ago I commented to someone from outside my fair state that the Piedmont area of North Carolina, the place where I reside, typically doesn't see any snow until the new year - and often not until February or so. Just always seems to happen later.

Imagine my surprise when I wake up this morning to snow covering the ground. I heard on the news yesterday that there was a chance of flurries - but I paid it no heed. Good things come when you're not looking, so Kathleen Edwards has said.

After a long and frustrating week at work, a blissfully rejuvenating night talking the possibilities of local media (video/blog, radio, bands, photographers, venues, etc.) for our awesome local music scene and awaking to a two-hour delay at work was just what I needed.

Good things come when you're not looking.

Moments of Beauty are Scarce and Should be Shared, Vol. 1

2008-11-11T18:22:00.004-05:00

np: Crooked Fingers - "Modern Dislocation"

I'm back to including a song/album I'm listening to at the beginning of posts. Thus the Now Playing (np) denotation at the top. I'm also going to make it so you can listen to the song since in one way or another, it channels the mood of the post. Or at least that's the goal. Plus, it'll be good stuff. Just click on the song title to listen. Enjoy.

--

I went out looking for a trench coat today, to no avail. Mostly because despite looking and seeing that there was a Goodwill in Burlington, and on Church Street no less, I was unable to find the store when I went. Instead I went further into Burlington than I've ever felt the need or desire to go. I stayed on Church Street and just drove.

This was upon exiting my dentist's office. A cool fall day, bright and sunny, had turned into a rapidly darkening evening. These are some of my favorite days of autumn - the trees hanging on to the last half of their colored charges, grey clouds obliterating the sunset while outlined in its hues. Nothing felt rushed, and thus, when I failed to see the Goodwill, I simply kept driving.

I ended up at a Salvation Army that I happened upon, but there were no coats to be had. I kept driving anyway, finally turning around when I entered the city of Haw River. On my way back, at a stoplight, I looked to my right and saw a restaurant. An aged neon sign perched atop the building, advertising that this was the Western Charcoal Steak House. In the rapidly greying light of afternoon, the still dim light of the neon glowed warmly, beckoning. I wished I had my camera with me as it reminded me an awful lot of my friend Sara's photo that currently resides as my desktop wallpaper.

Not having to work today, when I was ready to go to bed last night, I didn't feel the urge to force myself to sleep so readily. So I looked for something to read. My bookshelves are crowded with books I've yet to read, but like most things, I have to really feel the desire to experience it. Otherwise I feel like I'm not ready for it yet and may miss something. I picked up a book of short stories by George Singleton, an author from South Carolina, whose excellent short story collection The Half-Mammals of Dixie I had read a few years ago. These People Are Us actually pre-dates that other book, and I have had it on my shelf for some time. In the opening story, I stumbled across a couple of passages I enjoyed. Removed from the context of the story, they probably lose some of their power, but I thought I would share them anyway if only to give you a taste of Singleton's writing and encourage you to pick up some of his work. Both of these are from the short story "Remember Why We're Here."

"I looked over at the reverend and knew he didn't sell the cabin because of sick relatives and too many memories. I knew, too, that I'd met destitute men outside of bars down in Greenville, and offered them a ride to the shelter that Faith Ministries operated, but no one took me up because they didn't like having to feign guilt, humility, and obedience for a plate of mashed potatoes and green beans. More than once I'd given a man two dollars and said, 'Don't lie to me about what you'll spend it on. I don't really care. Booze or BLT - it doesn't make a difference.'

"Now, I'm not saying this to prove some kind of martyr thing. I just don't care. If things don't go all that well for you here on the planet, it's probably best to forget. That's all I'm saying, now."

"My wife and I sat there quiet until pure darkness set in, until we couldn't make out bats flitting overhead. We didn't mention money or morality, cause and effect, or luck. We didn't niggle each other to remember a time when our marriage wasn't so secure. I talked myself out of thinking about the times when I insisted on eating nothing but sardines and Slim Jims just to prove how poor I'd grown up.

"I said, 'I don't want to sound holier-than-thou or pessimistic, but I didn't come out feeling so good about sitting in Baiba's office to buy a place without floors or walls from a preacher. Did you see that guy's hair? I don't believe a word he said.'

"Jerilyn put her arm through mine there at the fire and said, 'I smell fish. You need to wash your hands.'

"I nodded. I thought about how there wasn't a place to wash my hands outside of a lake that smelled of fish already. We didn't have a sink yet, of course, much less a hot-air hand dryer. It wasn't the time to bring up disagreements we might have about major appliances, and what we could or couldn't hook up in the cabin, conventional or not.

"Instead, I pointed upward and didn't pretend to distinguish stars, planets, and satellites shining above, or to explain why some are brighter than others."

Colin Powell revisited; Mess o' Beans

2008-10-19T22:30:00.002-04:00

First, Powell's endorsement of Obama:

I feel that it was important to hear someone of Powell's stature (to conservatives) comment on the Muslim tripe (i.e. rumors that Obama is a Muslim) that kept emerging in this election. Powell says:

"Well, the correct answer is, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is - what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? And the answer is 'no, that's not America.' Is there something wrong with some seven year-old Muslim-American kid thinking they can grow up to be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop this suggestion.."

Powell goes on to relate that he feels particularly strongly about this because of a picture he saw of the mother of a serviceman killed in Iraq, kneeling over her son's grave in Arlington, and above all the listings of service medals and duties on his tombstone was the crescent and star - symbols of the Muslim faith. It's a moving illustration of the religious bigotry that has inhabited our country post-9/11 and an eloquent stand against it.

Powell's endorsement isn't important because of who he is to my end of the political spectrum. My goodwill towards him evaporated in light of his collusion with the Bush administration on the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, despite having knowledge of the flimsiness of the evidence of WMDs. But Powell is still a highly respected figurehead in conservative communities and his endorsement of Obama is mighty from that perspective. Unlike Starbuck, who would not live to be able to amend for not taking Ahab to task for his reckless ambition, Powell here had a chance to at least staunch the similarly misguided and erratic plans of John McCain. It doesn't make up for things, but it doesn't add to the pile, either.

--

Pakistani Cowboy

6 slices bacon
1 cup chopped onion
2 28-oz. cans baked beans
2 medium baking apples, peeled, cored and cut into bite-size pieces
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup brown sugar
4 tsp. coarse-grain brown mustard
4 tsp. curry powder
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

In skillet, cook bacon until crisp. Remove bacon, reserving 2 tablespoons of drippings. Drain and crumble bacon. Cook onion in drippings until tender, but not browned.

Combine all ingredients except bacon and bake at 350 degrees for one hour. Before serving, crumble bacon over beans.

W., reflectiveness and blogging

2008-10-19T02:25:00.006-04:00

I went and watched the new Oliver Stone film, W., tonight with various teacher friends. Despite the fact that it became another in an increasing list of films with fantastic songs in the trailer that don't show up in the movie itself (Pineapple Express and "Paper Planes"; W. and "Once in a Lifetime"), I was all in all interested in it. The rather lackluster reviews had lowered my expectations and I think that helped. Josh Brolin plays W. Bush at a halfway point somewhere between honest portrayal of an undoubtedly complex human and a caricature. I was worried that the film would be more to the latter than the former and it at least seemed to show some restraint, other than a purposeful recontexualizing of some of Bush's most famous verbal flubs for pure comedic/dramatic(?) effect.

I don't doubt that there is a lot going on inside the man who has come to represent, for me, the most hideous parts of the last eight years in American history. I do doubt that this film really gets to any substantive analysis of its subject. As the Onion AV Club said in its review, "Stone paddles down the giant river of Bush's life without exploring any of the tributaries; he passes by two or three dozen better movies along the way."

The film's most interesting scenes come in the meetings with Bush and his cohorts (here - then Secretary of State Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Paul Wolfwitz, George Tenet, Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove) in the lead up to the Iraq invasion. Especially good is Powell's attempt to restrain the building attempt to invade. That he is ultimately overpowered and convinced to go along positions him as a Starbuck-type character - a man who knows better the morality of what his leader is proposing, but whose devotion to duty ultimately forces him to tamp down his own feelings and be swept along to bitter results. He is a sympathetic character, but only to the extent that you agree with his feelings - understanding his decision to step back involves a different set of analyzation.

--

I will be, again, trying to write more here. As even my music writing has moved almost exclusively from my radio blog over to Aquarium Drunkard (with the exception of the podcast write up and occasional Friday column), I feel the need to do personal, for-me writing again. Or maybe that's just tonight and the reflective mood I'm in following this film. We'll see.

2008-04-08T00:51:00.004-04:00

This is a picture from a little over two years ago of my fearsome twosome, Potter (grey, in the rear) and Usagi (black, in the front). They are sweet bunnies, though Potter tends to not like to be picked up much. This naturally led Usagi to be my favorite. He would patiently let me hold him and stroke his ears and generally was a pretty peaceable and fat bunny.

I came home last Friday and found Usagi dead in their cage out back of the house. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I am still terribly sad about it. I spent a good bit of Friday evening snuffling and tearing up about it. I buried him in a portion of the garden with a rock as a headstone to mark it. I also put one of the recently blooming tulips in between his front paws when I laid him down. It all seems fairly sentimental and stuff, but these guys were the first pets I ever bought AND cared for myself. So it made it all the harder to have one of them die.

I will miss you, Usa-chan. Very much.

2007-11-13T23:57:00.000-05:00

i don't get shivers when i read stuff much any more - and here i'm talking about shivers of the good variety. the kind you get when you read something that you really identify with or truly feel you understand. but oh, my goodness how i felt like an ice age had entered the room when i started into just the preface of jim walsh's the replacements - all over but the shouting: an oral history. and yes, this is indeed about the band i trot out whenever i am 'forced' to answer the question "who's your favorite band?"

walsh is a contemporary, both geographically and historically, of the replacements and his preface is a moving recollection of why we geeks fall in love with art in the first place. the multiple experiences, those dizzying heights. i could write pages and pages about my experiences with the replacements' work, but one thing that almost always urges a wry smirk or two out of people is relating your attempts to share your devotion with others.

you can't force art on people - they really have to come to it on their own. people who have tried to get me to listen to bands over the years will note, with some frustration, my obstinate refusal to really hear stuff if it's being forced upon me. i have to feel like i came to it myself, not had it thrust onto me. and this isn't a question of not wanting to give people credit - i whole heartedly do that*.

a girl i dated for two weeks and i were hanging out at her house. her friend was there and i made them both listen to pleased to meet me. it went over like a led zeppelin. they put on something by rob zombie immediately afterward. now you know why this lasted two weeks.

another ex-gf and i decided to select a song for our relationship. 'our song,' you know. since we couldn't decide collectively, she went with one song ("oh, you've got the darkest eyes.."), i went with the replacements' "they're blind." ("to the brown-eyed beholder..") we both had brown eyes. the end.

no one i've ever dated has really latched onto the replacements, nor would i expect them to. in a way, they're my band. i'm always eager to share my love of a band with others - especially if they are fans as well. but sometimes, it feels good to crawl up inside of something that you, and only you, are invested in. obviously you're not the only person in the world who knows it, but maybe the only one in your world. i went through all of high school never knowing another replacements fan. i also would amuse myself by playing "fuck school" from their stink EP loudly, windows rolled down, as i would leave high school in the afternoons. sometimes, things are better inside.

* - for sleater-kinney and, very much after your gallant attempt, mary lou lord, thank you, jenny. for the cash brothers, thank you, michael. for the posies, thank you, mad dog. for cat stevens; a tolerance and appreciation for the grateful dead; through bludgeoning, repeated playings of hejira, joni mitchell, and 10,000 maniacs, thank you, rachel. for bob dylan, thank you, andrew and jeremy. for tom waits, thank you, sylvia and jeremy. for the chameleons and the veils, thank you, beth. for iris dement, thank you, mom.

2007-10-08T11:39:00.000-04:00

"The Modern Dance (for Lester)"

Peter Laughner is dead, so Lester said (Bangs 217)
and now so is Lester too,
and this all happened way before
I even knew who either was.
I had a book by Robert Palmer;
it taught me about Pere Ubu
and Brynn, she bought me a book of Lester's work.
Only Brynn is still alive.
Does it take a history book
to give someone a legacy -
a legacy that matters greatly
turns the tides and sets the sails?
I was thinking Kristen Pfaff is dead,
Josh Clayton-Felt is too.
What does it take to be remembered?
I don't think I really know.
Does a poem have a resonance
greater than a written page?
Shannon Hoon is dead; Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee too.
How long does an echo last?
Peter Laughner is dead, so Lester said
and now so is Lester too.
Where we go we take them with us.
There is nothing else to do.

Bangs, Lester. "Peter Laughner." Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung - The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock 'N' Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock 'N' Roll. Ed. Griel Marcus. New York, NY: Vintage, 1987. 217-223.

2007-09-09T03:00:00.000-04:00

hmm.

perhaps..books? i could write about reading. since i'm trying to do more of it. and i stopped by empire books today to splurge a bit. or maybe i'm just really trying to give myself a reason to buy some more bookshelves.

i finally bought a copy of michael crichton's eaters of the dead. it seemed appropriate given that it's that time that comes but twice a year: teaching beowulf. it's also one of the only 'early' crichton books (read: pre-airframe) that i hadn't read. of course the last time i read one of his books was early high school. but i'm looking forward to it none the less. i've chosen to take it on first, of the seven books i bought, so i'll report on it as i go.

i bought a copy of peaches: the very best of the stranglers. the stranglers are a bizarre band, but they put together some pretty raucous material early on. "no more heroes" is a fantastic song. even their later work is smattered with good songs every so often.

i am still a panthers fan. as such, i will be watching them play st. louis on the morrow. i'm very excited that it's football season again. ahhh.

i went to tonight's concert for greensboro*fest 2007. it was at square one down on glenwood and featured the bronzed chorus, the tiny meteors and dawn chorus. all three were quite good - it was my first time seeing the first two. tiny meteors reminded me in turns of hot snakes and bits of guided by voices, the replacements..some other things i couldn't put my fingers on.

i want to start a songwriters circle amongst some indie-minded people here in greensboro. mostly because i think it would give me a reason to start songwriting again, something i'd very much like to do. i still play a lot of my old stuff, but i haven't written a new song in..i don't know when.

here's to hoping i'll keep up with this blog. my radio show blog is doing fantastic, but this blog seems to have lost its focus and purpose. i don't want to shut it down - it's my oldest and holds some dear memories. so, let's find a purpose.

2007-05-06T18:24:00.001-04:00

HowManyOfMe.com

There is
1
person with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

2007-03-10T19:01:00.000-05:00

I kinda wanted it to be Virginia Tech, if only to prove that, damnit, the Heels can beat them this year. But I'll take a rematch with NC State also.

C'mon, Heels. I know, really, it doesn't mean that much. You're already dancing. But first ACC title in 9 years would be pretty sweet.

Growing up in this part of the country, this time of year, it's infectious. There's no escaping it and why would you want to? March Madness is divine.

Update: Seems the old adage about the improbability of traversing the afterlife in a red canoe is true. God didn't make the sky Carolina Blue for no reason. Congrats, Heels! Now...how 'bout a #1 seed in the big dance?

2007-02-15T22:41:00.000-05:00

There are several reasons I love this video:

1) The Replacements at an awards show of some kind? This is obviously somewhere in 1989 (since they're pushing "Talent Show," a single from Don't Tell a Soul).

2) No one cares. People don't really seem to be moving or excited despite the fact that the 'Mats performance is pretty energetic and quite good. Pretty par for the course around this time in their career - this is also around the time of their ill-fated stint opening for Tom Petty. Every bootleg I've heard from this period, "Talent Show" is blistering and always really well performed.

3) The censors felt the need to edit out the line "I'm feelin' good from the pills I took." And you can tell Westerberg finds it funny. So at the end, when he steps up to the mic to sing "It's too late to turn back, here we go," it becomes "It's too late to take pills, here we go." And he then repeats that line two more times.

4) Matt Dillon is obviously a fan of the Replacements. He whistles fer cryin' out loud. Glad someone there had taste.

5) YouTube makes me happy when they have stuff like this.

-----

At the risk of over-YouTubing, this video has been played on my computer so many times in the last 24 hours, it's not even funny. The New York Dolls are still making great music. The song is riotous and a hell of a lot of fun and the video is a hoot. In comments, let's play 'Spot the Evolution Debate References.' Also, play 'Spot the Weird Visual Cameos' in the video.

2007-01-30T09:07:00.000-05:00

I wrote this earlier today in an email and it got out of hand. So I'm posting it here, largely because it's the kind of tripe I ought to be posting here. Leave your thoughts in the comments.

--

The evolution of the English language, specifically because of technology, is a really fascinating thing. I had some great discussions in my rhetoric/composition course in college about the future of English as a less and less formal language thanks to the in-formality of the internet. That even 'professional' writing has become less formal largely because of the speed and environs of the 'net. Blogs in particular - now there's a kettle of fish. (Meta. Woah.)

The elimination of case and gender in our language (hardly anyone says 'whom' anymore, and people who know how to use it correctly, rarer still) was one big leap. I personally am for two new, but practical, adaptions.

First, an acception of the spelling "alright" for "all right." The two words are rarely separated and have become a pretty standard response in questions concerning mood or temprement. 'Alright' as a saying even denotes something arguably different than 'all right.' (Does anyone else agree with me on this? I think they mean different things - shades apart, but different definitely.)

Second, the acceptance of 'they' and 'theirs' as third person neuter singular objective and possesive pronouns respectively. Though we ditched gender as a language almost entirely (the exception being pronouns), we don't have a neuter gender that functions for things we typically do assign genders to - like humans or animals. 'It' just doesn't cut it when you're referring to an unknown gendered baby, for instance. Parents might take offense.

So what if the gender of the individual is unknown? "I wonder who ate my cake." "I don't know, but he/she obviously was hungry." He or she? Give me a break. "I don't know, but they obviously were hungry." Better.

Now here's where things get tricky since in order for the subject/verb to make sense, 'they' has to be paired with 'were,' a plural verb. "They was" would just sound strange. 'Were' can make appearances with singular pronouns, such as in the subjective case: "If I were a fireman, I'd slide down that pole so fast..." English is already full of contradictory rules and regulations - why not one more exception? It makes practical sense.

2007-01-28T22:38:00.000-05:00

so, it's an attempt to get my blogging here up and running again. the radio blog is forever onward, but here, things have slowed. so, i'll start simply and see where we go, since i'm not quite sure where i want this blog to go anymore.

i went to see josh rouse and the lemonheads last week in chapel hill (separate shows). josh rouse was superb as always and it was a blast to see the lemonheads for the first time, even if evan dando is the only original member left. now if i could just find the guy who yelled out 'play something else!' in the middle of evan's solo-acoustic rendition of "the outdoor type" and made him stop playing. jackass.

radio meetings are sometimes fortuitous to attend. i waltzed back into the station to see something and a fellow dj plopped a copy of the forthcoming arcade fire album into my hands. it's not out until march sometime and yet here it is. as i said, fortuitous.

CVS was trying to ditch its small stock of cds that they sell (for some unknown reason) and had marked them all down to $2.50. so i picked up a copy of U2's war. i've never cared much for U2, but given the music i like, i've tried. five-star rating be damned, allmusic, i just don't love it. i like it fine. but really, i think the church were making somewhat similar and ten-times better records at exactly the same time and i'd rather listen to them.

warning: i may be about to become re-obsessed with the gun club. my mp3 player has been popping up songs from their second album, miami, a lot on random. i've never given it a full, proper listen and from what i've heard, when i do, i'm going to flip. fair warning.

i bought an old, simple drum machine. and i'm buying a mandolin this week, in order to learn to play it. i miss playing. so it's time to return.

2007-01-02T23:10:00.000-05:00

can someone please explain to me how an NFL team can go 5 - 1 in their division and yet still not make the playoffs? cardiac cats indeed. sigh. you'll get 'em next time, guys. you're still my boys.

people unfortunate enough to share a planning period with me and who frequent the library during said period are often subjecting to my meta-interpretations of the comic strip ziggy. i've become quite convinced that ziggy is the most subversively brilliant comic in the funny papers. my favorite comment about ziggy is that you can sum up any strip by filling in the blanks of this sentence:

"Ziggy looks forlornly at (NOUN) while (VERB PHRASE)."

but more than that, i think ziggy is wry social commentary at its best. today i was a bit upset to find that someone had sort of beaten me to the punch, albeit with the comic strip marmaduke instead. this same blogger also had a blog where he posted ziggy strips with a nipple drawn on ziggy's nose to make his nose resemble a breast. that has its own place, but isn't what i'm going for.

so, i'm going to begin doing my own ziggy postings here on the blog as a way to share the brilliant day-to-day insights of the strip. so here we go.

Interpretation #1) Terrorism is a part of our every day lives and we must be vigilant, aware and upright (much like Ziggy) in order to not be taken by surprise.

Interpretation #2) Ziggy lives in Baghdad and is leaving the Green Zone.

Interpretation #3) Living is suspicious activity, man.

2006-11-05T18:17:00.000-05:00

The whole trial of Saddam Hussein makes me uneasy. It has seemed slipshod and ramshackle, barely able to function in a way that a court of law ought to function. And despite Hussein's nearly unquestionable guilt (whether it be for the crimes he was charged with in this trial, or others equally heinous), I find myself troubled by the verdict.

There are those who would probably argue that the ends justify the means in this trial. That Hussein's verdict is what he deserves and that whatever it took to get him there is ultimately as fair and just as what he did or ordered done to others over his years as tyrannical ruler.

I do not agree. Those who would throw the rule of law out for Saddam Hussein, whether they admit so or not, would do the same for any other person, including any American citizen. The evolution of the rights of humans did not come to this point to be eschewed in the pursuit of justice. The trial is justice - not the verdict.

I also believe the death penalty to be the wrong verdict for Saddam. I oppose the death penalty without exception, even when it comes to people like Hussein. There is no 'right' in this verdict. Justice is not served in carrying out the very thing that Hussein was convicted of doing - taking a life. Justice would be better served by Hussein sitting out the rest of his days in prison, pondering the great highs and lows of his existence. As it is, his punishment will be brief. As it could've been, his punishment would be much more deserved and lengthy.

How fitting that my students should be studying Macbeth right now, as I can imagine if given the choice between his sentences, Hussein would have fought to the last, refusing to be on display as the deposed tyrant ruler encaged. Quote Macbeth:

Macduff: Then yield thee, coward,
and live to be the show and gaze o' th' time.
We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted upon a pole, and underwrit
'Here may you see the tyrant.'

Macbeth: I will not yield...to be baited with the rabble's curse...
Yet I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff;
And damn'd be him that first cries 'Hold,
enough!'

Instead of the infinite mercy and justice of God, we have the quick, destructive revenge of Man.

It is not a good day.

2006-08-13T01:22:00.000-04:00

when i was in japan last year, i had a delicious candy bar called 'Crunky.' admittedly, i purchased it for the sheer humor involved in a candy bar which is named similarly to hip-hop slang. nevertheless, i selected a 'Crunky' mango chocolate bar and was wowed. it was light, full of mango flavor and really delicious. i still have the box and you can ask to see it sometime.

flashforward to a few weeks ago. my friend kelly, former WQFS dj and JET program english teacher in northern japan, was preparing to return to the u.s. after her 3 years in nihon. taking advantage of myspace, i sent her a message asking if she could be the swellest person ever and bring me a few mango chocolate bars when she came home. she wrote back to tell me that, apparently, mango was last year's flavor. (i never did have my finger on the pulse of my generation.) and it seemed that melon flavors were the rage this year. really just desperate for some amusing japanese food products, i told her that was fine.

needless to say, she didn't disappoint.

the chocolate is melon flavored; specifically, canteloupe. here are a few questions:

1) well, number one isn't so much a question as an imperative statement: look at the anthropomorphic melon! lookit!

2) why the angry eyebrows? perhaps he is angry for being eaten. an understandable fact. but he seems more demanding than anything.

3) if he is demanding something, what is it? fealty to the company that manufactured the chocolate? he does seem to be pointing to some sort of logo. the manufacturer's? the official logo of canteloupe? mark of the beast? it's a little unclear.

4) is he pointing? it's possible that he's saluting us - for buying a chocolate of such reputable quality, naturally. and for making his canteloupe life not go for nothing.

5) again, a statement: he's shouting. definitely shouting. i picture him sounding something akin to mr. sparkle on that ever-so-funny episode of the simpsons, but then again, a lot of japanese characters sound like that in my head.

the chocolate, by the way, is really good. if you're ever in hokkaido, i'd highly recommend picking some up. especially if you like melon flavored things. they even smell like it. it's wonderful.

needless to say, kelly is currently my hero. her and generalissimo melon. that's the guy on the box.

...

is it evident yet that going back to work would probably be healthy for me?

2006-07-25T15:04:00.000-04:00

driving on interstate highways is always an interesting gamble. on long road trips, it can be tedious and tiring. but on short jogs, such as from my house to chapel hill, it can create some interesting circumstances. such as this:

charlie took this picture as she and i were riding up to see the handsome family. i'm not quite sure what this thing is, so if anyone can tell me, i'll probably haverize* it, honestly, as i'd much rather believe it's what i think it is.

but i'll keep that to myself. leave comments and let me know what you think it is. being pulled on a flat-bed tractor trailer. any thoughts?

* - j. ball, would you mind posting in comments the duennas and pocket foxes definition of 'haverize' for those who aren't familiar?

2006-07-19T01:19:00.000-04:00

Senator Dole:

I was disappointed to see you voted against H.R. 810, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005. I wish I could speak with you personally about why you chose to vote against it, but I am left instead to simply hypothesize your possible reasons.

There are many bits of mis-information that exist about stem cell research. The biggest and most outrageous of these falsehoods is that "life" is created and destroyed exclusively for this research. That is not true. Stem cells are harvested through fertilized eggs, or embryos, that are created for use at fertility clinics for a process known as in-vitro fertilization, or IVF. IVF is a common and widely used process for helping couples who have trouble conceiving children on their own. This process regularly creates numerous embryos for this process, but ultimately only one is used and ultimately implanted in the uterus for gestation. These left over embryos could go from being simply tossed out to being the foundation of bold new directions in medicine that could change countless lives of people who currently suffer from all sorts of diseases. Scientists are only beginning to discover the potential benefits that research into this field could yield us, but the standing policy of the Bush administration has put a stranglehold on this groundbreaking work. All of this despite the American peoples' broad support for this issue; nearly 2 to 1 according to an ABC poll which you can view here.

I would hope that you would re-consider your vote if President Bush vetoes this bill and sends it back to Congress for a second vote. North Carolinians with disabilities and disabling diseases, their families and friends, are counting on you to help them in their hour of need. I know you will come through for them.

Sincerely,

Josh Neas.

and on the other hand...

Senator Burr:

Thank you for voting for H.R. 810, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005. Though I often disagree with your opinions and votes, this is an issue on which we obviously agree. It is an issue that Americans agree with you on by a nearly 2 to 1 margin according to an ABC poll which you can view here.

Issues like this do not stradle party lines and it's good to see you can recognize bills that are for the betterment of all Americans in the present and future.

Do me and the rest of North Carolina a favor and talk with Senator Dole about changing her vote should President Bush choose to veto this bill and send it back to Congress. Her vote could be the difference in overriding his veto and the difference in the quality of life for countless Americans in the future.

Sincerely,

Josh Neas.

2006-06-29T14:51:00.000-04:00

a good many of you who read this were at one time residents of NC-08, the House district lorded over by robin hayes. i've been down on hayes ever since he sent me an email reply lamely trying to justify his vote for the CARP legislation that has kept many a college/community radio station (like WQFS) from being able to webcast due to the ridiculous prices charged by ASCAP, BMI and other licensing firms.

the NC-08 hasn't been so hot on hayes recently either. especially after his blatant flip-flop on voting for CAFTA (first he said he wouldn't, then with no warning at the last minute, he did). in a region that has experienced the shutdown of one of its largest manufacturers in recent years, pillowtex, this was not a smart move.

now we have him questioning our local officials? yikes. from the (print-only) montgomery herald (emphasis mine):

During the fall trip to Washington by Chamber of Commerce representatives, the group had an opportunity to visit with congressmen from across the region. Issues from education, to textiles to the economy were discussed. When it was all said and done, the one thing that was very clear is just how out of touch Washington is with rural America.

During one of the first sessions, the floor was opened for a question and answer period. Montgomery County School Superintendent Dr. Lindsey Suggs questioned the difficulty schools were encountering with the federal mandate, No Child Left Behind...

Hayes, in a heated exchange with Suggs, defended the legislation and reminded Suggs, "You need me more than I need you."

so while i know a lot of you (including myself) don't live in the NC-08 anymore, we can still take action. one, if your parents or friends still live there (like mine do), encourage them to vote for larry kissell, the democrat running against hayes' completely out-of-touch ways. he seems to be the sharpest opponent of hayes i've seen in some time.

second, contribute to kissell's campaign. doesn't matter how small a donation, just donate. $10 is a great gift since it's money he didn't have. with the donation quarter closing at the end of this month, every candidate needs as much support as possible to look good when the numbers are reported.

i don't want to set foot back in my home county for two more years of robin hayes' assinine leadership. toss. the bum. out.

2006-06-27T22:26:00.000-04:00

Senators Burr and Dole:

I was disappointed to find that you voted for Senate Joint Resolution 12 that would've supported the addition of an amendment to the Constitution banning flag burning. There are two reasons I find your vote unpleasant.

First, one of the finest freedoms we celebrate in this country is the freedom of speech. Our right as human beings to express ourselves is as vital as anything else in the foundation of our country. Protesting the direction or actions taken by our country by burning a flag is an enormous, painful and important statement. A citizen that chooses to burn the flag in protest is often saying to those around him or her, "Listen! The very values that our country stands for, the ones represented by the colors and symbols in this flag, are in danger and are not being protected. We must do something about it." In choosing to protest by burning the flag, they are taking upon themselves one of the most sacred, trusted rights and duties in our country: the right to question and protest our government and country.

Finally I am disappointed because for the second time, after the vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment, this month the United States senate has chosen to occupy its time not with a serious discussion of healthcare, Medicare, the Iraq war, poverty or any other numerous problems the American people find pressing and important. Instead, the Senate decided to waste the voters' time by positioning themselves in a blatant election-year posture. I, frankly, couldn't care less that you voted for this bill. The fact that you voted against the minimum wage increase last week is all I need to know as a constituant and a voter to tell me how much your stand as 'protector of our country' really means. I am severely disappointed in you and think you ought to be ashamed.

Work harder. You went into politics for a reason that, I hopefully assume, was a noble and caring one. Votes like this make me doubt that severely.

Sincerely,

Josh Neas.

2006-06-26T17:36:00.000-04:00

one of the great things about living out in the country a bit includes walking out of your bathroom, rounding a bookshelf and nearly stepping on this fella:

..and that is a pint glass, my friends, in order to give you some sort of size perspective.

2006-06-21T15:33:00.000-04:00

Senators Burr and Dole:

Senator Kennedy's recent amendment proposal, S. Amend. 4322, regarding the raising of the minimum wage, was an important and vital piece of legislation. I am severely disappointed to see that you voted against even bringing this to the floor for a vote.

As you obviously are not aware, the minimum wage has been locked at $5.15/hr. for almost 10 years. This stagnation in changing the wage has led to the wage being worth nearly the lowest, adjusted for inflation, in the past 50 years. If the 1968 minimum wage level were adjusted to meet today's inflation levels, it would be worth $9.09, nearly 75% higher than the current wage.

I assume that you are not aware of these facts because otherwise I am flummoxed to understand why you would've voted against this piece of legislation. Raising the minimum wage is something that has been raised in the Senate on a yearly basis, and yet you've consistantly kept it from passing. Explain to me why it is that you think that an American citizen who works a full-time, minimum wage job should still be considered 'poor' by our own economic standards.

I eagerly await your thoughtful reply.

Sincerely,

Josh Neas.

2006-06-07T12:26:00.000-04:00

Senators Burr and Dole:

I am appalled and disappointed in the Republican-run Senate's decision to waste the American people's time with debating the Federal Marriage Amendment, the most insulting and disspiriting piece of legislation I've seen in some time. Not only do I believe that there are numerous more substantial issues that the Senate should be tackling, but so do the rest of the American people. In poll after poll, 'moral'/FMA-type issues rank in the very bottom of people's concerns. Where are the discussions on health care? The war in Iraq? Gas prices?

Finally, how dare 49 Senators, including yourself, presume that they can tell private churches who they can and can not marry. Marriage is a religious institution and it should remain so. Churches have the right to decide for themselves whether or not they want to marry gay couples. The only responsibility you have is to give equal rights to ALL CITIZENS. This ought to include the legal right for gay couples to pursue the same legal partnerships and benefits that are available to straight couples.

Let the churches decide who they want to marry. Give citizens equal access to rights and priviliges and get back to doing something productive with the people's time.

Respectfully,

Josh Neas

social conservatives would love to be able to tell more liberal churches how to deal with marriage. for all their bluster about 'religious freedom,' they'd shut down a gay-marrying church in a heartbeat. their concern isn't about the family, otherwise they'd welcome gay people who want to join in the tradition of a solid family rooted in marriage. their concern isn't about rights, since they refuse to acknowledge all citizens' rights to legal partnerships and the benefits that go along with them. and their concern isn't about religion since they'd, effectively, be telling some churches that their belief in gay marriage is illegal and therefore has to stop.

as i said in this letter to the senators, let churches decide who they want to marry. that's their right as private organizations. give citizens equal access to marriage/partnership rights and then stop wasting our time with this ridiculous crap.

2006-02-27T23:31:00.000-05:00

You're A People's History of the United States!

by Howard Zinn

After years of listening to other peoples' lies, you decided you've
had enough. Now you're out to tell it like it is, with all the gory details and nothing left out. Instead of respecting leaders, you want to know what the common people have to offer. But this revolution still has a long way to go, and you're not against making a little profit while you wait. Honesty is your best policy.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

2006-02-05T12:02:00.000-05:00

This news is really sad. But man, what an amazing character. Read the entire article and you will find yourself amazed by all the things you never knew Al Lewis did in his life. Rest in peace, Grandpa.

2006-01-19T16:30:00.000-05:00

foxes on chalkboards
with soft, smitten glances.
books stacked and arranged,
in hypnotic trances.
kafka creations
pipe cleaners and string.
these are a few
of my favorite things.

books that are purchased
with thoughtful intentions.
waiting by candles
sensual declensions.
laughter in bundles;
the smiles they bring.
these are a few
of my favorite things.

in the night time
in the day time
every moment's call.
i think of a few
of my favorite things.
how can i feel glad at all?

2006-01-19T09:53:00.000-05:00

i refuse to roll over and not try. i am not one for confrontation, you know it too well. and maybe that was one of the things that made you hesitate. doubting my sincerity. doubting it all.

truth changes. which means that thinking changes. thus, humans change. i think, therefore i am. oh, descartes.

time won't change how i feel. i'm afraid that time will change how you feel. every moment is an age.

i know where i deceived myself. there is no deception when it comes to you. doubt everything but that. please.

2006-01-16T09:01:00.000-05:00

2005-12-25T03:21:00.000-05:00

having totally stolen this (and not truly been passed it) by the good folks over at crooks and liars (a tremendous blog, by the way), i thought i'd have fun with this and see if anyone's reading in the process.

Four jobs you’ve had in your life: restaurant host, book store cashier, overnight coordinator for students visiting guilford college, high school english teacher. (i'm going to leave radio off of there since, well, i'm not paid.)

Four movies you could watch over and over: the shawshank redemption, high fidelity, mystery science theater 3000: the movie and hannah and her sisters.

Four places you’ve lived: Concord, NC; Greensboro, NC; London, England. there's not a fourth.

Four TV shows you love to watch: Arrested Development, the Simpsons, House and the Daily Show.

Four places you’ve been on vacation: Germany; Japan; Spain; Berea, KY.

Four websites you visit daily: Daily Kos, Aquarium Drunkard, Pitchfork Media and Eschaton.

Four of your favorite foods: Cheese tortellini with cream tomato sauce at Elizabeth's on N. Battleground in Greensboro; the calamari fritta at Pomodoro's Greek and Italian Cafe in Asheville, NC; my-via-my-mother-via-my-aunt-marilyn's cheesy baked chicken recipe; sushi of all kinds, but especially mackerel and tuna.

Four places you’d rather be: London; WQFS; Kyoto; Anywhere with Charlie.

see how fun it can be? i pass to anyone who wishes. if you take it up, leave a comment and link to your post.

merry christmas to everyone. may it be jolly and bright for all of you.

2005-12-07T09:34:00.000-05:00

..and the war comes home. again.

tom fox, one of the christian peace group members who are currently held captive in iraq, is connected to my alma mater, guilford college. you can read about his work at guilford by clicking here.

for me it is a most personal connection due to the fact that tom fox is the father of friend, and fellow guilford education department graduate, kassie fox.

more so than anything, the failure of the bush administration to secure and unify iraq in the post-invasion time is proven by the utter suffering of those who really are, unlike them, simply trying to make things better. peace operatives, people striving truly to make this world better, are treated the same as the extremists who created this situation. those who are unwilling to love on both sides are causing the pain of those who feel there is something bigger than individuals.

it is a struggle to keep your faith when those who share your vision are punished for just that.

tom fox, his fellow captives, and everyone involved are in my thoughts, and indeed, my prayers. peace, friends.

2005-12-03T16:53:00.000-05:00

there's a blog i read from time to time that, while i don't agree with katie's opinions for the most part, focuses on education issues. therefore, i'm interested. there was a comment she made recently about lateral entry teachers (emphasis mine):

I would prefer to fix our teacher shortage problem by making it easier for people to become teachers without education degrees. Mid-career professionals who want to switch into teaching aren't able to because they're considered unqualified without teaching certificates--even if they've worked for years in the field they want to teach. Teach for America receives 17,000 applications a year, including a great many from students at very top schools. Talented, enthusiastic college graduates want to be teachers, but they don't want to jump through hoops.

one of the things i learned very quickly about teaching is that, unfortunately, content knowledge is the least of your worries. it certainly is important. and i'm pretty proud of that top 15 percentile grade on my PRAXIS english literature content examination. but that is not what makes me a teacher. it's my degree and my experience in education.

what katie seems to be arguing is that we are making it too tough for people with excellent experience in content knowledge areas to get jobs teaching because we want them to be "highly-qualified" (a no child left behind term there for you) with a degree in education. what this seems to say is that we should connect high experience in a field with the ability to teach it well.

that's not the case. here in north carolina, lateral entry teachers (the term for people entering teaching with field experience in their subject, but no teaching degree or certificate) have 3 years from the beginning of their teaching to complete a program in education. so the "hoops" that katie mentions seem to be pretty important. to attempt to argue that these people may not need those sort of requirements is an insult to the vast majority of the teaching field that does have a degree in education and is proud of that work. not to mention an even larger insult when people without education degrees come in at higher pay scale because of their "experience" in their field.

hey, guilford county. i worked in a book store for 2 1/2 years. where's my pay increase for coming in with "field experience?"
--
now from ranting to, well, disappointment.

rachel and i checked out skip's hot dogs today over on e. market street right near hwy. 29. i've been craving a really good hot dog in this area, since the amazing cats and dogs hot dog place is located out of my reach in asheville. boasting the best hot dogs in town, i thought i'd at least be in for something decent. and sure, i guess you could describe the food as decent. but the lack of flavor was disappointing. every item seemed to be missing taste. my 'great dogs,' loaded with onions, slaw, chili and mustard, didn't taste like much. neither did my onion rings, nor rachel's fries. overall it was a let down.

does anyone have any suggestions for great hot dog places here in greensboro? the housemates here at the nor'easter have been planning a great hot dog expedition to our respective 'best hot dog ever' places (mine, by the way, is the texas inn in lynchburg, virginia), but have yet to embark. so any input would be great.

2005-11-18T18:09:00.000-05:00

so, i don't usually go in for these, but satisfied '75 over at aquarium drunkard said it's worth doing and a pretty solid deal.

click on this link, sign up for one offer (i, like satisfied, recommend the 14 day real audio superpass subscription - easily cancelled if you don't like it), refer 5 people and you get a free 30GB ipod. i have long resisted getting an ipod, but for free, i'll take it.

so please, help a brother out, click through the link, complete an offer and be on your way to your own ipod as well.

off to see the drive-by truckers! reviews of tonight and tomorrow night will be posted over at the j's indie/rock blog.

2005-11-14T22:01:00.000-05:00

i'm with americablog, atrios, kos and all the others who have mentioned this today.

Boycott Target.

2005-11-05T13:52:00.000-05:00

np: josh rouse - nashville

now, honestly, i've never been in a t.j cinnamon's restaurant, but apparently they're usually housed inside (and owned by) arby's restaurants. i was using arby's store locator on-line today when i noticed the t.j. cinnamon link. i was a little surprised and intrigued by their store motto: "You're Allowed."

i'm allowed, you say? well that's good to know. here i was thinking that i wasn't. but, you know, this is america. land of the free. home of the obese. if i want to indulge my sweet tooth, i'm allowed. t.j. cinnamon himself said so.

but honestly, without the explanation given on the corporate website to help one understand the motto, it's a bit confusing. are there certain places i'm not, in fact, allowed? los alamos? sure. the west wing of the white house? probably. chuck e. cheese restaurants in the lower-48? not after last saturday. i just find it a bit condescending that t.j. cinnamon feels he has to tell me that i'm "allowed" into his restaurant.

which gives me an idea.

i'm going to open a restaurant. j.s. neas & co. fine family dining. famous since 2005. ("famous since 19--," by the way, is the motto of the ham's restaurant chain here in greensboro. this little gem always prompts me to ask: 'so, when did it open?') and our motto? "You're not allowed." that's right. you're not allowed. think that's nonsense? try me. we'll have bouncers. believe me.

so josh, you ask: ('yes?' i reply) isn't that going to stunt business? i mean, you are trying to make a profit here. and sure, that's a good question. but i feel that if i keep telling people they're not allowed long enough, eventually, they'll be clamouring to get in. that's when we introduce membership cards like at those wholesale warehouses. people will actually pay to get to come inside and pay again to eat. it'll be a brilliant scam. and it'll leave those t.j. cinnamon's punks in the dust. 'cos really...

who wants to go where you're allowed?

2005-10-28T15:54:00.000-04:00

It's been a minute, I realize but..

HAPPY FITZMAS!

seriously, though. as much as i love dancing over any proverbial graves in this administration, this is a really, really, really crappy day for american government. how low can we go? set the limbo bar, george. we're going down.

2005-09-18T17:59:00.000-04:00

np: wilco - "i am trying to break your heart"

i nearly vomited earlier today.

as i was watching football (go panthers!), i decided to pick another channel to flip back and forth to between plays or during commercials. out of pure desperation, i gave mtv a look. it's nothing new to sit here and complain about mtv not being the grand ol' channel of yore, but as it continues to sink further and further down it's hard not to peek. and comment.

i'm going to withhold my comments for two shows: my super sweet sixteen and laguna beach. if either show could get more white, i'd be bleached at the end of a half hour.

the sweet sixteen show is a reality show that chronicles the sweet sixteen birthday parties of various girls (although next week, apparently, a rather fey boy is the featured debutante). i've yet to see a girl on there that wasn't a) stupid wealthy, b) seriously spoiled and c) a burden to our society. as a girl begged and pleaded with her father to get her a quite expensive car for her birthday, i couldn't help but wonder how many kids would be happy with a good pair of shoes for their birthday, let alone an automobile that she's likely to wreck in her first year of driving, only to have it replaced with another new car.

honestly, i only watched about 30 seconds of laguna beach, but my main beef with it was that all the characters are white. that's it. i have that problem with a lot of shows.

now the catch: when i was 14-18 years old, mtv saved my musical life. thanks to a wonderful show that cost me many hours of sleep before monday morning school, the incomparable (and legendary) 120 Minutes. when i first started watching the show, it was hosted by random bands or artists each week. they would introduce the videos, talk a bit about their own, and generally look like deer in the headlights. but eventually they settled on a new host, matt pinfield, who could probably be summed up as one of the most well-listened (as opposed to well-read) men in popular music. so during the majority of my high school career, on sunday nights/monday mornings from 12am - 2am, i would hunker down in my bed, turn on the tv and watch the videos mtv just didn't seem to feel like were worth playing during the day. a parade of new and old music. alt-rock and metal and even dabbling in some hip-hop from time to time. (i mean, christ, they played jeru the damaja!) for a student of pop culture who just wasn't satisfied with local commercial radio, 120 Minutes was a goldmine. it paved the way for eagerly jumping into the field of college radio.

today, mtv doesn't even play full videos it seems. and it's the same ones. over and over.

i was reminded of that infamous quote from world history. france's henry IV who said, in response to asking why he converted back to catholicism from calvinism, "Paris is well worth a mass." he was trying to stay out of the way of palpal authority and reaping the benefits at the same time.

obviously, back in the early 90s, there were record labels who were smart enough to take henry's approach. if i were writing a historic fictional account of the times, i'd certainly have david geffen proffer that "nirvana was well worth a sonic youth." granted, DGC has sunk quite a bit of money into letting sonic youth run hog wild with their artistic tendencies ever since the late 80s, but they reaped the benefits of having DGC look damn cool. and thus, bringing on board some of the people who looked up to sonic youth, namely, kurt cobain. i'm sure nirvana's sales have paid for every sonic youth production and then some.

so why hasn't MTV continued to think that audiences are well worth 120 minutes of airtime? people have been crying the death of 'music' television for some time, but it just gets worse by the year. those of us with ears to the ground have had to retreat to the internet (although the benefits of the internet over television are limitless, truly). i feel lucky to have witnessed the end of MTV's golden age.

the replacements were well worth the groggy mornings.

2005-09-17T17:23:00.000-04:00

np: nada surf - the weight is a gift

i had a dream last night. i don't often remember my dreams very vividly. usually i just remember snatches of dialogue, images, or the general idea. this one is similar to that, but the image is vivid.

i saw my grandpa charlie. looking as he did when he was older, near the time of his death but more sprightly than he had been in those last years. i saw him and i lept into his arms, giving him a tremendous hug. i've missed him quite a bit since he died back in 2002. as we turned around, i looked into a mirror mounted nearby and saw myself. i looked as i did when i was 5 or 6, not much older. and there i was with my grandpa. we turned again and i realized i was the age i am now.

and that's all i really remember. i'm glad i got to say hi. i hope he still knows how much i loved him.

2005-08-23T19:08:00.000-04:00

np: the new pornographers - twin cinema

just a couple of days until school starts back. ah, the new year. so many possibilities and bright hopes. i'm feeling a lot more confident this year than i did last. that's a good thing to be feeling, certainly. we're a host of new teachers. turnover is a consistant problem in this industry.

thanks to the departure of one member of my department, i'm now in charge of the senior project at our school. it's actually a pretty challenging project that seniors undertake through their english classes. it involves a research paper, creation of a product, tri-fold board presentation and an oral presentation given to a panel of judges from the community. it makes up 25% of their overall course grade. and it takes a lot of work on everyone's part. intense.

two special dates have passed recently with nary a mention on this blog. and i feel pitiful over it. first, sometime back in july, the 4th birthday of this blog happened. blogs have certainly come into vogue enough to be ridiculed by people. i'm still a giant advocate of their potential as citizen journalism and so forth. and having been at this (although in varied forms) for over 4 years, i feel very happy to be a part of it. even if this is largely just personal ramblings.

the other date that passed by was my birthday on august 21st. i'm living during the third occurance of my birth year according to the chinese zodiac. so those of you with an abacus in your head know i just turned 24. so, i still get a lot of questions about my age from parents. one rather saucy lady commented on it in an almost flirtatious manner.
--
the lefty blogging community has stumbled upon a great language framing device by taking the phrase 'radical cleric,' so often applied to people like muqtada al-sadr, and levelling it at fundamentalist political figures like pat robertson. 'radical cleric robertson' has a nice ring to it. especially since it's incredibly true. and especially when you advocate for the assasination of fairly elected leaders of other countries.

this little bit of news has been getting the rounds on the 'net the last couple of days, but really. it can't be mentioned enough. it's an incredibly hypocritical statement by a man who has done nothing but sully the beautiful religion he claims to tout. who would jesus assasinate, pat? apparently you're in the driver's seat for that information.

2005-08-11T17:52:00.000-04:00

np: frankie goes to hollywood - "two tribes"

alright. i'll admit it. sometimes i like to go slumming. the thrill of being amongst people so unlike me. of feeling like i'm in danger at all times. waiting for one of them to go nuts 'cos i'm there.

most of the time though, i avoid michelle malkin's website. but today i was linked there while reading about one of her comments regarding the cindy sheehan debacle and stumbled across an ad for a conservative t-shirt company. so i went to peruse their merchandise. and i find this.

in case you can't read the fine print, it has the initials of the aclu with an islamic crescent moon and star replacing the 'c.' it reads "anti-christian lawyers union: jihad with a law degree."

now i know the far-right doesn't have much to love about the american civil liberties union. even if they did sign on to protect rush limbaugh's privacy rights when he tried to prevent his medical records from being released and showing his prescription drug abuses.

i also know that t-shirts really don't matter that much. but they can be indicative of the kind of mindset infesting the extremes of a world view.

the aclu's attempts to keep a separation of church and state (which in this country, obviously, comes most often in conflict with christian denominations) has run them afowl of the right time and time again. but this t-shirt asserts that being anti-christian is somehow linked with being...muslim?

for two religions linked by thousands of years of shared history, patriarchs/matriarchs and even gods, they sure are used to represent the complete opposite of one another whenever it's convenient to do so. in this case, the manufacturer decided that representing the islamic faith as a faith-oppressing, legal-manipulating, warring group of anti-americans (and the aclu as a group of islamic, faith-oppressing, legal-manipulating, warring lawyers) was most convenient.

again, it's a t-shirt. there are plenty of t-shirts out there that say hateful, mind-numbing, absurdist things from any side of the aisle. but i would hope that the vast number of conservatives buying materials off that site would have the common sense to ignore that particular shirt for the ridiculous, false tripe that it is.

2005-08-10T12:36:00.000-04:00

np: aztec camera - knife

while enjoying a brief sojourn into burlington this morning, out there on the outer fringe of the WQFS listening area, i had one of those beautiful, coincidental moments erupt on my stereo. i was listening to mike smith's show and he was closing with XTC's "dear god," a song that undoubtedly a lot of you have heard at one time or another even if you wouldn't know what it's called. for one reason or another (as radio stations are known to do) the station began to fade, struggling for the frequency with another radio station broadcasting an evangelist of some kind.

listening to these two seemingly opposed pieces of art struggle for control of my car stereo was grin inducing to say the least.

2005-08-07T23:44:00.000-04:00

np: timbuk 3 - "the future's so bright, i gotta wear shades"

after reminiscing about my time in hiroshima and its relevance to saturday's sad anniversary, i read this post over on billmon's blog. here's a teaser, but you should read the whole deal:

A provision tucked into the 1,724-page energy bill that Congress is poised to enact today would ease export restrictions on bomb-grade uranium, a lucrative victory for a Canadian medical manufacturer and its well-wired Washington lobbyists.

The Burr Amendment -- named for its sponsor, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) -- would reverse a 13-year-old U.S. policy banning exports of weapons-grade uranium unless the recipients agree to start converting their reactors to use less-dangerous uranium . .

i'm putting my shades on as i type..

2005-08-06T03:21:00.000-04:00

np: sixty years of solitude.

today marks the 60th anniversary of the first atomic bomb dropped on hiroshima, japan. in a way it's fitting that i return to my blog after the unintended absence to write about this. had i been able to continue my blogging while in japan, the next stop on our trip was hiroshima. so, i'd like to write what i had in my hand-written journal to share with you my experience there.
--
we rode into hiroshima from kyoto. the rail system here is amazing. quiet, fast, comfortable (even for huge, gaijin me).

hiroshima is a gorgeous, bustling, lovely city. not quite what i expected, but what was i expecting? it is green and dynamic. it's about the size of charlotte, population wise, yet a million times the charm. sorry, queen city.

the peace park has several striking features, the most immediately noticeable being the a-bomb dome, a building at the epicenter of the blast that has been preserved in its post-blast state. (ed. the bomb exploded 600 m. in the air directly over this building.) across the river is both the children's peace memorial, dedicated to all the children killed by the or as a result of the blast, and the peace bell.

both of these left me low. tears in my eyes, horrible images in my mind. the peace bell can be, and is, rung by anyone who comes by. the idea is that you're tolling for peace, ringing loudly so that its pulse is heard in all ears. a great feeling to have clapped that bell. (ed. the bell is designed with a map of the world on it. the part where the clapper strikes is decorated with an atomic symbol. a symbolic destruction of the terrible beast.)

cynthia and i were in the peace park when we were approached by an elderly woman. on a small placard, with six different languages, she had written a question: would you mind if i prayed for your happiness? when we said okay, she asked cynthia to bow her head and close her eyes. i watched as the old lady held her hand up in a gesture i can't describe. after a minute or so, she finished and did the same to me. when done, she turned the card over and showed us that "your blood has been purified."

we later discussed the possibility that this woman was a survivor of the blast. she was certainly of the right age group. sadly we did not see her again to talk to her.

the hiroshima peace memorial museum was incredibly haunting and is not easily written down, but rather can be somewhat conveyed through glances. two horrible memories and one positive.

- a three year old boy, riding his tricycle in the front yard, is horribly burned by the blast. when he finally dies, his father buries him in the backyard along with his beloved tricycle, hoping, in his inconsolable grief, that his son may still be able to ride his favorite toy.

- a girl, forced to go to school despite a headache, returns to her home so burned she's barely recognizable. after her death, her mother spends the rest of her life blaming herself for having sent her to school. she never gets over blaming herself for her daughter's death.

- since 1968, ever time a country tests a nuclear weapon, the mayor of hiroshima sends the country's leader a letter pleading with them to stop perpetuating the useless fear of annihilation and to cease testing these weapons and ignoring the lessons of hiroshima. all of the letters are on display. most disturbing is the number of letters sent to the united states in the past 13 years. i had no idea we were still conducting nuclear tests that often.
--
i feel almost inadaquate trying to sum up what it's like to set foot in hiroshima. it's frightening. it's sickening. it's forever etched firmly in my memory and i'll never be the same for having been there. at the time i'm typing this, we are actually 8 hours past the precise time the bomb went off (8:15 a.m. japan time).

as much destruction as went on there, we are still in the midsts of an unbelievable build up of our nuclear arsenal with bombs that would equal 1,000 times or more the power contained in the hiroshima blast. eventually more than 200,000 people died as a result of the bombing. can you even begin to imagine the toll if anyone set off a full size nuclear bomb today?

on today, and every august 6th, we are all japanese. may everyone reading this take peace with them everywhere they go. let the tolling of the peace bell echo in your ears always.

2005-06-14T10:58:00.000-04:00

np: drive-by truckers - "carl perkins' cadillac"

Hokke Club Hotel, Kyoto - 12:00am (JT) 15th June

musical moments are forever etched in my memory like inlaid wood carvings, subtle and emotive in their simplicity. brief times where music became intertwined with the moment i was living: singing petey pablo's "raise up" in filthy mcnasty's in london; listening to the handsome family's "my sister's tiny hands" as i rode the bus to work in london; singing "carl perkins' cadillac" as part of a two-person choir in an exxon parking lot in chapel hill. these moments wash me over. and at least three more now reside with me. see them take me through the day.

our major visit yesterday was to the saiho-ji moss garden. a truly gorgeous site leading to the discovery that things like this may and can be tended by man, but they certainly cannot be created by him.

upon our entry to the garden, we were made to sit and copy (using ink and brush/nub) a prayer/invocation in japanese characters. it was rather lengthy and some of us (cynthia and i) ended up taking upwards of half an hour to complete it, but as we settled into the task, the idea of how form begins to take on just as much importance as substance came to my mind. did it truly matter that i didn't understand any of the writing i was copying? not if i let the emotions i had speak through the strokes of my brush. truly calligraphy is an art in this language. at the end we wrote a wish, our names and home cities onto the sheets and left them at the shrine.

the bus ride back to kyoto station took us through some of the more working class neighborhoods of kyoto and it was at some point on this journey i found myself listening to the drive-by truckers' the dirty south. i figured this album would be a great thing to listen to when thoughts of home were needed, and yet on this bus, with the plaintive guitar parts of "carl perkins' cadillac" in my ears, i could not help but smile intensely. it seemed of the moment so clearly, so perfectly. alabama, north carolina and kyoto forever linked.

adam, cynthia, keisha and i returned to our downtown stomping grounds again during the evening and we spent our evening exploring the downtown mall complex and whatever else we found our noses stuck into. at the first bar we entered that evening, selfish cream, our resident bartender (who was the immaculate host - adam refers to him as 'cream slice,' an appropriate play (i assume) on 'home slice,' whose relevency will appear momentarily) showed us his tupac cell phone screen and then played us some tupac, along with, at my behest, nas. he then counted down his five favorite rappers (in order from 5 to 1: dr. dre, nas, snoop dogg, tupac and warren g) which led us to serenade him with an excerpt from that classic of the g-funk era, "regulators." that i would find such a fan of warren g in japan is just a testament to how beautiful and strange this world sometimes is.

finally, we returned to ING. our friend hakko (neé-Richards) played us great music (including patti smith and television) and the evening again found us in fine singing form as our table and one full of canadians belted out the chorus of pearl jam's "alive." i'll just leave that there.

we met a pair of people, ying and mark, who engaged us in conversation for most of the rest of our late evening. mark is a former minnesotan who has lived in japan for 6 years and ying, a china native, his friend, although adam asserts ying told him that she brings mark out as a bodyguard, not as a date. mark greatly resembles ralph nader in physical appearance. he and i had a rambling conversation about american politics. that's how a lot of my evenings end up it seems.

aside from adam accidentally thanking our cab driver for the delicious meal, it was a heroically festive evening. tomorrow (the 15th) is our last night in kyoto and i will miss it greatly, i believe.

will pizio, a fellow traveler with my group, is posting some of his digital photos from our adventures. if you would like to check them out, click here. he will be attempting to update them every few days so check often.

2005-06-12T09:34:00.000-04:00

np: bruce springsteen - nebraska

Hokke Club Hotel, Kyoto - 4:00 p.m. (JT) 12th June

after breakfast on saturday (the 11th) we set off for the national museum. huge buddhist statues, beautiful screen paintings and ancient caligraphy. so many amazing things in one place.

something i found intriguing is the japanese (and, i would also assume, chinese) thought of handwriting/caligraphy as an art in itself. in english we might compliment someone on their handwriting, but it is certainly not an art. the art is in the choice of words, not how they are merely written on the page. but people study for years to master the art of character handwriting. and there is a beauty unique to each person's style. examples of caligraphy were given from three different emperors and letters they had written. each person's style suggested something about their personality, just as handwriting does now: hastiness, order, brevity, perfectionist. some things are very much the same across cultures and written expression is certainly one of them.

but nothing in that museum really compared to the sanju-sangen-do temple. as i walked in, expecting to see just another temple, i instead saw 1,001 statues of the buddhist deity kannon. 500 on each side of a massive one in the middle. i cannot accurately describe the sight. the 28 guardian deities stand in front and the hall goes on forever at times. i really have never seen anything like it in my life. the time it must have taken to carve so many images..the passion and the spirit that went into this devotion to the buddha. it was so powerful. afterward, adam, will and i walked back to our hotel in the pouring rain.

that night, adam, cynthia, will and myself went downtown. this section of kyoto is a circus. young people everywhere among neon lights, tons of small bars and side alleys that serve as 'sex alleys' for strip clubs and so forth. here is where i truly witnessed rachel's assertion that youth in japan eat up western culture. shoes (pumas, chuck taylors); t-shirts with garish images and hilariously slaughtered english grammar. even a station wagon with hydrolics bouncing higher than most i've ever seen. truly surreal.

after dinner was found, we searched out one of the bars recommended by the lonely planet guide. it's a dark, smokey place called ING. great music, great beer and a hilarious waiter named hokko. he claimed (so we heard, second-hand) to be the love child of keith richards. and when the stones come to town he sits front row center yelling "you are my love father!" in a perfect world this story would be absolutely true. as it is, i choose to believe it anyway.

today (the 12th) we visited the kiyomizu temple. perched atop a falls/spring ('mizu' is the japanese word for 'water' - people drink from the spring as a blessing), it features a major shrine to kannon, a pagoda and several other wonderful buildings. while walking alone, a hustle of monks came through, hurridly running toward the shrine and then chanted, en masse, a prayer. it was an amazing thing to watch.

we walked down through the retail streets below and browsed wares. we also saw some genuine geisha whom wille and roy were lucky enough to have their picture taken with. i bought one of those small, rotating drumgs like at the end of karate kid part II. awesome.

as we walked back to the hotel, walking down a side street i saw a boy in a boy scout uniform. i gave him the boy scout salute, having been one myself, and he returned it. it made me smile. and it really made my world just a tiny bit smaller.

2005-06-10T10:22:00.000-04:00

np: serious excitement.

first off, big news. teenage fanclub is coming to the cat's cradle on july 18th! wow. i'm way too excited for words.

now for the japan stuff.

Hokke Club Hotel, Kyoto - 7:00p.m. (Japan Time) 10th June

i don't know if it's more jet lag or the sunlight coming in my room at 4:30 a.m., but i slept only off and on last night until giving up to the day around 7:30 a.m.

the hotel restaurant offers a traditional japanese breakfast, so we had rice with seaweed, cooked egg yolk, horseradish, bamboo, miso soup, cooked fish, fermented soy beans and the true touch, yellow watermelon.

one old japanese practice they have largely suspended is putting a raw egg over the rice. the steam from the rice (somewhat) cooked the egg. alas they can't vouch for the safety of the eggs any longer.

after breakfast we had a bit of free time. a group of us wandered around the area of kyoto in the vacinity of our hotel for an hour or so. at 11:30 a.m. we grabbed a bus across kyoto to the day's destination.

the ryoanji temple houses one of the most well-known and exemplary pieces of zen art: the rock garden. made of 15 stones spread out in a bed of white gravel, it is incredible simple yet inspires such complex thoughts.

as you enter the temple area there is a wash basin with dippers. you use these to ritually purify yourself before entering the temple; first pouring water over each hand and then cupping water into your mouth. my assumption is that this cleanses not only the hands posed in meditation/prayer, but also the mouth from which the prayers are uttered.

i wish there had been fewer visitors so that a larger sense of the peace of the garden could have been experienced, but i still took quite a bit away with me.

next we visited the r- (name to be filled in later) university peace museum which houses an amazing examination of the japanese end of world war II, including the war attrocities and homefront participation. it also includes a look at a lot of the major aggressive wars of the past 50 years and discusses the role of peace protests in all of them. a stark contrast from the zen garden, this museum dedicated to such destruction and how to stop it. it was truly a diverse day for those reasons.

tonight, adam, cynthia and i went out to dinner at a local restaurant where we are pretty sure we were snubbed. why, you ask? simple: we were not presented with hot, wet towels to wipe our hands with before the meal. every other patron in the restaurant was given hot towels. at the pub we ate at last night, we were given towels. what's up with the diss? they were certainly happy enough to serve us and take our money. alas. my tuna bowl (sushi) was quite excellent though. mmm, mercury. the sweetest of the transition metals.

finally we mounted the kyoto train station. this place is an eleven story behemoth whose rooftop view rivals that of even the taller and nearby kyoto hotel tower. it was amazing to look out on this city of 2.5 million and see the lights, the noises, the vibrancy.

finally, i have to give thanks to rachel whose foresight of my tendency to sometimes do stupid things paid off. she packed neosporin and bandaids for me, just in case, and sure enough, after some mild egging on and encouragement by adam, i attempted to go up a rather long downward escalator in the kyoto station. i was nearly to the top when, in an attempt to catch up with adam and cynthia, i began taking the stairs two at the time. not wise. i tripped, fell, put a hole in the left leg of my jeans and wound up with some bloody scars to boot. nothing serious. i regained myself and mounted the rest of the way, mildly disgusting a security guard nearby. i'm not sure if it was even a word that he uttered at me, more like an "bleccchgghghchchhh."

now when my children and grandchildren ask me if i ever made a fool of myself in a foreign land, i can proudly reply: "yes, my children, and let me tell you how..."

2005-06-09T11:37:00.000-04:00

np: sounds of a kyoto hotel lobby.

i'm going to attempt to post these bloggings as a series of journal entries rather than specific dialogues about my journey. although that may change, but you'll get the jist of it rather quickly i suppose. needless to say i have arrived in kyoto safely and will be starting my day to day adventures tomorrow. i will try to post as often as i can (daily if possible) but know that my adventures may get in the way.

Chicago - O'Hare Airport - 2:10 p.m. CST - 8th June:

after a rather uneventful flight from PTI to O'Hare, a snag - a three-hour delay to our flight to Osaka. the day gets longer - we'll reckon to get into Osaka at about 4 or 5 a.m. EST (6 or 7 p.m. their time). we also had 7 p.m. their time). we also had a rather unfortunate gate change. small change, really

other than watching a (presumably) japanese man practice his baseball swing for some minutes in front of me, it's been a laid-back and uneventful travel experience.

O'Hare is about as i remember it: crowded, loud, bustling, robust. it has that fun sub-way that takes you on a moving sidewalk through a close approximation of a low-grade local planetarium showing of Laser Floyd. shine on you crazy terminal.

-
United Airlines Flight - 11:00 p.m. EST - 8th June

our flight was quite late taking off, further delayed while we taxied and taking off, further delayed while we taxied and so forth. we're getting close to halfway. there is about 7 1/2 hours remaining.

we're currently over alaska and the view is majestic. glaciers and mountains for miles and miles. there is such a sense of beauty to it all.

earlier this year, NPR was giving away an Alaskan cruise in a drawing when you donated money to them. i told rachel i'd take her on the cruise with me if i won, and now here i am over that very land, but sadly, not with her.

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Hokke Club Hotel, Kyoto - 12:49 a.m. Japan Time - 10th June

after several delays we finally made it to our hotel. adam, cynthia and i ventured out to a small restaurant neerby and after consumming several Kirins and a handful of great food (japanese mushrooms in bacon, edmame, mushrooms with ginger, etc.) we headed back to the hotel where i came here to type. this was the first restaurant we went to where i was asked to remove my shoes and sit cross legged at a low table much in the traditional style. it was very relaxing, very fun and really enjoyable after such a hard day flying here. tomorrow we set off to see one of kyoto's many rock gardens and i'm very excited for that. after seeing a bit of anime over the years, you think i'd understand japan's affinity for small, cute creatures, but the obviousness of it overwhelms me. there are cute things everywhere. even the bus transit has a cute, anthropomorphic bus which is its mascot. fascinating. until later.

2005-05-24T23:05:00.000-04:00

np: sleater-kinney - the woods

more on that in a second.

in midsts of the recent, sad passing of frank gorshen (the wonderful character actor/impressionist who played the riddler on the original adam west batman tv series) and the release of the third season of batman: the animated series on dvd, i was doing some reading up on character voices from the animated series on IMDB. i've always loved the fact that mark hamill was the voice of the joker (and what a voice!), but little did i know how many other famous folks graced the microphones of that series. a brief, but heady, list:

adrienne barbeau (catwoman), kate mulgrew, richard moll (harvey dent), ed asner, ron perlman (clayface), katherine helmond, micky dolenz, tim curry, heather locklear, roddy mcdowall (the mad hatter), loretta swit, bud cort, john rhys-davies, adam west, ernie hudson, marilu henner, levar burton, sen. patrick leahy and adam ant.

i loved that cartoon as an adolescent and i still do. the dark, psychological aspects of some of the episodes were really intelligent and forward thinking for a 'kids show.' it expected a lot of the kids that watched it and i think it rewarded those who took the time to think about what was going on. educational and entertaining.
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sleater-kinney's the woods was released today. it had slipped out on the net some time ago, but the band's pleas for people not to download it did earn some sympathy from me. aside from the fact that i don't really download nearly as much as i used to. so i waited for today. and i'm glad.

this is just after one listen through, mind you, but my initial reactions in single words: loud, distorted, powerful. this is their loudest, most abrasive and most forward thinking record to date. the production is marvelous and it makes this record leap out of the grooves. it literally makes the powerful roar of past albums like dig me out seem pitiful in comparison and that is something. i've always loved this band, but i felt that the records didn't come out enough. their energy was there but the production limited it. i thought in the past that it was their two guitar/no bass set up that did that. i was wrong. they just needed the right production and lord, have they found it. this record is fantastic. it will definitely be in my year end top 25 list, way, way up in the list.
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and now, because i can, and because i was thinking of it the other day, my hemmingway immitation piece i wrote for my rhetoric and composition class my senior year of college.

Ketchum
by Josh Neas

“And me without a jacket to wear,” said the Norwegian.

“You will be fine,” Rick said.

The Norwegian looked at the bartender. He pushed his glasses up his nose and sniffed deeply. He had a cold. He turned towards the window of the bar.

“It as if I am unprotected.”

Rick shrugged and dried highball glasses.

The Norwegian walked from one window to the next. He stamped his feet and adjusted the neck of his shirt. He frowned at his steamed up glasses. He removed them and wiped them with the tail of his shirt.

Rick turned up the heat.

“How can you survive in such weather,” the Norwegian asked. He looked at Rick. Rick was counting bar tabs.

“Huh?”

“How can you enjoy living in this weather?”

“What weather?”

“This,” said the Norwegian. He pointed out the window.

“Oh,” said Rick.

The Norwegian stood up straighter. He became angry. He turned back to the window.

Two men walked into the bar and glanced from side to side. They came up to the barstools and took seats. One ordered a steak and eggs. The other man ordered coffee and a newspaper. He turned and looked at the Norwegian.

“Do you like fjords?”

The Norwegian stood staring out the window.

“I said, do you like fjords,” repeated the man.

The Norwegian turned. One man sat staring at him and eating eggs. The other man just stared.

“What’s it like to live around fjords?”

“I would not know,” said the Norwegian.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t live near any.”

“Oh.”

“What do you mean, ‘oh?’ What is with you guys and that word? ‘Oh?’”

The man turned back to the bar and did not answer.

The Norwegian left the bar. He slammed the door as he left. He walked into the weather without a jacket.

Rick looked up from his racing form and mumbled.

“What’s that,” the steak and egg eater asked.

“Damn Norwegians,” said Rick.

The man with coffee lit a cigarette.

“Not here, please,” said Rick. “Take it out to the fjords.”

The men laughed and the smoking and coffee drinking man went outside.

The Norwegian was standing near a hitching post.

“Where is your horse,” the Norwegian said and patted the post.

The man took a drag from the cigarette he was holding. He tapped the ash from the end.

“Where is your fjord,” the man asked. He smiled and laughed.

“What is this business? I am not from Scandinavia or anything. I don’t understand,” said the Norwegian.

“You are kidding,” said the man.

“What if I just assumed you were Russian? How would you like that?”

“I am Russian.”

“That is beside the point.”

“It is your shirt, man. Your shirt.”

The Norwegian tugged out the tail of his shirt. It read ‘I’ and ‘Fjords’ with a picture of a heart between the two words. It also read ‘Norway’ in blue letters.
“This is why you think I am Norwegian?”

“Your accent is from Lillehammer also.”

“I am from Idaho. Not Lillehammer.”

The man shrugged and took a final drag from his cigarette and put it out against the hitching post.

“Same thing.”

The man walked inside and left the Norwegian in the weather he despised.

2005-05-18T23:41:00.000-04:00

np: citified - s/t

andrew octopus gets deep on radio and its future.

ranting about the slow, painful death in nationally homogenized radio is rather repetitive at this point. clear channel and their ilk (much the way cable TV and MTV in particular) have served to erase the idea of regions. pirate and college radio are those last bastions of unique voices in the gloom. how much mind numbing banter from djs with no accents do i have to put up with to hear a decent song? too much.

anything with far reaching, global aspects (the internet, for example) is going to have homogenizing effects, but the goal would be to bring people together while maintaining individuality.

what fun is it if my students wear the same clothes, use the same slang, listen to the same songs, follow the same fads as the kids in california? if anything, it's a herd mentality. "what's on TRL? what's on 106 & Park?" not "what's going on down the street? what's in my local independent record store?"

can regional stores even survive? omnipresent mega-corporations are setting up shop on every corner. faceless magnates and uniform workers. where's the regionality?

this is sort of an ill focused mind map, but can anyone tell me what regions mean anymore? where do they matter?

2005-05-15T22:38:00.000-04:00

np: sunday evening coming down.

via kos, over on the american street we have this wonderful post about the current kansas evolution debate.

intelligent design ruffles my feathers a bit. not because i'm an atheist or some other knee-jerk reactionary excuse. rather, because god thinks more of us than that. how do i know?

intelligent design, as best i can understand it, comes down to the following theorum: IF we cannot understand exactly what happened THEN we will explain it simply by saying god did it.

god thought enough of humanity to create us with intellect and brains capable of solving and delving into so many of the mysteries of the world around us. to explore and behold the mystical plane of our existence. evolution and its brother scientific explorations celebrate god and our universe; it does not denounce them.

to give up and roll over, simply saying we don't know so therefore we explain it by saying god did it, is an insult to the very power that gave us intellect in the first place. to explore science and to put forth new ideas and to take wild guesses and go for broke in the attempt to explain one more bit of the universe; that is truly god's work.

to insult the intelligence of our children by giving them the option to bow out of understanding the world around them is blasphemy. science celebrates creation. how could it be any other way?

2005-05-02T14:23:00.000-04:00

np: soft breezes.

so i mentioned that mono is no fun. being hospitalized for complications with mono is even less exciting.

after having spent all but one day out of work last week with a throat nearly swollen completely shut and the inability to communicate very well with most of my compatriots, i finally went back to the doctor on friday. i was thinking, okay, surely they can decide that something else is going on here other than mono and can help me out.

well, the doctor became rather concerned rather quickly. they started me on oxygen and an IV for fluids which were both nice. the oxygen made breathing easy for the first time in days and it really felt better to actually breathe in some air. the IV was good also since i'd been trying to drink as much liquid as i could the previous days, but swallowing, period, was hard and not very fun.

so off i went to the moses cone ER (via ambulance - this time i was conscious for the ride!) and was admitted to the hospital that evening. all told i was in the hospital from about 11:00am on friday morning until noon time on sunday. they took very good care of me and i'm hoping that i get one of those billboards around town soon.

turns out i had some sort of bacterial infection on top of my mono, possibly left over from a bout with strep throat in february. so the swelling was way over what it should have been. i had a sinus infection also which was cutting off breathing in general. last night i only woke up three times in the course of my 9 hours of sleep and that's the least i've had to wake up during the night in about a week. and none of them were because i couldn't breathe. i'm still out of work today, but am going to attempt to return tomorrow as long as i feel up to it strength wise. i have to, really, as school kinda puts a deadline on your work. there are only four weeks left of school. i'm beaming like a school kid.
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i was walking into my humble abode last night when i looked up through our upstairs neighbors' sliding glass patio door. the way my apartment is set up, i live on the first floor, but have to walk down to get to it, so i often find myself looking into their living room fireplace. there used to be this painting hanging above it that j. ball was convinced was a rothko. however, that is no longer there. what has taken its place?

a ball and chain.

i found out second-hand last year sometime that the couple above us who had previously not been married were now, indeed, married, which makes the appearance of the ball and chain even more hilarious. do they use it is a prop gag? when people come over do they introduce them to 'the old ball and chain' and then chuckle lightly at one another? do they often make jokes to their friends about needing to go home to the 'old ball and chain?' are they going to procure a large battle-axe to mount in the living room as well?

finally, how frightened would i be if i went up to visit and found ample evidence (clipped comics on the fridge, book collections, framed comics, handbags, etc.) of their love and frequent enjoyment of either the lockhornes or the born loser?

p.s. do any newspapers around the piedmont even carry the born loser? the last time i saw it, and granted this was years ago, was in my hometown paper, the independent-tribune. any input?

2005-04-25T23:07:00.000-04:00

np: brian eno - another green world

mono, lemme tell you, is not fun.

now, that is not to say that mononucleosis is my excuse for having not posted in a month. that, sadly, is just me being lazy.

i'm proud of myself for having kept the j's indie/rock blog updated, although mono and work prevented me from updating for 5 days after i normally do.

but back to mono. my throat is more swollen than it has been in, well, ever. it makes it hard to swallow, eat, breathe, drink, talk, etc. the worst part being that mono, as a virus, can't really be treated. sure, the doctors can give me a steroid shot to ease the swelling and pain. sure, he can give me an anti-inflammatory drug to take to help with those things. but it still is not fun.

charlie told me that my swollen lymph nodes make my neck look buff or something. i think i just look bloated.

or possibly like one of those frilled lizards. or those cool venom spitting dinosaurs from jurassic park. man. if only venom spitting were a side effect of mono.
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city geese sure do amaze me. there are several near my apartment that have taken up nesting residency in various medians in parking lots of shopping centers. two in particular: one right next to the cash points ATM above the wendy's on battleground at brassfield and the other across the street in front of the stein-mart.

i always roll down my window and talk to the mama goose at the ATM when i'm waiting in line. she usually has little to say aside from looking at me warily. although one time she got up to re-arrange some things and i counted six eggs. quite a brood.

unfortunately those no-goodniks, the good samaritans, are back again. last year, a goose built a nest in nearly the same spot. some people, who apprently think nature can't fend for itself, not only brought out small plastic bowls of water, but also built a small wooden structure to cover the bird from rain.

it abandoned the nest, unhatched.

i saw a bowl of water again the other day and it has me worried that the future of six eggs are at stake. do me and the geese a favor, folks: stay away. these geese know what they're doing. sure, it may look dumb to build a nest in front of a stein mart. hell, i almost feel stupid for having an apartment across the street. my bedroom window has a picturesque view of the taco bell, afterall. but believe me, geese are smart. haven't they figured out how to live in greensboro 6 months out of the year already anyway? if they only stayed a few more months and ate up some more resources they'd be like college students...

see, now that's funny cos i went to school here. that's all.

2005-03-25T11:50:00.000-05:00

np: jay farrar - sebastopol

workdays this time of year are a bit of a conundrum. i can't afford to stay at home since, as a new teacher, i don't have days to take off. yet, i don't really have much work to do as the first nine weeks just ended so major grading is done for the time being. so i'm sitting here listening to music, doing a few things here and there but mostly not much at all.

i'd meant to link to this a few weeks ago, but ted rall puts forth one of the more clear and logical arguments about why the death penalty needs to go that i've heard in some time.

One of the most famous Taliban executions was one they didn't carry out.

The accused, convicted by a Sharia court of raping and murdering a young woman, sat in the mud near the goalpost of a soccer stadium in Kabul, his arms tightly bound to a chair. The victim's father was brought before the condemned man to determine his fate: Sharia law gave him that right.

[...]

So the crowd was surprised when the murderer begged his victim's father to spare him. "I'm so sorry," he blubbered, "please don't kill me, I'll do anything you want. Please!" He went on like that until the old man kicked over the murderer's chair.

He spat on the ground. "How could I kill you?" he asked. "You have already died as a man."

[...]

It's a harsh story. Yet the Taliban system of capital punishment, though barbaric, would be a distinct improvement over ours. It was certainly more honest. Instead of spinning fanciful and repeatedly disproven tales that executions deter crime, the Taliban admitted that they killed killers to assuage their society's lust for vengeance. That's why they gave the victims and survivors, rather than civil servants, the final say.

it's a sound argument which rall goes on to cap by saying, sure, maybe some criminals deserve to die, but can we really judge when there's no way to know that the courts are always correct? that the accused always receive fair representation? that DNA testing is always 100% accurate? no. he finally pins it down with this:

Law should strive for rationality, a goal largely realized through consistency. The death penalty is inherently inconsistent and therefore intrinsically irrational.

thank you, ted.
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ever since i first learned of it, i've been really intrigued by lawrence kohlberg's theory of moral development. i use it in correspondance with my 10th graders' reading of henrik ibsen's a doll's house. the choices and decisions made by characters in the play are given to my students to judge by using kohlberg's theory. it creates some interesting debates.

so, i thought i'd approach the terry schiavo case in the same way. i've been following the whole thing rather intently for the past couple of weeks. there's really nothing i can say that isn't being covered more eloquently and more frequently by other bloggers. so why not take the psychological/analytical approach?

on what stage, according to kohlberg, are all the participants in this drama operating? michael schiavo, the parents, congress, the court systems, etc. certainly it seems that there are those acting, purely, in their own self-interest (stage 2) and trying to get something for themselves, whatever that is. there are those who are reacting simply because they think that's the way the people they are beholden to want them to act (stage 3). there are those who are acting according to the laws of our land (stage 4). even some who are ignoring law and opinion to ask the question 'what's best for the people involved? how can we make things better?' (stage 5).

now, to whom each of these apply and in what way they apply is up to y'all to decide. so i'd love to see your comments in the comment box.

and go heels. and just to bug sara: go wolfpack. eat them badgers.

2005-03-22T20:06:00.000-05:00

np: the jam - all mod cons

am i the only person that sees the connection between skip prosser and jiggs of bringing up father?

i've recently been re-reading chapters of our band could be your life: notes from the american indie underground 1981-1991. choosing just 13 bands to sum up such a triumphant period in american popular music is really tough, especially when you have the audacity to use two bands that share a key member (minor threat and fugazi). but michael azerrad does a good job of picking the bands that really mattered for one reason or another. black flag, for founding member greg ginn's SST record label alone, is a key figure. the minutemen, with their blue-collar work ethic. hüsker dü, who brought melody to hardcore. and my personal heroes, the replacements, who made it okay to cop to liking pop music and classic rock while still wearing your heart on your sleeve to boot.

the other bands in the book that i didn't mention (beat happening, sonic youth, dinosaur jr., the butthole surfers, mudhoney, mission of burma and big black) are just as important for various reasons, but aside from the replacements, my opinion on the other bands vary. i adore sonic youth, but mostly their post-daydream nation work, which is not the era that the book concerns itself with. big black is really raucous and fun, but only on occasion. i don't dislike any of the bands, but some earn a decidedly large "meh" from me as far as my opinion is concerned.

so the question is: who were the also-rans of the 80s american underground? who else really mattered? leave your nominations, and reasons, in the comments.

oh, and go heels.

2005-03-17T15:28:00.000-05:00

np: the pogues - if i should fall from grace with god

happy saint patrick's day to you all. and happy birthday, andrew octopus.

and happy snow day. although, at this point in the year they're rather bothersome. having already lost the sole workday between the end of spring break and the end of the school year, this just means a day tacked onto the end. which means one less day to prepare for japan. oi.

on the plus side i have my guinness and the pogues (and later some sinead o'conner..back off, the lot of you) and all is well. well, aside from having picked alabama to beat uw-milwaukee and therefore being sorely disappointed this afternoon.

meanwhile, back in the world where all is not so bright and cheery, MSNBC fills us in on a little story about a high school student who refused to take injustices lying down:

A ninth-grader is protesting his school’s decision to broadcast the Pledge of Allegiance in foreign languages as part of National Foreign Language Week.

Patrick Linton said he and other students at Old Mill High School sat down rather than stand Wednesday when the pledge was read over the school’s public address system in Russian. Linton’s teacher told him if he had a problem he should leave the room.

He did, and did not plan to return this week.

“This is America, and we got soldiers at war,” the 15-year-old said. “When you’re saying the Pledge in a different language which nobody understands, that’s not OK.”

okay. as an english teacher, knowing kids as i do, i'll overlook the egregious 'we got soldiers' mockery of the english language patrick seems to adore so much. but languages no one understands? the school was having them read in spanish, french, latin, russian and german. spanish is obviously understood by a large section of our population. latin is on our currency. there are french, russian and german speaking people all over this country. not to mention the enormous influence each of those languages had on our own in one way or another. but surely your parents will calm you down a little.

Charles Linton, Patrick’s father, said the use of other languages is disrespectful to the country. “It’s like wearing a cross upside down in a church,” he said.

uh.....huh.

okay, well, while i go bleed out my ears for awhile, let's try to read something soothing. ah, perhaps michelle malkin can provide me with something calming and informative. take it away, 'chelle:

THE NEW YOUTH CRAZE: SELF-MUTILATION - Have you heard of "cutting"? If you're a parent, you'd better read up. "Cutting" refers to self-mutilation -- using knives, razor blades or even safety pins to deliberately harm one's own body -- and it's spreading to a school near you.

Actresses Angelina Jolie and Christina Ricci did it. So did Courtney Love and the late Princess Diana. On the Internet, there are scores of websites (with titles such as "Blood Red," "Razor Blade Kisses" and "The Cutting World") featuring "famous self-injurers," photos of teenagers' self-inflicted wounds and descriptions of their techniques. The destructive practice has been depicted in films targeting young girls and teens (such as "Thirteen"). There is even a new genre of music -- "emo" -- associated with promoting the cutting culture.

In Britain, health care researchers estimate that one in 10 teenagers engages in addictive self injury. According to psychiatrist Gary Litovitz, medical director of Dominion Hospital in Falls Church, Va., the growing trend here in America has alarmed school guidance counselors around the country.

It's not just delinquents and social misfits who are doing it...

hmm. that wasn't calming at all. mostly because malkin's about 5+ years behind the times on this psychological concern. also, the 'famous self-injurers' website she links to actually seems to treat cutting as what it is, a psychological coping mechanism.

as far as 'emo' music being responsible for cutting, sure, it has to be. but maybe not for the reasons malkin thinks. i know i've had the intense urge to cut myself very deeply after hearing a few taking back sunday songs...

i've known people who were cutters, especially back in high school. i've always found cutting fascinating in that along with bulemia/anorexia, it is one of a number of distinctly western psychological disorders that relate to body image. cutters often talk of a way of releasing pain, but why do it in a way that visibly mutilates your body? cutting seems very much tied up in self-image. much in the same way eating disorders are. i blame the media. (thanks to tbogg for the link to both stories.)

i also blame the media for my impending death. curse you, dr. pepper/7up corporation for addicting me to your sweet nectar of the gods, sun drop. now that i know the total at which the bell tolls for me, i am doomed.

so long, cruel world. parting is such sweet, caffeinated sorrow.

2005-03-07T23:25:00.000-05:00

np: archer prewitt - wilderness

energy saps the desire to blog, as much as i love to write and love to dive into this stuff. i maintain the radio blog and it's doing well, but i've been so inconsistant with this one. a shame.

however, much in the style of how this blog originally started, as a journal of my study abroad experience in london back in the fall of 2001, i now have a source of inspiration.

remember how i was on pins and needles waiting? yeah. well, it happened.

i'm going to japan for three weeks this summer.

thanks to a grant obtained by guilford college, 10 guilford faculty members and 2 high school teachers who are guilford education studies alumni are going to study war and peace as themes in japan for three weeks. also, thanks to the grant, it is incredibly cheap for us going. needless to say, i was selected as one of the high school teachers. it's quite an opportunity for a person who teaches world literature to become exposed to a culture of which he is fairly ignorant. asia has been a gaping hole in my literature knowledge and hopefully this will start to fix that.

i'll be leaving june 8th and returning june 29th (as i understand it) and i couldn't be more excited.

as i learn details i'll be sharing them here as well as attempting to blog my experiences while i'm over there. if at all possible.

so, how many plastic godzillas should i put y'all down for?

2005-02-25T18:41:00.000-05:00

np: friday night rock party with maddog on WQFS

6pm - 8pm every friday we have one of wqfs' longest running djs (15 years) bringing all sorts of great rock to the masses. his show is always a hoot.
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he's currently playing ben lee's new song "catch my disease" (which i played on my show on wednesday), but that's not something i would wish on any of you. by that i mean, i'm currently beseiged with a bout of strep throat. as i said to charlie on wednesday or thursday (boy, the days run together when you're sick like this): "ohhh...existence is pain!" and indeed it was. luckily, i visited my local doctor and got a diagnosis and prescription for amoxicilin. within 24 hours the stuff has set me fairly right.

amoxicilin was my favorite drug to receive as a child. if you get the pink, liquid form of it..mmm..delicious. i thought about asking the doctor yesterday for it, but then didn't.
--
sadly, the illness has kept me out of school for the past two days and leading into next week's state writing exam, it's been rather poorly timed.

on the plus side, the hour and a half wait in my doctor's office waiting room yesterday gave me time to start re-reading 1984. i had recently been remembering 1984 as a novel i really wasn't that impressed with, but given the constant references culled by the left half of the blogosphere, i thought about giving it a second chance. it was middle school, after all, when i first and last read it.

well, wow. in 50 pages the novel makes a whole different set of sense to me. particularly poignant is orwell's knowledge and use of the idea of language framing which i'd been exploring a lot lately as a political tool. i had read george lakoff's don't think of an elephant: know your values and frame the debate and had become really intrigued with the idea of language manipulation. my kids wonder why i pound vocabulary into their heads. well, so that they're largely less susceptible to this kind of word game, for one reason. orwell's newspeak is a brilliant play on the ever growing knack of politicians' knowledge of framing issues in certain lights.
--
and yes, sara, the new josh rouse is out. and it is magnificent.

and yes, i'm not so happy with the new comment system either, but blogger was starting to get fidgety with my use of haloscan for some reason. so for now, this will do.

2005-02-24T10:01:00.000-05:00

np: josh rouse - nashville

i'm going to post some more later on today, but in the meanwhile, this may be one of the funniest things ever. warning: knowledge of 9/11, lead-up to the Iraq war, rightwing talking heads and other such things in order for any of it to make sense.

2005-02-21T12:42:00.000-05:00

np: tea in the lobby - "for you (i've got nothing but time)"

tea in the lobby is the solo project of a wonderful guy from virginia named todd webb. todd keeps a comic journal, in that he draws his personal journal. it's a unique and entertaining blend of soft humour and warm fuzziness. my personal favorite is this one.

todd has a wonderful band called rangeboy also which made perhaps one of the sunniest, catchiest songs i've ever heard called "sounds like summer." his site is well worth a perusal. my goal is to have him on my radio show sometime in the future.

sleater-kinney, kathleen edwards, glen phillips, stephen malkmus, iron and wine, m. ward, archer prewitt, spoon, beck and others all have brand new albums set up for release, or already have albums out this spring. hachi machi, this is going to be some year for music.
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i'm waiting on pins and needles for something. when i find out, i'll let you know. it has the potential to be very, very exciting.

2005-02-15T22:19:00.000-05:00

np: glen phillips - "my own town"

how little attention has to be paid to go off into your own land? i have watched students of mine in the past year and a half go nearly an entire semester without knowing the names of whole handfuls of students who share the classroom with them. i noticed today that one girl, in a class of only 26, called a boy, simply, "dude." and i could tell by her intonation and delivery that she just honestly didn't know his name. despite having heard me say it any number of times over the previous 5 weeks. how long does it take to learn something like that? is it a sign of being wrapped up in ones own self that they don't seem to latch onto anyone outside their immediate area?

or am i expecting too much? i swear i remember knowing all the people's names in my classes in high school. at least by a certain point in the semester. but i've become frustrated with a severe lack of live and let live mentality. of course, my days were no golden age.

this is where people who've known me can tune out. in my practical law class in high school, i defended the rights of gay couples to garner common law marriage rights and other such things. this wasn't the most popular stance in the class and when upon being asked (somewhat non-sequitoriously) if i would go out with a guy if asked out by one, i replied: "if i were gay, sure," all the males in my general vacinity made a large scene of jumping up and moving away from me.

as if i'd make out with them. please. i have better taste.
--
congrats to steve earle on winning the best contemporary folk album grammy for his album the revolution starts...now! this award is quickly becoming known as "the only grammy to which i pay any substantial attention." any award routinely won by people like tom waits, lucinda williams, bob dylan, etc. is alright with me.

but i do have to say sorry to kanye west. you deserved better, my man.
--
i saw hotel rwanda this weekend and the whole experience left me feeling hollow, much in the way other great pieces of art have done to me. i was 13 at the time the rwandan genocide was taking place. it had to be one of the most brutal i've ever read/heard about, especially that it happened within my lifetime. nick nolte's character sums up the way the rest of the world seemed to react fairly well:

"You're dirt...we think you're dirt. You're not even a n-----...you're African.

and it still feels like that's going on. every day. and we wonder how this happens? remember my kids who don't know the name of the kid across the room? they're the same ones who couldn't tell me what continent rwanda was on...connection? you be the judge.

2005-02-08T22:23:00.000-05:00

np: pulp - his 'n' hers

this early 90s kick will not leave my cd player. maybe things really do deserve some fierce re-evaluation around the 10 year mark. my friend eban even sent me some recent demos of his that, sound wise, remind me of exile in guyville era liz phair. circular society.
--
this could just be because i'm an english teacher, but i'll be damned if innapropriate use of quotation marks doesn't irritate me. lately i've been fascinated by people's tendency to put quotes around words they consider slang or informal language. like a memo i receive at school where someone says: "i know the students think they're being 'cool'.." as if someone, so far removed from our society, would mistake that the person meant thermally cool as opposed to hip cool? really, now.

but this morning brought the insanity to new levels. i was behind a mac papers delivery truck. mac paper is a paper supply store that has all sorts of paper things. i don't know how they stock up against the ifinitely-better-named "if it's paper" (which always makes me think of spatula city from UHF), but they are a paper store to be dealt with apparently.

the mac papers truck's logo read as follows:

We're "Glad You Called!"

huh? are they implying sarcasm? i can see someone saying this while making air quotes, emphasis on the "glad you called" part and totally sounding insincere. it just really confused me, but simultaneously made my morning.
--
i don't quite know what to say anymore about the looming budget debacle. bush is claiming that he's slashing programs that don't get results or are duplicates. so, if he's cutting unsuccessful programs, how does he explain this?

If the budget is approved, abstinence education would get $206 million, an increase of $39 million.

oh, right. that makes sense. consistantly non-performing programs that tend to lead to more abortions and more STDs. there is a comparable grey area where we can teach kids how to choose abstinence but also to protect themselves. no one is pro-abortion and people are slow to realize it.

i need a glass of sweet tea and a long sleep.

2005-02-04T09:41:00.000-05:00

np: mclusky - "she will only bring you happiness"

i think i had digested this information a few weeks ago, but it just now hit me. it's a terrible, terrible thing that mclusky has called it quits. they were a brilliant band.

in greensboro-esque news, blog of death passes on the news of the passing of george wackenhut, founder of the wackenhut corporation, a business specializing in security. i'm sure many of you have seen their green, flashing lights zooming around the streets of friendly center on a normal basis. the name alone always caught my attention, and certainly the name "wackenhut" has become the source of many jokes in my household. it was interesting to learn of the man behind the name, albeit a little late.
--
pride o' winston-salem, the finks, are playing a cd release show at the garage in winston-salem tonight for their new album more songs about robots and black things. it has to be a reference to the talking heads' second album, it just has to be. well, or any other album with a similar title. any suggestions?

2005-02-03T09:10:00.000-05:00

np: sleet outside

three words: frivolous asbestos lawsuits.

my thoughts exactly, atrios.

harry reid is knockin' 'em out of the park these days:

"Too many of the President's economic policies have left Americans and American companies struggling. And after we worked so hard to eliminate the deficit, his policies have added trillions to the debt - in effect, a 'birth tax' of $36,000 on every child that is born."

i'm going to start using 'birth tax' to refer to the debt. that's gold, jerry.

oh, and in case anyone didn't get the memo..

we still hate gays.
--
in much less serious news, pitchfork put up a rather interesting list of their top 100 singles of the '00 decade so far. an intriguing read to be sure, even if you leave foaming at the mouth.

2005-02-01T22:50:00.000-05:00

np: toad the wet sprocket - welcome home: live at the arlington theatre, santa barbara 1992

there are several times that i have discussed what toad the wet sprocket has meant to me. they were my first "favorite band." you know, that band that matters above all others. and this recently released live show is a wonderful document of what they were.

but of special importance is track 15, a live version of "know me," originally from their debut album bread and circus. my disparate (or not so disparate) strands of music tie together. as the rousing ending of the song comes about, over top of the chiming, surging early-90s guitars comes glen phillips, singing with the most passionate intensity:

I'm so...I'm so...unsatisfied
I'm so...I'm so...disatisfied

over top of one of the (at the time) true, rising stars of alternative/college rock in america, come the lyrics of one of its greatest practitioners: the replacements.

and so everything comes full circle.
--
we had a bomb threat at school today. if it were possible to have picked a less convenient time, i'd like to see it. two major grade-level tests going on, barely 40 degrees outside (and my coat in my car). we stood outside for about 35 minutes. as is the case with most threats like this, they were empty. but of course, we cannot do anything less than take the full precaution.

interestingly enough, they caught the person responsible by the time 3rd period was over.
--
and to harry reid and the other senate democrats (all 44 of them) who have all made it very clear they will vote no on president bush's private account scheme for social security...

bravo. glad to see you as a real, united party. now. go get 'em.

2005-01-31T01:00:00.000-05:00

Rachel and me.

i don't often mention a lot of intensely personal things on my blog for one reason or another. a large one is, well, boring readers. yes, this is my blog. yes, this is my journal. yes, i talk about the most inane topics on a regular basis. however, i try to keep it at least confined to things that other people could potentially have an interest in. as such, this post is purely selfish.

this picture is a bit old now (as anyone who has seen my grown out hair lately can attest), but it serves its purpose. that's me and rachel, my girlfriend. i forget, honestly, what we were doing that evening that we'd gotten a bit spruced up. i think, actually, we were going to the new teacher gala at the empire room downtown.

i am a very lucky person in the sense that rachel is an amazing partner in crime at many, many things. we sit in fountains. we juggle plastic vegetables in up-scale cookware stores. we laugh an awful lot. we went dancing once.

the bottom line being, she is wonderful. and i just thought i'd share.
--
snow delays are all nice and everything but not if you have first period planning, as i do. it cuts my planning period down to less than 30 minutes. and i still have 2 and a 1/2 full classes to teach. alas.
--
everyone who gets a chance should go see the current art exhibit in the main gallery at guilford college's hege library. it's is a 24 piece exhibit with each painting representing one book of the iliad. even more remarkable is the fact that every word of each book is written into the painting. all 15,000+ words of the epic are spaced out over these 24 paintings, and for people who are intense lovers of this work (which includes me), this exhibit is nothing short of a dynamic revelation. i'm taking one of my classes there on a field trip. i hope they find it as amazing as i do.

the iliad exhibit is at hege library until feburary 27th. go to it.

2005-01-23T22:50:00.000-05:00

np: velvet crush - teenage symphonies to god

the weekend had a rocky start, what with coming home to find my apartment quasi-flooded. i was stepping down the hallway and heard a sound. thinking i had stepped on cellophane or some such item, i looked down, saw nothing and continued. then i heard the squish. it got worse as i went back into my bedroom and closet. i would step down and wells of water would gather beneath my feet. luckily the apartment people were quick to get help and the problem was (more or less) resolved by 6:30pm. still, some albums i had on the floor now have warped covers and sleeves. a bit depressing.

saw beautiful snow this weekend in asheville, although i wasn't totally able to enjoy it since it had me constantly worrying my ability to get back to greensboro today. but, despite the sub-freezing temperatures, the drive back was easy.

this morning, while dreamily, warmly wrapped in bed, my muse called. as it often does when i'm doing things i can't normally just quit in order to write. (driving my car, sleeping, etc.) but, i yielded this morning, knowing it's been awhile since i've written. this is a draft, but i thought i'd share. as always comments and critique are really appreciated.
--
days are waking up
as snow dances 'cross the road
creating images a seamless painter
would hesitate to recreate
with fingertips of satin
and a palette full of sounds and ghosts and spirits.
these are days where shades of grey
coat every tree and every river
every movement, every word and every prayer.
these are days where i tremble
while the wind sweeps the nimble
and the good and peaceful men to early graves.
and then men who will say
'forget the things that forged the way,
'cos what's a river if you cannot change its will?'
so in winter time i gather and i rarely stray outside
except to carry water to a thirsty man.
he will either drink and beg for more
or curse the hands that bear it
forgetting all things come from someone before.
these are days where fragile ideas
with tenuous connections
to the great unflinching truth are abundant.
so my prayers begin and end with a question,
a practice that i got from men before.
'if i could paint with any color, any sense or any vision,
why do they only give me black or white?'

2005-01-19T22:11:00.000-05:00

np: whiskeytown - pneumonia

time to do a bit of admitting:

i really like those "i love the (INSERT DECADE HERE)" shows on VH1. well, that deserves a qualification. i loved both of the "i love the 80s" shows. the "i love the 70s" didn't do it for me 'cos, well, i wasn't alive then. and i didn't care much for the first go-round of the "i love the 90s" shows. it felt way too soon to be looking back on them. especially for a decade that has yet to give us an easy, generalizing way to pin it down. but this new run-through of the 90s has had me eagerly lapping it up. mostly because it's downright hilarious.

so why have the 90s yet to give us a defining theme? it even complicates inside jokes. my roomate and i adopted the phrase "ocean" to describe anything that is very uniquely 80s. that in itself is a long story, but to make a long story short, it more or less goes back to this cartoon. read it and understand.

our term for 90s things gets a bit more complex. we sat down one evening and tried to come up with some sort of trend or eggregiously 90s thing. what we came up with is "ska."

now, i can hear music geeks chomping at the bit, and don't worry, as one of you myself i hear your concerns. ska as a music style has existed since roughly the 1950s and its commercial peak on american 'alternative' radio in the 90s is hardly representative of the genre as a whole. true. however, third-wave ska was so omni-present for those years (and then so omni-missing) that it was the perfect choice to represent the 90s.

but then again we had a problem. things didn't fit very neatly into the decade as a whole. it seemed that early, mid and late 90s all had separate styles. and that's where the true genius of selecting the catch-all word "ska" came in.

ska has had, roughly, three major movements in its storied history. there is first-wave ska (this is the ska of the 60s like the skatellites), second-wave or two-tone ska (this is the 80s version, best represented by the brilliant british band the specials) and then finally third-wave ska (which ran from the mighty mighty bosstones to the voodoo glow skulls to truly abhorrent commercial nadirs like save ferris. sorry jeremy). and so, each branch of ska came to represent a different section of the decade. por ejemple:

J: "So, I was watching American Movie Classics and House Party came on."

J^2: *laughs* "Oh, man, House Party is so first-wave ska."

and so forth and so on.

now you may think that this sounds like the vapid meanderings of 20-somethings who sit around drinking imported beers and reminiscing about pop-culture of their youth too much and. but i assure you there is a step-by-step answer to...

oh, man! step-by-step is so two-tone ska. i wonder where sasha mitchell is now a days.

2005-01-17T11:14:00.000-05:00

np: sub-freezing north carolina weather.

"Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, 'Wait.'..but..when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of 'nobodiness'..then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

segregation works in many different ways. dr. king was of course referring to the outright segregation of his times, but it continues in more subversive and not-so-easily identifiable ways today. the wedge is the new segregation. although it's as old as time itself. forces drove a wedge between poor whites and their black brethren in the south, knowing that despite the fact that they had mutually more to gain by helping eachother, race would ultimately trump any sense of connectedness.

this past year saw that wedge played with gay marriage, changes to social security, medicare/medicaid reform, and countless other issues where it was seen that people's sense of propriety and form could trump mutual best interest.

beware of people who argue that history is just that. history. beware of people who would say that people like dr. king, malcolm x, medger evers, robert f. kennedy have nothing more to say removed from their time and place. those people are wrong. the names change, the colors change, the scope and frame of the problem changes. the problem, itself, never changes.

may we finally learn that this year. god bless us all.

2004-12-24T00:48:00.000-05:00

2004-12-20T15:20:00.000-05:00

np: killing joke - "requiem"

sigh.

okay. you know, the panthers played their hearts out. and i appreciated that. i really think they should have won that game. but that's not a new feeling for fans of the cardiac cats.

however. it's not over. since nearly every other team in the wild card hunt lost yesterday (including a stunning win for the cardinals over the dwindling rams), the panthers are still in the driver's seat for the second wild card slot. it's theirs to lose. they have to beat tampa bay and new orleans. or else it's really over.

however, tom pointed me toward this wonderful article in go triad this past week about my favorite independent record store, gate city noise. andrew dudek, the man who owns and operates gate city noise, is an incredibly friendly and generous person. i really appreciate the work he does for this community. he is, in the truest sense, a business giving back to the community. he is also a business helping to foster and create community. this is why gate city noise deserves the support of every decent music loving person in greensboro. i'll put my money down at gate city any day of the week over a big-box retailer. that's just the way it ought to be.

now, i'm off to plan exams. if you'll excuse me.

2004-12-17T15:37:00.000-05:00

np: happiness.

wow! the orders are really starting to come in via the amazon associates program, so keep 'em coming! the triad health project really, really appreciates your support i know. we haven't yet gotten out of my range for matching, penny for penny. remember! i'll match all accrued donations up to $100.00. your money is worth twice as much.

so, please, please, please click on the amazon link to the right and purchase items while you're there. remember also: this goes on until december 31st, so take your holiday gift money you receive and go buy more!

the j's indie/rock mayhem top 25 albums of 2004 should be up by sunday night. the live show is next wednesday. can you take the suspense? can you?

okay, you probably can, but i'm so excited, i'm heading out of state. i'm off to virginia in order to say feliz navidad to my dad's half of the family.

finally, i have but one thing to say: go panthers. for once, for god's sake, prove charlotte's a better city than atlanta. hah.

2004-12-13T15:24:00.000-05:00

np: the delays - faded seaside glamour

i was thinking that perhaps something from this album was my devil's sonata from last week. alas, no, but rather, i've found one of the best pop albums of 2004. the delays feel like the current heir to the multi-seated throne at times occupied (in my mind) by the byrds, big star, the church, the la's, teenage fanclub, matthew sweet, semisonic and others. "hey girl" is one of the most perfect pop songs ever written. if you ever had any immense joy in your heart for "there she goes" by the la's, go listen to this band.

on saturday night, a new era dawned. i'm not quite sure who i was thinking was there before. maybe it had just been empty. three years ago, i was with time magazine in thinking sleater-kinney was the answer to the question of who the best rock and roll band in america was. now, the answer is clearer than clear.

the drive-by truckers.

perhaps it's that i've seen them 5 times now in the last year and a half. perhaps it's that i've never had a southern band to truly call my own. the drive-by truckers are three of the strongest songwriters i've laid ears on in some time. they each speak to the history, the intelligence, the resiliance of the South. they don't pull any punches when it comes to acknowledging the serious flaws of the South over the last 200+ years. but they speak to a section of the population that refuses to be pigeonholed because of the local geography. to a group of people who love country and big, catchy rock and roll, but don't find david allen coe to be a soothing co-conspriator. the drive-by truckers could be your new favorite band. any of their three most recent releases, 2004's the dirty south, 2003's decoration day or 2001's southern rock opera are good places to start. why not buy one through amazon and help out the triad health project while you're at it?

i apologize for the lack of talk recently. the weekend was a lovely one spent away from the computer and the last weeks have been trying ones with helping kids on our soon-to-be-due poetry research projects.

now that i'm done gushing about the truckers, where do they end up on the j's indie/rock top 25 albums of 2004? you'll just have to see..

2004-12-07T15:21:00.000-05:00

np: brian eno - taking tiger mountain (by strategy)

i've tried to keep the music rambling confined over there on j's indie/rock mayhem, but being such an important part of my day to day existence, i have to do a bit of rambling.

first off, not only is it pearl harbor day, but as anyone who has paid close attention to the lyrics of "eyeball kid" knows:

Well, Zenora Bariella and Coriander Pyle
They had sixteen children in the usual style.
They had a curio museum and they had no guile.
All they ever wanted was a showbiz child.

The seventh of December Ninteen-forty-nine
They got what they'd been wishing for all of the time.
He grew up in a trailer, by the time he was nine
He rolled off to join the circus, telling fortunes on the side

Hail, Hail! The Eyeball Kid!

happy 55th b-day, tom waits. for all the happiness you've given me (and your countless other fans), may as many come back your way.

next, this story from pitchfork media led me on a bit of a shopping spree. i am now the proud owner of one of the limited edition hot snakes 7" recordings of their peel session: the last recording john peel ever resided over on his radio show.

finally, i woke up this morning humming this beautiful song. it was in my dream, it was with me all morning. sadly i've forgotten it. i'm fairly sure it's something i've heard recently, but i can't place it. have i, perhaps, let another devil's sonata slip away? sadly, i do not know.

2004-12-03T14:50:00.000-05:00

np: the replacements - "unsatisfied"

today marks a rather horrible anniversary in our modern world.

it was twenty years ago today that a pesticide factory owned and operated by union carbide suffered a massive industrial accident leaking tons of methyl isocyanate gas into the town of bhopal, india, and killing 15,000 people. this morning on NPR, i heard a commentary by a reporter who was himself a child in india at the time of the disaster. he spoke of one photograph in particular that, for him, summed up the horror and tragedy of the accident. you can see the photograph here. (warning: not for sensitive audiences.) it is the first photograph and a different photograph of the same person is fifth from the top.

i wasn't quite prepared for the image. it had been described by the reporter as the "funeral of an unknown girl." her face is locked in what might have been a last attempt to breathe amidst the toxic fumes pervading her town. her eyes are blacked over in an opaque pall. it is not a pleasant photo.

it is that one, breathtakingly horrible photo that always brings things home for us. we can always shake loose our thoughts without the visual evidence. until we see photos of bodies from gas leaks, of vietnamese children being burned by napalm, of people jumping out of the world trade center before its collapse, or even of the tortured iraqi prisoners at abu ghraib, sometimes we are able to put these things in a comfortable part of our mind that recognizes tragedy, empathizes with it, but fails to fully comprehend it.

why else would the government fight so hard against releasing most of the photos from abu ghraib? against photos of flag-draped soldier coffins making their final journey home to their families from iraq?

pictures really are worth a thousand words. and sometimes worth more than anything you could ever actually say.

2004-12-02T15:19:00.000-05:00

np: the wind in the trees outside my classroom window.

i've already had some people order through amazon to help out the triad health project. make sure you spread the word! all it takes is one extra click when you're buying items through amazon to make a difference this holiday.

michael had an interesting suggestion that makes sense, depending on how you feel. he suggested that instead of buying the entire j's indie/rock mayhem top 25 albums of 2004 through amazon, that you buy them through a local, independent record store, then donate money separately to the THP. his suggestion (and comment) was insightful and surprising. mostly surprising because michael lives in brooklyn and said that he hasn't found any record stores up there that match our own gate city noise right here. i'll have to pass that little nugget on to andrew and the hard workin' folks down there at my favorite record shop here in greensboro.

but michael is correct. independent record stores fight an uphill battle every day of the year to bring you better, more diverse and harder to find selections of music than your average big box store. treat them as well as they treat you. hey, after all, gate city noise's 2nd annual 24 hour sale is coming up next week on december 7th. i'll post about that later.

bottom line - just give this holiday season. where your money goes matters less than the fact you choose to make a difference at all.

but i'll love you forever for donating to the THP. promise.
--
so he's not allowing photography or signing of anything but his newest novel, and no personal signatures. but all the same i'm fired up as all to go see tom wolfe tonight at the books-a-million at concord mills mall back in my hometown. i was hoping to get my copy of bonfire of the vanities signed, but just getting to meet the man is a treat.

this will make four autographed books of note that i own. the other three are: a first edition of steve earle's collection of short stories, doghouse roses; a first edition of doug marlette's novel the crossing; a hardback of ray bradbury's the martian chronicles. every one of them means the world to me for various reasons. i don't own them for the value, indeed only one or two of them might actually be worth anything. i own them for the powerful words that flowed from those hands and into the copy i have. here's hoping it all rubs off just a little.

2004-12-01T22:19:00.000-05:00

today being world aids awareness day, it's no better time to launch (although belatedly) this offer:

Want to help out the Triad Health Project this holiday season? - It's easy! Notes From Underground and J's Indie/Rock Mayhem are partnered with the Amazon Associates program. Every time you click on the Amazon link to the right and then purchase items while you're on the Amazon site, I recieve a portion of your purchase. Between now and December 31st, 2004, all commissions gathered by this site will go to the Triad Health Project, a wonderful HIV/AIDS outreach and education center here in Greensboro.

So please, when you purchase items for loved ones this holiday season, take the extra time to click through this or the J's Indie/Rock site in order to give to the Triad Health Project. It doesn't cost you anything except a few extra clicks and some major, major karmic rewards.

BONUS! - I will personally match all the commissions raised on this site, penny for penny, up to $100.00. So come on! Make me pay out! Let's show the Triad Health Project what blog readers' hearts are made of! Read something on hear you like? Hear something on my radio show you dig? Buy it on Amazon through this site! Buy the entire J's Indie/Rock Top 25 Albums of 2004 collection after the show on Dec. 22nd. By then you'll have Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Festivus money to burn anyway. Put it to a great, great cause!

2004-12-01T14:46:00.000-05:00

np: andrew octopus - who is john titor?

i've known my friend andrew for just over a decade now. we met in our AG literature and language class our 8th grade year of middle school. my teacher set him next to me so that he'd have someone to talk to on his first day. (he'd just moved to concord from south carolina. his father is a wesleyan minister who has to pull up stakes every so often.) being who i was in 8th grade, i wasn't totally thrilled with andrew at first. that was my fault. of course, andrew wasn't quite what he would become yet either. but over the next 5 years in school together, we became really good friends. although it would be another couple of years before i would appreciate it, andrew was the first to expose me both to bob dylan (blasting highway 61 revisited, on cassette, in my '88 chevy suburban diesel) and old-school hip-hop (mostly grandmaster flash and the furious five). somewhere around my room stands a lovely poem he wrote to honor our days on the quiz bowl team that mentions our stock-answer for when we had no clue: joseph saddler - grandmaster flash's real name.

for the last 5 years, thanks to college and various other pursuits, our friendship has been carried on from afar. we still live in the same state (he resides up in the mountains in canton, near asheville), so we see eachother from time to time. but our respect for eachother and eachother's creative pursuits has never dampened. thusly, i am always privy to new recordings of his work. the one i'm listening to now is his second full-fledged album with the andrew octopus moniker. it's also his second seemingly fixated on the idea of time travel.

his first, time travel is possible, was a loose collection of songs. but who is john titor? actually is, dare i say it, a concept/story telling album. john titor was the name of a man who claimed to be a time traveler from the year 2035. he posted on the internet for a period of a few years and then vanished. the story is laid out through excerpts from art bell's coast to coast AM talk show sprinkled as interludes througout the album.

andrew's music is, in essence, hip-hop, but at times rarely resembles it. spoken word flow, spare, unusual sounds and beats. this is not music you turn the bass up on. the beats are often jerky and dis-rhythmic. sometimes, so are andrew's words. but all of it is a celebration of the disorientation of life, the future, the past, the present.

andrew resembles hip-hop's answer to william gibson. as if gary numan and grandmaster flash had a love-child of some sort. his music is like the god janus of roman mythology: looking simultaneously backward, forward and in the now for inspiration. for instance:

Keep my ear to the streets/keep my mind on the future/like a little girl going to school in Falluja.

religion, science fiction, underground hip-hop culture and amphetamines all get equal time in the midsts of telling a story that really draws you in. the geek in me absolutely loves this stuff.
--
phillip larkin (1922-1985) was a poet on a bit of a mission. according to the second edition of the norton anthology of modern poetry, larkin said:

The poetry I've enjoyed has been the kind of poetry you'd associate with me -- Hardy pre-eminently, Wilfred Owen, Auden, Christina Rossetti, William Barnes; on the whole, people to whom technique seems to matter less than content, people who accept the forms they have inherited but use them to express their own content...

What I do feel a bit rebellious about is that poetry seems to have got into the hands of a critical industry which is concerned with culture in the abstract, and this I do rather lay at the door of Eliot and Pound ... I think a lot of this myth-kitty business has grown out of that, because first of all you have to be terribly educated, you have to read everything to know these things, and secondly you've got somehow to work them in to show that you are working them in. But to me the whole of the ancient world, the whole of classical and biblical mythology means very little, and I think that using them today not only fills poems full of dead spots but dodges the writer's duty to be original.

i gave a book of eliot's poetry to rachel a while back, and in leafing through it a bit (and in the past), i understand the qualms larkin had with eliot and pound's work. it is, as the norton writer puts it, a bit akin sometimes to taking "a tour of an ethnographic museum led by a sporadically demented guide."

do poets have, as larkin suggests, a responsibility to be original in their own way and to eschew relying on the elements of our past culture and heritage?
--
i bring this up as a way to look at andrew's work. songs like "anti-nicene scriptures" make biblical/christian history allusions that not every person is going to recognize. but at the same time, he places them within the context of mix-tape enthusiasts and professors cooking up crystal meth in old ladies' kitchens. his work straddles the line between knowing the past and seeing the future. like janus. like the best forward thinking musicians have always been.

2004-11-30T15:25:00.000-05:00

np: beth orton - central reservation

well, the j's indie/rock mayhem top 25 albums of 2004 is starting to take shape. i've compiled a master list of 57 albums to choose from. i'm not done compiling, necessarily, but it is quite a list to work with. it really is the advantages of having a blog for the show. last year i had to hope that i remembered the large bulk of records that came out. this year, i simply read back through every radio show i had and listed. the odds that something really fantastic came out and i didn't play it on my show are slim to none. so it's quite a list to say the least.

let me remind those of you who listen to my show/read the radio blog that this list is entirely based on what i've been listening to this year. there will be a handful of ghastly omissions i'm sure. i don't hear everything that comes out and neither do i have the money to do so. when i was a music director at WQFS, i listened to tons of new music and it was a treat to hear it all. now, it's based solely on the new things i hear out of rotation at WQFS, album reviews from places like pitchfork media, all music, the onion a.v. club, no depression magazine and so on. and when it comes to hip-hop, generally my friend michael is my main source of information. otherwise i never would have heard the excellent album by the maroons that came out a month or so ago.

it's always fun to compare my list with other year-end lists. (generally i have more in common with the onion's reviewers than i do pitchfork, but that makes sense on the whole.) when i see a record that i spent all year championing in one respect or another (2002: nicolai dunger's soul rush, josh rouse's under cold blue stars and paul westerberg's stereo/mono; 2003: fountains of wayne's welcome interstate managers, josh ritter's hello starling, drive-by trucker's decoration day and the immaculate kathleen edwards' failer) get called out for its merit on the national stage, i certainly feel vindicated.
--
jay loaned me a copy of all in the timing, a collection of plays by the writer david ives. talk about inventive theatre. plays about variations on the death of leon trotsky, phillip glass purchasing bread, three monkeys typing shakespeare and a story where two characters get every chance in the world, thanks to a toning bell, to get off on the right foot with eachother. i simply have to type a sample of that. this is from sure thing by david ives:

Bill: This is my first night out alone in a long time. I feel a little bit out to sea, to tell you the truth.

Betty: So you didn't stop to talk because you're a Moonie, or you have some weird political affiliation -- ?

Bill: Nope. Straight-down-the-ticket-Republican.

(Bell.)

Straight-down-the-ticket-Democrat.

(Bell.)

Can I tell you something about politics?

(Bell.)

I like to think of myself as a citizen of the universe.

(Bell.)

I'm unaffiliated.

Betty: That's a relief. So am I.

Bill: I vote my beliefs.

Betty: Labels are not important.

Bill: Labels are not important, exactly. Take me, for example, I mean, what does it matter if I had a two-point at --

(Bell.)

three-point at --

(Bell.)

four-point at college? Or if I did come from Pittsburgh --

(Bell.)

Cleveland --

(Bell.)

Westchester County?

Betty: Sure.

Bill: I believe that a man is what he is.

(Bell.)

A person is what he is.

(Bell.)

A person is...what they are.

Betty: I think so too.

Bill: So what if I admire Trotsky?

(Bell.)

So what if I once had a total-body liposuction?

(Bell.)

So what if I don't have a penis?

(Bell.)

So what if I spent a year in the Peace Corps? I was acting on my convictions.

Betty: Sure.

Bill: You can't just hang a sign on a person.

Betty: Absolutely. I'll bet you're a Scorpio.

(Many bells ring.)

the rest is just as funny.

2004-11-25T01:09:00.000-05:00

np: silence.

there's extra reason to think about what i said about thanksgiving in the prior post.

i've lost family members before, the closest ones being my grandpa charlie and uncles al and shelton. but never one younger than myself.

my nephew nick was killed tuesday night when he lost control of the car he was driving and slammed into a tree. his friend who was with him walked away, was able to call for help, but by the time they were able to get him out of the car, it was too late for much.

nick was 17 years old. was a junior in high school. an athlete and artist. i'd watched him grow up ever since my brother married his mother more than a decade ago. the last time i saw him, at the chilton family reunion in pilot mountain back in september or so, he had changed so much. i hardly recognized him, literally, he had begun to physically mature so much. i watched him and my other nephew, evan, throw baseball out on the lawn of the community center we were at.

i think about how great an older brother nick has been for evan. and i worry about him. most of all, i just want to see my brother and sister and give them hugs.

i woke up this morning shaking. and much like when my grandpa charlie passed, i can't really talk about this without tearing up.

i miss being the uncle of three people. god speed, nick.

2004-11-23T14:39:00.000-05:00

np: the velvet underground - the velvet underground

i'm aeons late on falling in love with the velvet underground, but i've been that way with a handful of bands.

i can't remember how long ago i bought the velvet underground and nico, but i remember driving to see ninoh when she worked at this coffee shop owned by some indian couple who didn't always like to pay her in afton village in concord. i was listening to "all tomorrow's parties" as i pulled in. or was it "venus in furs?" either way, that album was in the cd player. and i was falling hard even then.

when i went to the state FBLA conference at the Koury center here in greensboro when i was in 10th grade, i walked into the blockbuster music there at four seasons mall. in addition to cassette copies of midnight oil's diesel and dust and the ramones' loco live, i was looking at a copy of the squirrel nut zippers' hot in a discount bin. when lo and behold, buried in this bin was a copy of the velvet underground and nico. i took it up to the counter, but it rang up as full price. when i protested, the worker merely shrugged and said someone must have moved it.

it is quite possible that had i purchased that album that day, i would've gotten into them a lot sooner. but also, knowing my taste at the time, i don't know that that's an absolute. the god of music must have been looking out for me that day.

so sunday, while purchasing one of matthew sweet's newest albums, kimi ga suki * raifu, i finally purchased both white light/white heat and the velvet underground. they are very different records (largely because of the firing/departure of john cale in the period between their recordings), but are each mesmerising and unreal. every velvet underground record i've heard is simultaneously one of the most unique and inspiring pieces of recorded music i've ever heard. even now, around 35 years after they were originally recorded.

i just needed to gush a bit.
--
two websites i've discovered (both thanks to ed cone): monkeys' typing shakespeare simulator and the north carolina barbecue blog.

monkeys typing shakespeare is easily one of the most bizarre and time occupying things i've seen in some time. the amount of work that went into creating this site to try and solve this incredibly inane question is precisely the kind of thing i see myself being obsessed with, so therefore, i love it. my current record is 20 letters from coriolanus. although my favorite is my monkey that randomly typed the first 20 letters of "Gloucester: Now is the winter of our discontent.." Classic.

the north carolina barbecue blog is, as it says, a blog devoted to reviewing barbecue restaurants here in the old north state. a doubtlessly invaluable tool if you are travelling around this lovely state of ours. it will be a new permanent fixture at the right.
--
i'm going to be about for a bit during thanksgiving, but i may or may not be here on the blog. if it goes dark for a few days, that's where i am. enjoy your holiday meals and time with family. value every second of every bite and every family member. (but not every bite of every family member) there are plenty of people spending thanksgiving without one or the other or both. the fact that i am blessed with both makes me incredibly thankful.

and to my friends who are abroad (erika in iraq) and abroad at home (brynn, sara, bryan, ali, james, james, jared and anyone else i've gone too long without seeing), best of thanksgiving wishes to you. i love you all.

[/mush]

2004-11-19T14:41:00.000-05:00

np: the streets - a grand don't come for free

so all sorts of hijinx from the happy house. a good bit of you might have heard of the house GOP's little fun game of hide the criminal by changing rules governing house leaders. back in 1993, in a move designed to show how morally superior they were to democrats, the republicans inacted a party rule stating that any congressional leadership that were indicted would immediately be forced to step down from their leadership position. now with the potential for tom delay to be indicted thanks to all sorts of goings-on, the grand ol' party has voted to remove that rule from the books. funny that.

even funnier is the run-around a lot of people are getting when they call their respective representatives to find out how they voted. some are getting straight answers. many others are not. josh marshall has done a bang-up job putting together a list of those who voted for and against it. so, i thought i'd help out. i called my congressional representative, and favorite arch-nemesis, howard coble, and asked his office how he had voted on the deal. well, first off i was told it was a "voice vote" in a private meeting, therefore it wasn't on written record anywhere. the person on the phone also tried to give me the party line about the issue. ("activist attorney generals" could file all sorts of random indictments in order to take out house leadership. ah, yes, i believe that is what we would call abuse of office, now wouldn't we?) but in the end, took down my home address, in theory i assume, so i could receive a letter from howard about it.

caveat: this may be the only compliment i ever pay howard coble. so get ready.

he's really good about replying to constituents by letter.

end caveat

so i expect something in the next week or so. i'll keep you posted.
--
the plague by albert camus has one of my favorite death scenes of all time. a young boy dies of the plague toward the end of the novel, and camus' description of his wracking, death throes is unreal in its emotional rendering. it often gets me thinking about great death scenes in literature, and today, while teaching, i stumbled across another of my favorites:

He was hardly inside his room when the door was hurriedly slammed shut, firmly bolted, and locked. Gregor was so frightened at the sudden noise behind him that his little legs gave way under him. It was his sister who had been in such a hurry. She had been standing up straight, ready and waiting, then she had leaped forward nimbly, Gregor had not even heard her coming, and she cried "Finally!" to her parents a she turned the key in the lock.

"And now?" Gregor asked himself, looking around in the darkness. He soon made the discovery that he could no longer move at all. It did not surprise him; rather, it seemed unnatural that until now he had actually been able to propel himself on these thin little legs. Otherwise he felt relatively comfortable. He had pains, of course, throughout his whole body, but it seemed to him that they were gradually getting fainter and fainter and would finally go away altogether. The rotten apple in his back and the inflamed area around it, which were completely covered with fluffy dust, already hardly bothered him. He thought back on his family with deep emotion and love. His conviction that he would have to disappear was, if possible, even firmer than his sister's. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful reflection until the tower clock struck three in the morning. He still saw that outside the window everything was beginning to grow light. Then, without his consent, his head sank down to the floor, and from his nostrils streamed his last weak breath.

the metamorphosis takes on new and deeper meanings upon each, repeated reading of it. that really is one of the hidden benefits of teaching english. stories that i teach and re-teach, sometimes three times a day, gives me time to re-examine texts in a way that i probably wouldn't on my own. what's going to prompt me to read the same excerpt from a story three times in a day? not a lot. but teaching, ah-hah!

are there any great death scenes from novels/short stories that are meaningful or powerful to you?

and for those of you who know the metamorphosis well: when grete (gregor's sister) starts referring to him as "it," she takes the last bit of humanity their family had attached to gregor away. what is it that really makes us human? was gregor still human, since he had his thoughts and mind, even though he was a giant vermin and could not communicate with his family in any way? is communication our defining detail? our bodies? our minds?

just thought i'd ask.

2004-11-17T15:20:00.000-05:00

np: the maroons - ambush

so thanks to tom for forwarding me this little gem:

Parents and students say they are outraged and offended by a proposed band name and song scheduled for a high school talent show in Boulder this evening, but members of the band, named Coalition of the Willing, said the whole thing is being blown out of proportion.

The students told ABC News affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver they are performing Bob Dylan's song "Masters of War" during the Boulder High School Talent Exposé because they are Dylan fans. They said they want to express their views and show off their musical abilities.

But some students and adults who heard the band rehearse called a radio talk show Thursday morning, saying the song the band sang ended with a call for President Bush to die.

Threatening the president is a federal crime, so the Secret Service was called to the school to investigate.

well, no surprise there. why should anyone bother to be familiar with art? or at least, bother to read into it. the song, obviously, having been written in 1963, contains no threats to president bush. neither did the students change the lyrics (according to the article). if you really aren't familiar with the song, here's the last stanza:

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

it's easily one of dylan's most shrill and white-hot-hatred filled songs. and i have to give those kids mad props for covering that song. the best i managed in my high school band, aslan, was toad the wet sprocket's "fall down" and wire's "12XU." (which, one day, will be the vanity plate on my automobile.) still, give us credit for referencing the chronicles of narnia. my prior band was named Loman. anyone catch that allusion?

i'll stop trying to be obscure now.

2004-11-15T14:26:00.000-05:00

np: silence.

today has been a trying day.

first off, no surprise in seeing colin powell say goodbye. i will be attuned to who is picked as his replacement though. things are bound to get interesting.

a very sad moment in the midsts of a good weekend (UNC besting wake forest and the panthers finally winning again): the death of ol' dirty bastard. dirty and the wu-tang clan's contribution to 90s hip-hop is unavoidable. his un-chainable demeanor and fractured id persona were standouts even in a group as multi-faceted and talented as the wu-tang clan. although he was greatly overshadowed by jail time and other run-ins with the law, his contributions to wu-tang's immortal classic, enter the wu-tang (36 chambers), and his debut solo record, return to the 36 chambers, are undeniable landmarks on the face of hip-hop.

i'm off to chapel hill tonight to see matthew sweet. it's been nearly 5 years since i saw him last, so needless to say i am thrilled to see a man whom i still consider to be one of the greatest inheritors of the legacy of great, uplifting guitar pop music.

i feel very beaten today. if i didn't have so much work i should be doing, tonight's show would be a great way to shed the day. as it is, it's just delaying.

2004-11-10T15:41:00.000-05:00

np: drive-by truckers - "decoration day"

let me start off by saying: read mr. sun.

that being said, make sure to read this. i know i disturbed some of my students taking a test today thanks to that post. we won't talk about how i shouldn't be surfing the web during class. we'll just focus on how it's mr. sun's fault for making me laugh so hard.

so a couple of notes: first off, looks as if bush is going to appoint alberto gonzales as the new attorney general to replace the departing ashcroft. there are two important things to keep in mind about gonzales. one) he was the person who drafted bush's okaying of certain types of torture in dealing with potential "terrorists." in other words - abu ghraib is firmly at his feet. so is the way guantanamo bay has been run. so he's just as potentially dangerous as ashcroft to civil rights. and two) the republicans will try to paint any democrat objection to his appointment as a slur against hispanics. the framing of this debate has to become gonzales = abu ghraib, not anti-gonzales = anti-hispanic.

also really disturbing is this story:

For a year, Julee Lacey stopped in a CVS pharmacy near her home in a Fort Worth suburb to get refills of her birth-control pills. Then one day last March, the pharmacist refused to fill Lacey's prescription because she did not believe in birth control.

this is not something new. i've written on this subject before and will link my relevant post when i can locate it. really, ultimately, the far right agenda is not so much anti-abortion as it is anti-choice, as in reproductive choice. the fact that some states are actually upholding these pharmacists' rights to refuse to fill people's legally obtained prescriptions is abhorrent.

2004-11-09T15:06:00.000-05:00

np: saint etienne - travel edition: 1990-2005

one of the rather amusing things about gmail is its usage of email text to determine the ads that it shows you. so, when a friend used the phrase "period of craziness" in an email to me the other day, i was bombarded by ads regarding menstruation, tampons, etc. classic.

in a discussion with a friend last night, he made the comment that the wedge issue of the anti-gay marriage amendements was a really successful gamble for the republican party in those states. and i agreed. until i read this:

In 11 states with gay marriage referenda on the ballot, the president increased his share of the vote from an average of 55.4 percent in 2000 to an average of 58.0 percent in 2004--an improvement of 2.6 percentage points. However, in the rest of the country the president increased his share of the vote from an average of 48.1 percent in 2000 to an average of 51.0 percent in 2004--an improvement of 2.9 percentage points.

granted, the average is higher in those states with the referenda, but they were, for the most part, already firmly in bush's territory with the exceptions of ohio, michigan and oregon. so bush's average increase was lower in those states. it would appear that the referenda failed to motivate the voters, possibly even turning some off, the way just plain ol' preznit bush, sans referenda, did in the other states. there are a few ways to respond to that fact (in strong red states, you are closer to plateauing in voter support), but it is significant none the less. to the knee-jerk democrats who have been murmuring of throwing gay-rights to the wolves, get over yourself. this is a civil rights issue which is too important to ignore, whether you believe it's bringing you down or not. (thanks to kos for the story.)

so i did something creative. i wrote a condensed, 3-page version of the plot of a doll's house by henrik ibsen. not only that, but it's in the format of a folk/country song. and then i brought in my guitar and played it for all my classes as a review for their test tomorrow. and i have a feeling it might actually help. we'll see after they take the test. my personal favorite stanza that i wrote:

Torvald begs her not to go
Says that there is more
He can change, "But not enough."
Says Nora, "That I can’t ignore.
So I’m leaving, I don’t love you.
Tell the kids I’m awfully sore
That their dad is such
An awful, sexist, idiotic bore."

finally. my ticket out of this popsicle stand. i could do some hip-hop, folk and country tunes all comprising songs about literature. i'll call it droppin' english. (anyone catch that reference? first person to name it correctly in the comments gets a free copy of this collection of songs when i eventually, undoubtedly record it.) thanks to john wesley harding for inspiring me by playing a really smashing song about hamlet at his show in chicago back in '02. (and yes, that is a link to that song. it's free. go listen.)

anyone ever read look back in anger by john osbourne? if so, leave your impressions.

2004-11-05T15:42:00.001-05:00

np: afghan whigs - 1965

i'm going to see doug marlette speak tonight at the guilford college friends of the library dinner. it'll be really nice to see such a great political cartoonist speak this close to the late unpleasantness and get his take on things.

a handful of people seem to have gotten the opinion lately that i'm very distraught about tuesday. well, i'm very disappointed to say the least. especially over the anti-civil rights amendments in those 11 states. but i also realized that it only took a day of mourning for me. i realize that i fight my own personal, political battles here in the classroom every day. if i haven't given that up yet, why would i quit on the larger picture? as joe hill once said: "don't mourn, organize!" are you going to doubt a wobbly?

even if kerry had been elected, there would be a hell of a lot of work to do. naturally, without him, there's even more. but it was always going to be there. it's just time to rest for a bit. focus on some of my other interests for awhile. then come back refreshed and ready to continue the fight that will never end. that's not necessarily a bad thing.

so, my blog pays off! i got an email from the fine folks at sonic unyon records today about the fact that i've been playing the nein quite a bit. they're a great north carolina band that includes some former members of the white octave and at least one fellow guilford college alumni. they just put out a self-titled EP on sonic unyon and they're playing here in greensboro at gate city noise next friday evening, november 12th.

the label wanted to know if i would promote the show (gladly) and if i might even want to do an interview. holy god, yes. i've been scheming ways to get interviews with some of my favorite bands for awhile. this could potentially pay off. wonderful. especially to get an opportunity to promote such a wonderful band. i'm giddy.

you know. the more and more i read and re-read (and teach and re-teach) a doll's house by henrik ibsen, the more i think it is a brilliant and intensely forward-thinking play. it still has such sharp and insightful ramifications for us despite having been written in 1879. and in norway. "aren't you ashamed, doctor rank, now that the lamp's been lit?" smashing.

man, it's a beautiful day. i'm out of here.

edited - accidental double-retyped posts combined into one for clarity and to avoid redundance.

2004-11-04T16:53:00.000-05:00

np: neutral milk hotel - in the aeroplane over the sea

i seriously doubt that my blog had anything to do with this (other than nearly netting him a write-in vote in wisconsin), but the only officially endorsed notes from underground candidate, jeff thigpen, won his race for register of deeds here in guilford county. congratulations, jeff! i'll be expecting some priority treatment the next time i have to go..uhm...register some deeds.

i was thinking of moving to the area of town i'd need to live in in order to run against billy yow the next time he's up for re-election as a county commissioner. anyone know where the 5th district is? it really boiled my blood that he ran un-opposed.

i successfully managed to send no one to washington this year. (kerry, bowles and will jordan all lost.) however, in state it was a different tale. easley, purdue, moore and thigpen were all winners. britt cobb may have won, but we're still waiting on the final tally. (with provisional ballots still oustanding, he has a 100 or so vote lead as of this morning.)

amendment I passed, which i voted against, but all the other amendments and bonds (which i voted for) passed as well.

hey, speaking of running for office, i will be old enough to run against howard coble next time around. hmm.
--
now it's time for installment two of my dissection of this election. i'm putting all of these passages in blockquote to make them look all professional an' shit.

Ralph Nader's Fading Legacy

In the year 2000 I sat in my bedroom at my parents' house, door shut and locked, official voting punch device in hand as I punch out chads in my ballot for the November election. I was voting truly absentee since we had yet to undertake early voting, and I was unable to travel home on election day. When I reached the tabs for President, I punched out the write-in selection and then proudly wrote, in bold, progressive handwriting (Courier New) the name of my selection: Ralph Nader.

His affiliation with the Green Party and its progressive values; his stance against corporate influence; his condemnation of the two party system; all of these things spoke to the idealist in me. His track record as a consumer advocate certainly helped. Nader is a legend, a giant. His uncompromised stands against corporate endangerment and fleecing of the population (see Unsafe at Any Speed) are principles upon which revolutions could be founded.

His campaign had a plan: make the 5% national mark and the Green party would receive matching federal funds for the 2004 campaign, helping them to get onto the radar screen. While they didn't hold delusions of winning the Presidency any time soon, they did have plans to drive the Democratic party back to its progressive roots by holding their feet to the fire in the form of votes. Don't want to strengthen those environmental regulations? Improve labor rights? Promote gay rights? Kiss a couple of million votes and the White House goodbye.

Nader didn't get his 5%, but he did manage a little over 3% and that was enough to stir the Democratic party into a hailstorm of derision. Nader had cleared more than enough votes in Florida to have shifted the election back in Al Gore's favor, even assuming that some of those people might not have voted at all without Nader's name on the ballot.

Then things changed.

George W. Bush and his neo-conservative agenda began riling up the left in the wake of September 11th, 2001. By the time the 2004 election came around, the nation was a frothing mass of vitriolic politics. In 2000, the nation seemed divided on indifference. In 2004, it was divided on perceptions of ideology. Despite the clear preference for most on the left to simply get Bush out of office, Nader mounted another campaign, this time without the Green Party in tow who had refused to nominate him. On the left, Nader became anathema. His cause was no longer idealistic, it was dangerous. The Democratic party, instead of moving towards Nader's ideas as the plan had originally been, isolated and shut him out. He netted a fraction of his 2000 vote total.

And then it happened.

I overheard my students using Nader's name as a joke. Who was this guy? Why was he running? They joked about voting for Nader, as if the idea were preposterous. Like writing in "Mickey Mouse." Part of this was out of pure ignorance of his advocacy record, but that's indicative of something larger. Ralph Nader's legacy, a legacy of great accomplishments and progressive, truly American politics, is being erased. Partly by the same conservative forces who opposed him in his heyday. Partly by himself.

Is this what happens to great forces who actually live long enough to have seen their great work come to fruition? If Martin Luther King Jr. had lived to see today, would he have put his foot in his mouth at some point? Would people mock him and his legacy because of an idealistic stand or two that took too little account of the reality of America?

Ralph Nader's legacy is fading. His accomplishments, so important to our day to day life, so much so that we don't even notice them, are being effaced by his late-life stands for progressive idealism. It certainly begs the question: Is Nader that out of touch, or have the neo-conservatives simply driven the game that far to the right? Is idealism truly dead? Or has it simply evolved in an ever more hostile world?

Ralph's on a one-man march into his own personal Selma. What that indicates about the rest of us, I've yet to figure out.

2004-11-03T20:18:00.000-05:00

np: tapping keys.

i don't know that i've ever felt more thoroughly frustrated and let down in my life. i could be mistaken about that, but at the moment, it seems unlikely.

what happened?

i'm going to break this down into several posts assessing the damage. we'll work our way up to el presidente and congress. we'll also take a look at how things fared on the local level. but i'd like to start this first post off with an epistle. please indulge my artistic license just a bit.

Dear citizens of North Dakota, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oregon, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah, Missouri and Louisiana:

There is a lot I feel I should say to you, my fellow Americans. There is a lot of disappointment and frustration I have with being so thoroughly unable to understand your mode of thinking. Most of all, I am afraid of what you may be helping the United States to become.

When you went to the polls yesterday (or, in the case of you, Missouri and Louisiana, earlier this year) and passed the various forms of anti-gay marriage amendments to your constitutions, although I was unsurprised, I was saddened. It is so hard for me to understand why the love of two humans for one another, a love that undoubtedly most of you have felt for someone at some time in your life, seems to offend you so deeply and so unflinchingly. It is also hard for me to understand your wishes to yet again, in the ugly tradition of Jim Crow and anti-womens' suffrage, relegate citizens of our fine, beautiful and illustrious nation to second-class status. This is not a defense of marriage; it is a defilement of love and humanity.

It is one thing for those of you in Mississippi, Montana and Oregon to have simply made illegal the idea of a gay marriage. The rest of you, however, have decided to outlaw even civil unions, the right to which seems unquestionable given our constitution. You are stepping up to deny people the right to visit their loved ones in the hospital; the right to cover their loved ones with the health insurance that they have earned at their jobs; the right to adopt and become loving, committed parents for children who need homes. You are denying them the very right, my fellow citizens, to be human.

To put this in perspective: I could easily go and locate a woman tonight, fly to Las Vegas, have a semblance of a wedding, and soon have her covered with my health insurance, give her visitation rights, adopt children with her, give her the power to make life/death decisions should I be ill and any other number of important, serious decisions within her power as my wife.

Meanwhile, partners who have been dedicated, loving beacons of hope and light for eachother for decades are still spat upon by the very law that they crusade so strongly for each time they step into a voting booth; the very law that ought to protect them just for being citizens in our country. The very law which has decided instead to turn its cold, dead and unfeeling eyes away from them in disgust, claiming that they are not love, are not what is real and true.

Law cannot and will not dictate the course of love in human hearts. I can only hope that love will light your way back to our unity as human beings. Until then, I can only wish you luck in the dark wilderness of your hatred.

all good things,

Joshua S. Neas

and thanks to ed cone for a touch of hope in an otherwise bleak day:

Amid a terrible election for the civil rights of gay Americans, North Carolina elected its first openly gay State Senator.

You go, North Carolina.

you go indeed. follow the link and read the whole post and story. it's rather fascinating. and reassuring.

2004-11-02T10:18:00.000-05:00

np: the clash - london calling

for the beginning of what i hope will be a resurgent time for our country, i thought that the clash's 1979 epistle would be appropriate. also let it be known that if anyone wants to buy me the really swank, expanded edition of london calling for the holidays, feel perfectly welcome to do so.

i got to my polling place at st. barnabus episcopol over on jefferson road about 7:30am this morning. i had finished voting around 8:45am. an hour and fifteen minutes isn't too bad considering the other, hellacious stories i'd been hearing on the radio for early voting. now all i can do is sit back and wait.

we went to trivia last night at college hill bar. this is something i love to do, but sadly it's hard for me to go out many monday evenings when trivia doesn't start until 10:30pm and i'm a school teacher. alas. but, that's why we take advantage of work days.

the highlight of the night (other than me knowing, in a category where we had ten crayola colors scribbled on a sheet and had to identify them by precise name, that the purple color was indeed "purple mountains' majesty"), or rather, most interesting, came when i overheard a conversation at the table behind me. a rather loud and obnoxious girl, appearing to be of college age, was making her argument that she has as much right not to vote as anyone else does to vote.

and while i certainly agree with her in principle, i really had the urge to turn around, tell her that i agreed with her, but then tell her what an absolute fuck-face she is for not voting this time.

i'll wax reminiscent for a minute: the year is 2000. i'm a sophomore at guilford college and the election is coming up. feeling especially ostricized by both major parties, i proudly (and to this day, without hesitation) cast my write-in vote for ralph nader and the green party for president. nader and the greens do represent my personal beliefs more accurately than any other party and i felt very drawn to their mission of achieving third-party recognition by topping the 5% mark in the national race. despite the outcome of the last 4 years, i still don't regret my decision, as bush easily carried north carolina in 2000. my vote for gore (nor the total votes for nader in NC switched over to gore) would have made a difference.

the point i'm getting at is that despite my feeling of alienation and non-representation, i still found a niche, an idea that i agreed with and cast my vote. i didn't harbor any delusions of great revolutions thanks to my vote. (i'm no stephen cabarrus, afterall.) but i did spend the next four years feeling unflinchingly betrayed by elected officials and knowing that my vote had been not only ignored (my write-in vote for nader was never counted, thanks to north carolina's absurdly stringent standards for ballot access) but quieted.

of course, since i cast my vote for a major party candidate this year, one might say that i've been corralled into the mainstream, forced into one of the two major pits in which the majority of voters are mired. perhaps.

but all i know is when president kerry takes the office in january, he will owe the far-left section of his party far more than just lip service during the next four years. john, i've got my eye on you. don't make me regret believing in the system that i have far too much stake and hope in to be healthy. i'm counting on you.
--
again, i'll be at the green bean tonight for the election watch party. say howdy. i'll be in my light pinstripe suit jacket. it does seem like the social event of the season, afterall.

2004-11-01T14:47:00.001-05:00

np: the decemberists - castaways and cutouts

i forgot i had this album laying around my room.

i'm about to flip out. in twenty minutes i have to go do 4th block coverage yet again. what happens is this: if a teacher is missing for some reason (had to leave early, is out sick, etc.) and we don't have a sub for them, the teachers who have planning periods are called in, usually for no more than 30 minutes at the time. well, for the 4th time in 6 days, i've been asked to do coverage in an absolute demon class out in a trailer. one of the (small) ways they pay us back for taking our planning time to cover other people's regular classes is by giving us 'swap time.' the idea is that you are given, minute for minute, the amount of time you've spent covering to take off on workdays. well, by the end of today i will have 5 hours and 30 minutes safely tucked away. in other words, i have lost the equivalent of nearly a full workday worth of work time. what is going on?
--
but that really doesn't matter. tomorrow is a workday. and we know why. election day. this is it. i'm so nervous i can't even tell you. i'm actually, genuinely, really, really excited. and incredibly anxious. as is a lot of the country, i'm sure.

i'm planning to go in and vote early in the morning, before i head to work. in the meanwhile, check out drfranklives' blog for a great roundup of north carolina's judicial candidates and the three amendments which are on the ballot. all of this is need to know information.

~~election watch party at my apartment tomorrow night, by the way. i hate to watch this on my own.~~ scratch that. probably going to be at the green bean downtown with a bunch of fun, election watchin' folks. see you there, anyone?

2004-10-27T15:32:00.000-04:00

np: aych-ay-double-el-oh-double-yoo-double-ee-en

i've always been really fond of the phonetic spelling of the letter "h."

tonight is my special halloween show on j's indie/rock mayhem so be sure to tune in for some of my favorite halloween related tunes and bits. i think i'm going to have a delicious mash-up. maybe not as eloquent as it should be, but tune in if you can. 6 - 8pm on 90.9 FM WQFS greensboro.

will this make me a groupie? i'm going to go see the drive-by truckers on back to back fridays: friday 12th november in asheville, NC at the orange peel and then friday 19th november in winston-salem, NC at ziggy's. i haven't seen them since right before their stellar newest album, the dirty south, was released, so now that i know the words by heart, it's time to go sing along. and hopefully hear that amazing song "T.V.A." that they played last time i saw them. why in the hell was that not on their new album? a big loss.

less than a week. please, please, please encourage every person you can to get out and vote. either early as you can do right now in north carolina, or next tuesday on election day.

and don't forget about my endorsement: jeff thigpen for register of deeds here in guilford county. not only does he have a stellar record of service as a guilford county commissioner, but he's a willie nelson fan to boot. i don't think i need to say any more. you can link to his official site and his blog over to the right under 'notes of endorsement.'

one of my more conservative students asked if i would go trick-or-treating with him. he would dress as kerry if i'd go as bush. if i were going to be in town, i'd be tempted to take him up on the offer. i'm grateful to have students who, as limited as the basis of their opinions might be, actually do care about the future of our country. it gives me hope, even if i am glad he can't vote in this election since he's too young.

2004-10-26T15:01:00.000-04:00

np: wilco - "muzzle of bees"

things are getting out of hand: (thanks to kos)

A friend with a child in the Richland County,WI high school where George Bush appears today reports the following. Students were told they could not wear any pro-Kerry clothing or buttons or protest in any manner, at the risk of expulsion. After a parent inquired, an alternative activity will be provided, probably a movie being shown in an auditorium. (The school secretary reportedly said that students had the choice of just staying home if they didn't want to attend the Bush rally, but the principal subsequently offered an alternative.)

so let me get this straight. not only did a bush appearance at a public high school further staunch students' free speech rights in respect to dress code, but initially the students were told to "stay home?" do you know how much shit my school would take for suggesting that students not come to school because of something like this? i'd be foaming at the mouth if this were my school.

but of course that's not all:

One of the latest incidents came when John Sachs, 18, a Johnston High School senior and Democrat, went to see Bush in Clive last week. Sachs got a ticket to the event from school and wanted to ask the president about whether there would be a draft, about the war in Iraq, Social Security and Medicare.

But when he got there, a campaign staffer pulled him aside and made him remove his button that said, "Bush-Cheney '04: Leave No Billionaire Behind." The staffer quizzed him about whether he was a Bush supporter, asked him why he was there and what questions he would be asking the president.

"Then he came back and said, 'If you protest, it won't be me taking you out. It will be a sniper,' " Sachs said. "He said it in such a serious tone it scared the crap out of me."

unbelievable. people threatened with being shot if they protest at an event? way, way, way out of line. this kind of intimidation is ridiculous at a campaign event. the staffer who said that should not only be fired, but should also face criminal charges for making threats to that kid.

in other odd news, president bush, during an interview on good morning america, said that he supports state decisions to allow civil unions. what a complete 180 from nearly a year ago. as kos pointed out about this, howard dean was nearly eviscerated, declared utterly unelectable for his support of civil unions just last fall.

we still have a long way to go on civil rights in this area, but progress is undeniable. society is moving forward. the question is, how quickly are we going to get to where we need to be?
--
also, very, very sadly, john peel died last night at the age of 65. as a fellow DJ and music lover, i can't help but be really, really saddened by his passing. i'll definitely be playing the undertones' "teenage kicks" on my show tomorrow in memory of a great gift to under-championed music everywhere. god speed, good man.

2004-10-25T16:09:00.000-04:00

np: wilco - live at raleigh memorial auditorium

big ol' thanks to david butler for making me a copy of the wilco show that i attended back in september.

so the barbecue festival was saturday. and katie, if you're reading this, happy birthday. i just plain forgot when i (surprisingly, or maybe, not so surprisingly) saw you at the democratic headquarters.

aside from wandering around lanier hardware for close to an hour (which isn't nearly enough time - that place is a maze and oh, so fun to wander through), i put away some lexington style pork and watched pig races and generally had a wonderful time as i always do. we watched a strong man competition, ate our innaugural sandwich with mad dog in his westphalia van, ate fried green tomatoes and drove home listening to miles davis' sketches of spain. a lovely day.

oh. and i met patrick ballantine. a bit of a surprise that after having attended two barbecue festivals during election years, a major politician finally shows up in person to an event that regularly draws in close to 100,000 people. what's the deal? why do i not see more political faces?

ballantine is running for governor against the incumbant mike easley. i spoke with him very briefly, saying that i enjoyed hearing his ideas on the debates (true) and was glad to see them try to keep the level of snark down (a bald-faced lie - he and easley's debates were among the snarkiest i've ever seen). since i was wearing a will jordan for congress bumper sticker on my flannel shirt, ballantine asked me if i was a registered democrat. i answered that i was unaffiliated (also true - i hate party affiliation) and voted for people, not parties. of course, after all this i wasn't sure he was really interested. i think he could tell in my rather general comments that i have no intention of voting for him. however, on the drive home i began to kick myself. hard. i didn't play my one trump card.

"yes, senator ballantine, i'm a public school teacher."

i really have to start bringing that up more often.
--
so the cardinals are down two games, but that's okay. they're undefeated in busch stadium in the playoffs this year, so heading back to st. louis on tuesday is definitely a plus. however i'm biting my nails worrying that i'm going to see a repeat of '87. the AL team that year (the twins) had the homefield advantage also and each team won every home game, handing the twins the series in game 7.
--
finally, j. ball (my apartment mate) bought the arrested development first season DVD. first off, if you've never sat down to watch this show, it is easily the funniest on network television by a landslide. second, the dvd just proves it further. upon rewatching the first season, the episodes hold up and get even funnier with repeated viewings. and god bless the people smart enough to hire david cross for his role. i think i'll go home and watch more tonight. with willow. a female. i'll leave the rest to your imagination.

okay, to help your imagination, willow is j. ball's new himalayan cat. she's adorable.