The Year Closes

2009 comes to a close, and I think people's expectations have not been met. The new government has not delivered on all the campaign promises, music and art has remained boring and margilized, and people keep on expecting something or someone to make their lives better.

I have no idea what it will take to get people to make some of the changes needed to develop a better community. Enough of just you, how are you going to make it about 'us'?

Let's try this again, for fun.

What a long hot long summer. I have gone through a lot since my last post. Dumped, new girlfriend, moved, stepped down from manager at my job, went back to school; and now it's finally fall in time and weather. I'm at my parents house and hearing the rain hit all the bamboo and evergreen leaves and that sense of melancholy has washed over me as it does every fall. Next Saturday I turn 33 years old and it is during this time that I reflect on my life. Melancholy doesn't necessarily mean depressed, it just means that I tend to reflect internally about how my life has gotten to this point.

I am old. I know that if you're older then me you'll tell me that I'm not, or if you're my age or a few years younger you'll tell me the same thing, but in all reality I am old. I have done a lot, but also have shied away from doing a lot due to fear. I'm tired. I go to a school where most of the students in my classes are more then ten years my junior. My girlfriend is 13 years younger then me. I hang out with kids ten years or so younger then me. My co-workers are all in their twenties. I am old.

I spend a lot of time feeling like I missed it. I don't know what 'it' is, but I spend a lot of times trying to figure out when and where 'it' happened and how I must have missed it. I'm back in school hoping that I find a new 'it' and that everything will be fine, but there's a little part of me that makes me think that I missed the one 'it' and now I just get to almost exist for the rest of my life. Sound depressing? It's not, for I know that it's just me going through transition.

Finally, I now believe in God again. I don't know why it happened, but I know what happened, but I really don't know why this one event lead me to believe that I now have faith in God. I am a reluctant believer, that is to say, I don't want to believe, but I do. Am I supposed to walk into church with my tail between my legs and look up at the Jesus high on the wall shrug my shoulders sit down and start singing hymns? I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. I spent the last ten or so years denouncing the fucker. Now I pray.

I'll try to keep up on this here blog again. No one reads it anyway.

Earth Day

Happy Earth Day everybody! Seriously. I watched the President give a speech at a Maytag factory in Iowa today and he said something very important about our dependence on oil. "So we shift from shock to indifference time and again, year after year." I think that this is the fundamental problem with Americans today: indifference. Obama bravely said that he refused to believe that Americans want to stay the same, that, "So the implication in this argument is that we've somehow lost something important -- that perhaps because of the very prosperity we've built over the course of generations, that we've given up that fighting American spirit, that sense of optimism, that willingness to tackle tough challenges, that determination to see those challenges to the end, the notion that we've gotten soft somehow. I reject that argument." I think that that American spirit died a long time ago. If I/We are comfortable and can drive an SUV and buy the new CDs and buy the new computers and throw everything away, then why would we try to live any differently? He forgets his American history. The American spirit was train barons, land owners who monopolized beef, mining companies that used children, steel mills that had 10 hour work days, Giant oil companies that had to be split up under anti-monopoly laws. That is how the America today became America. 

Does that mean that I think that we should loosen up labor laws or get rid of anti-monopoly laws? No. I just want to drive home the point that no matter how much Obama tries to change the American culture, that it is really really up to us: the Americans. The right will try to say that there is no climate change, or that it is not man made. They'll say that Obama is socializing companies or that he is following in Hitler and Mussolini's foot prints, and the people that they reach, their demographic, believe it. They would rather be "right" then change the wold to be a better place.

Asking the American people to come out of indifference and make a change is asking a lot Mr. President. Not while Wal-Mart has such low low prices.

sunshine

It's been nice to see the sun again. I forget how nice this city is when the sun is out and it is a little warm. I couldn't even get in a bad mood at work, and I work at a gelato shop. I'm looking forward to a warm summer.

Economy

It is so easy to blame our problems on the rich and the powerful. It's easy to rely on class and race as the reason that the world is splitting apart. The G-20 summit is in England right now deciding how to save the world economy. The 24 hour news cycles are blasting us with how bad it is and who might be to blame. Barack Obama is budgeting and taxing and making other bold decisions to stabilize the economy. Nothing seems to be working. What would?

The Right is saying that they didn't do this and that Obama and the Left are trying to socialize the finance and industrial sectors. The Left is saying that they are doing all of this because of what Bush did. No one is right.

You are to blame. You are sitting there and expecting the goverment to fix a problem you caused. I hate to be mean but you want to much stuff. You live way beyond your means. You aren't making any more money then your parents, less in some cases, and you are spending more. There is a lot of Truth when Obama asks you to help him change the culture in Washington and Wall Street. You fall for the traps that Washington and Wall Street spring on you.

Economics is a confusing and complicated science. It's more then just you buy and sell stuff that people need or want. Ecoonomics are similar to Politcal Science: it learns as it happens. That's right! The Economy is learning and growing by making mistakes. Your money and worth is based on what works and doesn't work. Oil and energy works well, and if you invest in those things you make money. You make money, others make money. You invest in morgages that will not get repaid, you don't make money, and other people don't make money off of you.

You want the solution now. The stock market has to climb 700 in one day, or nothing is working. Here is what I'd like to say on this blog that no one reads: we need to change the economy. We need to find a new system. I'm not saying Socialism is the right answer, nor am I saying that stricter regulations are an answer, but I think that how you decide to make money and spend money would change the system. Think about that.

Think about how you make your money. Who is affected? Who is being hurt? Who is gaining? What about how you spend your money. Same questions, Who is affected? Who is being is hurt and who is gaining? Do we spend more money, or do we become more self sufficent? Growing food, making clothes, shopping second hand and being less excited by name brand and fads.

The Problem with the Kids

Why do kids insist on being 'special'? Sometimes they search low and high for some characteristic or little detail that gives them some sort of edge on everyone else. Some people even go as far as claiming insanity: 'I have OCD', or 'I'm depressed and moody'. They decide to start off what music they like with some insane artist like Yanni or some supposed underground band that I probably never heard of because I'm old and I wear a baseball hat.

You are not special. You are annoying and sad. The sadness comes with you thinking your parents and teachers and others telling you that you were bright, creative, good looking, special and you bought it. You bought it and now everyone that you come in contact with must obey and notice the specialties that you have. You don't impress me.

In fact, the younger generation is less special then my generation. You have missed all the great cultural movements and music scenes. You have missed everything. You live in the last ripples of all the cultural splashes. Your music is the copy of the 80's bands that were copying the 70's bands that were copying the 60's bands and so on and so on. The more copies that there were the more bland and souless the music becomes.

You do not really have OCD. You don't really HAVE to check the door lock thirteen times to know it is really locked. It is not true that you suffer from depression. You are a pussy. You need me to tell you you are doing a good job in spite of your mental handicaps. You don't need me to say that. You think you do. Your generation must have positive feedback or you'll be sad.

Be a part of. I'm serious, stop thinking about yourself and see what you can do to make the community better. Stop taking for yourself and give back. That is why your generation doesn't have anything going for it - no givers.

Everything already happened.

New Dog

Jesse and I have adopted a new dog. She is a Shiba Inu mix. We named her Isabella Erin Rudy Fisher-Draskovich. She was one of the Burns, Oregon dogs. If you never heard of them, they were about 200 dogs kept at this house and the guy would just throw out a bag of kibble and have the dogs fight over it. Most of the dogs lived on mud puddles, hay, and worm infested shit. A lot of the dogs had mange, mites, and other problems due to malnutrition and living outside. The guy got to keep 20 dogs, but the rest were taken to the Oregon Humane Society and other rescue centers in the area.

Isabella has never been on a leash before, has never been on stairs, carpet, nor has she slept in a kennel on towels let alone on a bed. She would not walk on leash that first day, nor would she go up or down stairs. She had no hair on her belly and had a bloody patch of mange on her face. She is only 18 pounds. We don't know how many puppies she may have had.

She now runs up and down the stairs, walks well on the leash, and her fur is growing back. She loves us as much as we love her, and it's only been one week. It is amazing what how loving dogs can be, no matter how hard their life has been up to that point. She has made our life a blessing.

I'm not one to get all moral on you, but if you're getting a dog, look at the pound first. Don't buy a dog from a pet store that buys from puppy mills, and for God's sake, make sure you're ready to have a dog. Time and money and patience. If you still like to go out all the time and party - get a cat.

sickness

I am fucking sick. I hate being sick when I can't take anytime off from work. I would love to lay down on the couch and watch nothing on TV. I just want to veg. My head won't let me concentrate, and my nose is all stuffed up. My job has no options for me when I'm sick. I have to go. No one who comes in cares if I'm sick or not, or if they do it's because they might get it. Little do they realize, poor people - people in the service industry - get sick and can't call in. Fair? Nope. Just life. That's all I can think of writing.

procratination. . .

Why can't I just do this? I had every intention of writing everyday, but then I balked. Fuck. I'll keep this short . . . I gotta keep typing.

What is the end result? Another f'n Sunday

Sundays are the worst day for working in retail. I'm being serious. Every retail job I have had has Sunday being the worst day to work. Saturdays are no picnic, but it doesn't seem as high strung or as evil as Sunday. What is it about Sundays?

For a long time I assumed it was the Christians. When I worked at A-Boy Hardware, Sunday at 1pm was the reckoning. All these people wearing their Sunday best would swarm in and be demanding. I hated it. I had a theory that they had gotten the saintly duties out of the way so enacting the golden rule on the guy in plumbing didn't really matter. 

It isn't the Christians. As much as I'd like to blame them for everything wrong in the world, and most of the bad stuff in the world is the Christians fault, it isn't their fault. It's the expectations of certain weekend days.

A guy came into my coffee shop last year on a rainy tuesday. He said he loved tuesdays the best because that was the day everyone was done gabbing about what they did that weekend and recovering if it was too crazy, and it was too soon to be talking about what was gonna happen the next weekend, so everyone was more or less living in the moment. Living in the day, almost like Tuesday is the day everyone becomes a Buddhist. 

Back to Sunday - this is the last day of the weekend, usually, and people need to make the weekend worth it wether it's entertainment or finishing some projects. Monday is fast approaching and they haven't done anything yet. This is also the day of rest. Most families that I have observed do all their chores and house work on Saturdays. Sunday is the leisure day. The day to sip a latte in a ceramic mug at a coffee shop on some popular hang out street. The day to get the sprinkler supplies at the hardware store for next weekend. Sunday becomes a day of high expectations.

If I can't give the person on Sunday exactly what they want, they throw a tantrum. I see it ten to twenty times a Sunday. I'm not kidding, grown women and men almost cry because what they had imagined themselves doing on a Sunday isn't going to happen. I don't see that happen as often on other days of the week. Why is it so important?

The last thing I want to bitch about is how terrible the tips are on Sundays. We make three times the money on Sunday, but less tips then on a Monday or a Tuesday. If you go into a cafe on a Sunday - tip the person, for they have gone through hell and are not having a good day.

Walking the Dog Part II

So Max texts me about how I thought about doing the magazine as more of a 'zine and then do the flashy slick shit on the web. I actually felt better about it. I like the idea of more hands on, and the ability to have content continuous, AND issue to issue. I'm thinking of blogs, short articles and Tuesday music reviews and Friday movie reviews, or maybe staying away from that - we want to be new and exciting. I miss the staple cut and paste work of a 'zine. I'm sure the computer will play a huge part in it, but I think layout will be less restricting. 

Walking the dog is the only real time to listen to music. I've been going to the Library a lot lately and getting music. I'm in a weird place when it comes to music. I can't do pop. I used to love the Beatles, Beach Boys, Modest Mouse, and other straight pop rock music, but now my ears demand more. My shuffle now has the composer John Adams, Eric Burdon, Minor Threat, James Brown, Sexton Blake, Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis - and it's on shuffle. Jesse, my girlfriend, listens to nothing but pop. My friends not only listen to pop, they play pop music for a living.

I'm not anti-pop at all. I still enjoy it, but when I'm alone, I need more to it. I have been loving the minamalist composers like Phillip Glass, Steve Reiche and Adams. It has been fun rediscovering bop with Davis, Coltrane and the Monk. It seems like there is so much sound that hasn't been discovered, or hasn't been given enough listens. The guitar seems so over used, and no matter how many guitar geniuses and guitar gods are out there, it's old. The clarinet did not get enough decades to mature and be stretched to the audio limits.

I have been trying to learn piano, but I don't practice much, so it's failing. I mention this because sometimes the composing bug bites me and I go to sleep to whole symphonies that I have written. 

Alex Ross wrote a book called the Rest is Noise. That book opened a lot of doors musically for me. Modern composition music is rich and experimental and beautiful and ugly. There is a lot of it. 

That's the thoughts I had while walking around the neighborhood with my dog Nanuk. As soon as I can figure out how to post pictures on this sight, I will post some of Nanuk.

Drunken Prayer

Sometimes when I go to live shows I notice that newer bands do not know how to rock. I don't mean distort the hell out of some chords and give a yell, I mean making the guitar fuck your face. This is how Drunken Prayer rocks. Classicaly trained Miss Audra on the keys and Morgan Saint Christopher rockin' the guitar. Blues roots rock I guess, but to me I re-imagine a man selling his soul at the crossroads for the magic of rock n roll. I don't get excited by new bands very often, but drunken prayer is saving rock n roll. Real rock n roll. Morgan Saint Christopher has such a powerful stage performance that it surprises me that he's so nice and soft spoken off stage; always meaning well and wishing the best to others. Miss Audra is the kind of girl you want to grow old with before even meeting her, and steals your heart with some dynamite keyboard work. 

I mean it when I say this band rocks. They have the blues, man, and it's mixed with that eerie southern gospel and soul. Christopher can really play the guitar. Between well written songs and taking the lead, he floods the venue with early '70s arena rock worthy guitar. Audra accompanies with some Duane Allman style keys with her own jazzy flair. These are songs about God and alcohol and redemption. Sometimes, in the songs, the redemption never comes. Faulkner meets Lynard Skynard. 

The only downfall is where to peg this band. I was watching them at the White Eagle which is home to mostly roots rock and old timey music. A lot of banjos. The band that was playing when I walked in was a Irish folk/rock band North Twin that included flute and accordion. I'm not going to lie - not a good match. Could they play with Supersuckers? No, it doesn't seem right either. Their sound is blues, but I don't see them playing the Blues circuit. They don't do the Zen Guerella or Gun Club mix, but they rock pretty hard. What is it? It's the soul. This band is playing with a lot of soul.

See them at their CD release party at the Doug Fir March 20th at 9pm with Gabe Hascall and the band Lotus Isle. I'll be there feeling the Rock my parents tell me I missed.

walking the dog Part I

I decided to like certain gardens. I like what I call French Colonial. This is where the garden, or nature, is taking over the house. It looks like at one point in time there was a plan, and even an execution of a plan, but the plants and vines and moss took over. I can see where the path used to be and where there was a planned bed for those shrubs, but now it is overgrown and dark there. The more creative people know what they are doing and put things in the garden for the plants to overcome; ie, shoes, tires, gnomes, pottery and other hollow things. 

One house I walked by had a definite fetish for birds. There were about five different feeders, and as Nanuk, my dog, and I walked by a tree was filled with small brown birds. For a moment I thought of letting my dog lose on the tree and watch the birds fill the air, but my dog is too unpredictable. 

A thought I had while walking was if I should write fiction or non-fiction. On one hand I love journalism and teaching people about my favorite subjects. If I didn't have a job, I'd be online all day reading the news and new blog posts and wish I was a little smarter to start my own blog. (note to self: learn to blog properly with links and smart things to say) On the other hand, I love fiction. I love telling stories and trying to capture moments in life. My head is filled to the brim with the beginnings of stories, character sketches and in some cases whole stories worthy of novel length. (note to self: learn to put these stories down on paper and to keep the fear of them sucking from stopping you) 

Then there's Upton Sinclair and John Steinbeck. There are probably more, but these two writers I know the best who did journalism like research and turn them into stories. Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle helped change laws about safety at the workplace. Does a novel about something very real change an opinion, or even help someone form an opinion? Does the fact that it is fiction remove the reality from it? When I read Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, I felt that it was too fiction and even though Steinbeck did a lot of research, the truth was behind the Joads' migration to Californ-I-A. This style of fiction would be the happy medium to my self-argument.

I love rain, but today the sun has made me change my opinion. I think the winter storm we had this winter gave me a new insight on warm spring days. It makes me believe old love songs.

blazers vs. nuggets

Denver just played harder. McMillan said it: Denver is just playing harder. The Blazers are a young team, but with playoff potential. In one hand they are still learning and making a lot of mistakes. Their big man Oden is out again with injuries, so The Thrilla is doing all the big man work with Channing Frye coming in. I think that fans have to stay patient. This may not be their year. We were dry for too long - 2003. 

Here are some things to think about: Brandon Roy is going to be one of the best NBA players ever. Next year perhaps. Lamarcus Alderidge is going to be one of the best NBA players ever. Next year perhaps. Rudy Fernandez is going to be one of the best NBA players ever, but in two to three years. Jared Bayless is going to be one of the best NBA players ever, but also in about two to three years. 

Portland fans got used to the Trailblazers going into the post season, but now it's been a few years. Portland also get a lot of new fans, for Portland is a transient city, so not all the fans who show up to the Rose Garden are blazer fans. Practically all of Beaverton are Kobe LA fans. 

Patience, Portland, patience. We may fall short this year, but so many lessons have been learned. We can win in 'our house', but we can't seem to win the games that matter on the road. These are the lessons we need to learn, and correct. Patience.

AFRICA

Will Obama give Africa as much attention as Bush? It seems that the State Department is refocusing all their man power to the Middle East, and giving Africa the shaft. 

the GOP is staring at nothing.

It seems that Michael Steele is the only Republican that is trying to reshape the party. He keeps getting undermined by the talking heads who don't want to change. The Republican party have this great potential to be the solution to todays problems, but they can't seem to let go of old politics. Karl Rove even suggests that the Obama administration is using 'Old Politics', but it is the Rush, O'Reilly, the Hannity and the Becks that are using the same strategy and the same talking points that lost them the last two elections.

lets begin

i'm gonna try my best to keep this blog up. the problem with writing is disciplining myself to write everyday. i also need to find what i can write the best about, so i'll be doing music reviews, political and social commentary, autobiographical and fiction, and maybe even some poetry. it's hard to get the 'pen to paper' going like i used to.