Incoherent Ramblings

To Recession Or Not To Recession...

2009-01-07T17:45:00.001-05:00

I find myself in a genuine conundrum over the state of the economy. I suspect I'm not the only one conflicted between feeling sad for the economy, the lost jobs, the havoc that is being wreaked on our status as a Ecnomic Superpower and the joy of cheap-ass gas, even lower prices at Wally World, and genuinely not really feeling the pinch; if anything the other way around. Am I alone here?

I suppose if this drags on for another year or two I'll be changing my tune, but just for a second those of us who have insulated themselves from the worst parts of the Glodal Recession From Hell (insulated so far, nothing is impervious) should pat ourselves on the back, even if it's in your coat closet with the lights off at 3am so no one knows.

All joking aside, it is interesting to see how economic downturns impact different countries economies across the world. If Thomas Friedman critics were looking for a good case to make against his "World Is Flat" line of books, I suppose the past six months would make a pretty strong foundation argument. In an era of superglobalization, you could really only expect so much. The concept of tying every country's currency, manufacturing, IT systems together was a start down the path. This of course went hand in hand with the growth of the Multinational, diversifying geographically to capitalize on increased markets, economies of scale and geography, etc. So I don't think The WSJ was the first publication to figure out where we were headed; that a worldwide market explosion would lead to a worldwide market correction. Yet other countries seem so surprised and angered that the U.S. has "taken them down" with them.

I suppose the natural response would have to be "and where did we take you FROM"?

Incoherent Ramblings, say hello to TwitterFeed!!!

2009-01-07T17:39:00.001-05:00

In an never-ending attempt to increase my readership to my blog, I have chosen to invoke the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse and push my blog feed to Twitter.

If you already enjoy my blog postings, then enjoy. IF you don't and were barely hanging on to my Twitter updates by a thread already, then I guess it's been nice knowin ya.

The NOISE....

2008-11-11T22:32:00.002-05:00

This past 18 months have been pretty interesting for me. After spending six years doing IT work for the Federal Gov't, I took a job with a silicon valley software company and haven't seen my house that much since. I figure out of the past 540 nights, I have probably spent about 300 in hotel rooms. Not exactly conducive to keeping those phenomenal abs I've always wanted. That's 300 days and nights of takeout, uncomfortable beds, crappy television, crappier air quality, and constantly feeling on the verge of being lost (18 months and still don't own a nav system. I'm a rebel!). That's a lot of nights without seeing your wife too, which is not too cool.

That all said, I wouldn't change it, not for the world. We all have to choose our path in life, whether it be an outright noble cause like defending our country by joining the military, the fire department or police force, or teaching children in developing or war-torn countries. All noble; all mean you'll never be home. I'm not saying running around writing software is noble by any stretch, but it fulfills as any other career does, or should. I feel good at the end of the day because I am able to provide comfortably for my family, gain some incredible experiences, continue to learn and use my brain (which is hard to do in a lot of jobs these days), and most of all, it's something I have a passion for. That's rare, something you often only find in those who work in some of the truly noble fields I listed above. So you could almost say that the more often a person is away form his home and family, the more passionate they must be about what they do, because that's what it probably takes to be away from the things you love and care about.

The reality is, for me, too many marriages become too much about some abstract idea of what you and your spouse are together. Some couples throw themselves full-force into each others lives and existence, and become one conjoined person. That's fine for some, but I'd guess not for others. The fact is, we all have our own life to live, and we all at the end of the day have to be able to look ourselves in the mirror and be OK with what we see. I love my wife to death and would do anything for her, but ultimately I can't make her feel fulfilled in life.

I have so many friends, good friends, who spend so much time focused on what their boyfriend or husband is doing that they pretty much just forget all about themselves. That's just tragic to me, because I have to think that at some point it becomes a tool to just avoid dealing with what isn't in their own life. And not begin happy with yourself: what you wake up and do every day, how you look, how you feel, is something that can certainly be avoided or masked by hopelessly devoting yourself to things all around you, but can't be avoided forever. I think that's the real but hidden danger with raising a family today. Society tells you that once your children are born, your life becomes completely devoted to them. Admittedly not being s father yet, I can't say from experience whether that's true, but I'd have to believe that it is. I know I will have no problem dropping my most earnest passion in life to be the best father I can be. But there really should be an asterisk by that really noble, beautiful selfless statement. The idea, when the framers of the ideal parent said that, was that first you should be happy with yourself. THEN, when you have children, you can devote your life to them and be truly fulfilled, even more than before.

I've always believed very strongly in that sequence, you know? It's not a foreign concept, it's a well-tread line to say you have to love yourself before you can really love someone else. And these days, as divorce rates climb, kids become more dissociated from their families, parents drift away from their responsibilities, you have to wonder why. Is it that our society has become morally bankrupt or that children today are more inclined to not want to be parented in traditional ways? Or that the prevalence of the internet, mass media, fast food, and video games, and era of instant gratification has ruined our ability to long for something better in life? I think that could be part of it. But again, I see all of that more as noise than a real root cause of what ails so many families today.

I read an article in Newsweek a few years ago citing that more than 10% of all kids were prescribed some form of antidepressant or on some treatment plan for Associative Mood Disorder or ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). I thought that was just ridiculous (not to go Tom Cruise on you), but TEN PERCENT?! Unreal. I started thinking about why all these kids were so much more messed up than my generation that they needed these meds and therapy just to be normal. I'm pretty sure if I was a kid today, I would have been diagnosed with ADD. I could never keep still or focus on anything. I WAS A KID. Pretty big part of being a kid, as I recall, was being hyper and easily distracted. Kids today arent' any different than they were 20, 50, 1000 years ago. It just gets easier and easier to distract them as more and more noise enters our lives.

When I say "noise", I mean distraction. Social Pollution, if you will. Youtube, social norms imposed upon someone they don't really believe in, 24-hour news cycles, online pornography, mp3 players, online retailers, universal remote controls, WIFI, all of this, in my mind, is noise; things that have been created to infiltrate our lives and alter our state of mind in one form or another. All of them have one thing in mind; instant gratification. Some more easy to connect than others, but all of thes things didn't exist even 20 years ago. Sometimes I don't think we'll be happy until we all are born with one big, red, shiny button on our ass that does whatever we want when we press it. and NOW.

Disjointed blog? Possibly. But I feel there's a connection there. With so much noise in our lives, so much distraction that so readily infiltrates how we think, feel, and communicate, how much time is left between us and ourselves? Not much. Kids today get older and older faster all the time, it seems, or in my view, just get more polluted with all this crap a lot earlier in life. I mean, by age 12, most kids probably have a blog, a facebook page, myspace account, flickr feed to keep up with, buddy lists of friends constantly pinging them, email from the same friends, some different ones, it's amazing they have time to go to school.

We fill our lives up with this noise sometimes and forget about the big things, the important things. Then the important things come, and we never set out to do what we really meant to do. I can't escape the feeling that our generation will end up of old, retired has-beens who are all sure we did a lot of important shit with our lives, but aren't really sure what it was.

I'm proud of my wife. Really proud. She spent four years bouncing around after school, from one job to another, went out and partied (good for her), we moved into the house and she really threw herself full-on into decorating and, I guess you'd call it "nesting". And after a couple years (and one painful trip to Australia), she realized that her life was shockingly devoid of purpose. She came back home and is studying as I type this for her GRE's, and is startging her graduate degree in Environmental Studies in the spring. So in six months she went from studying pottern barn catalogs to studying how to preserve Southeast Asia's water table. Not too shabby.

And I believe, at the root of it, she was awoken by her ability to filter out the noise in her life. We were dropped in Brisbane, Australia, with a crappy internet connection, 13 tv channels, no friends (other than the ones we made there, who are awesome!), and distraction. So little noise it was creepy. The fights came, and they went. That'll happen with 13 tv channels. She went through all the moods of the rainbow, and I believe came out the other side a changed and grateful woman. We were set on starting a family when we got back from Australia, but she came back with an even higher purpose: a belief that if she did not set out to achieve something great in life, that she would regret missing that chance well into motherhood, and possibly forever. And who wants to leave that kind of legacy behind.

OK, I get the irony here. It's a blog; by my own definition it is noise itself. But, I guess, call it noise wit ha higher purpose. Stop reading this, turn of the computer, go find a park and just sit down in the grass and spend an entire hour without saying a thing. No cell phone, no ipod, no nothing. Just be. I think you'd be amazed at how good it feels.

300 nights out of 540 in a hotel room have taught me this. I just thought I'd save you the trouble.

Election Wrap-Up

2008-11-05T22:13:00.003-05:00

We all lived to see history last night.

You have to admit, this has been an eventful decade. Not all good, but eventful nonetheless. We've really run the extremes so far in the 2000's, from the tragic (largest attack on American soil, largest mass murder in U.S. history, largest stock market crash in history) to the euphoric (largest stock market surge in history, proliferation of high-speed internet, public acceptance of global warming, legalization of gay marriage, first Black President).

Just think about where we were as a society a generation ago. Computers were the size of houses. Cars pushed 10 mpg. We were afraid of the commies and the Libyans. Most Americans did not have a college education, all citizens did not have equals rights under the law, women were expected not to work nor fight for our country, no 401k's, no supplemental insurance, no internet, the list goes on and on. Our parents were born into the Industrial Age, and their children are most likely going to see the end of it. In the next 20 years, we will witness the U.S.A no longer the dominant economic world power, and the predominant nationality in the U.S. not Caucasian. And we're just getting started.

If you're wondering what on earth this has to do with the election, you're probably a republican.

I have been reading some tremendous books lately. Books that have really made me stop and think not so much about the quantifiable history of the world these past ten years or so, but more about the momentum of things and where the trends we may or may not pick up on are invariably shaping our future. Lately, my thoughts have been shaped by the following three books:

1) The Way of the World by Ronald Suskin

2) The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman

3) Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

These books combine to tell a story; a stark reality that a lot of Americans would not want to look at, and no politician who wants to be re-elected would own up to. We are quickly declining as a superpower for all the reasons every great society since Ancient Greece; we took our eye off the ball. You could argue til you're blue in the face about the competitive advantage America has over the world; what sets us apart. Michael Porter would point to one of the Five Forces; I'd lean towards first mover advantage, since we had a country left after WWII. But it was more than that; it was the innovation that this country brought to the world table that not only bought us a seat, but the head seat. This innovation came from the fact that the brightest minds, whether born here (Warren Buffett) or were lured here (Albert Einstein) by the spirit of what America was; the land of limitless opportunity, open minds, and attainable dreams.

In a lot of ways, we are still that nation. But you take a decent look at where this country has spent its time and attention (and $$$) the past 8 years (I don't blame all this on Bush; I just picked 2000 as a reference point), it's been predominantly on national defense and healthcare. Healthcare for a country who no longer has the sense to take care of itself and defense spending that has outran any numbers we've seen (adjusted for inflation) since any time since WWII. This in a world where there are no enemies who could invade this country, nor would want to.

The decline in public programs spending has been epic. National parks, domestic infrastructure, education (sciences, arts, and mathematics), post-graduate education funding, you-name-it on the "liberal agenda", has been axed over and over again, to the point where I'm honestly surprised we graduate any musicians or scientists any more. Some may roll their eyes at this fact, but the reality remains that most countries in the world, even those less developed than ours, graduate more scientists, architects, mathematicians, and scholars than the U.S. does every year. China, in 2007, graduates more students with Master's degrees than we did students. Period.

We continue to shrug our shoulders and say, "so what"? We own technology. But for how long? Eventually, time will pass and the country's scientists and Great Thinkers will retire and move on to better places. And we will have a mass bankruptcy of intellectual property in this country. The bottom line: we're spending too much time and focus on the things that will produce immediate returns. We send all our kids to school to major in IT; an industry that has survived on fabricating its own demand, mostly out of its own immaturity and inefficiency. We only spend money on measurable things; things we can see with our own eyes, that bear fruit before the next election season. We can't even fathom the idea of investing in things we may not see the benefits of in 10, 20 years, maybe until after we are dead and our children have inherited the earth (can we say Environment???).

Barack Obama is not a socialist. He is not a terrorist. And he understands what I am talking about. He understands even if you do not; even if the majority of his supporters do not. Obama will make strides to better this world, and I believe he will do this even if it costs him a portion of his potential "legacy". But I don't think it will. FDR built the New Deal to put Americans back to work; but in that he gave us the second phase of the Industrial Revolution. He gave birth to the distribution system (highway system, trains) that has carried this economy to the top of the economic pile. His real contributions to this country weren't fully recognized until long after he left office. Truly great men recognize this and willingly make that sacrifice.

Such is the man we elected here, some 24 hours ago.

And So It Begins

2008-11-04T10:58:00.001-05:00

Let's make some history, people!!!

The Mos't Depressing Campaign EVER

2008-10-31T18:29:00.001-04:00

I think post people would agree this Presidential campaign has been pretty darn ugly at times. It seems to me that every four years, democrats and republicans alike engage in some unscrupulous, unethical "who-can-top-who" contest to come up with the most awful, baseless, slanderous piece of media possible to sling at the opponent. And this campaign has been no different: from carefully-chosen buzz words such as "Terrorist" and "Outsider" picked by panels of psychologists because they instill the maximum amount of fear in uneducated people to attacks on age and health issues that have no substantiation whatsoever, and border on discrimination.

But lost in all this (not totally lost, I have seen one or two articles, mostly op-ed pieces about the subject), is probably the most offensive tactic I have seen used this campaign; the lobbing around of Barack's associations with the Muslim faith.

Early on in Obama's run, and I suspect when he ran for State office as well in Illinois, there were rumors that Obama was "a Muslim". It echoed over and over throughout the primary season, prompting him to declare his Christian faith publicly (which then got him in another heap of trouble, thanks Rev. Wright!). It's been volleyed around McCain rallies, conservative pundit groups, chat rooms, and everywhere else with an almost universally negative connotation. That a Muslim would be unfit to run this country.

That scares the shit out of me. I can't decide whether I'm more scared that people would think that way or that the mainstream press has given so many a free pass to hurl such a horrible idea around like they are saying he's a known terrorist. Ipso facto, that's what the reference means in context. The very fact that the idea of a Muslim candidate would disqualify a person to hold the highest office in the country, a country who lists as the base of its entire list of freedoms, that of the Freedoms of Speech, Press, Assembly, and from Religious Persecution.

I'm a realist and understnad that while there exists a separation of Church and State, it's an arbitrary separation; a thin candy shell of a wall. People's faith drives some of the major platforms under which candidates run; abortion, wealth distribution (yes it existed before Obama mentioned it, it's called the Progressive Income Tax), and so on. So there are religious issues that are legitimately stitched into modern politics, but what we're talking about is starkly more sinister.

The reality is, seven years ago, we were attacked by a faction of radical Muslims and in that one swift series of horrific motions, a new prejudice was born. Muslims went form "backwards" to "scary" real quick. For a country who likes to think of itself as evolved, having finally granted blacks equal rights under the law and has started to level the balance of power long hoarded by "white, old guys", this should be seen as a major setback. How doomed is history to repeat itself if we not only allow these ideas and fears to become part of our culture, but allow it to be commonplace, or acceptable?

The fact is, the next generation is listening. In a country where we still unfortunately hear derogatory references to people of different races and backgrounds, most view it as their civic duty to try and correct those errant words and ideas as soon as they're espoused. David Duke became a political joke overnight for his (errant) argument that minorities were unfit to hold office. Jesse Jackson's presidential aspirations crashed and burned over a single derogatory reference to jewish neighborhoods in New York (and rightfully so). So what makes this so different, exactly?

Look, all sides are to blame on this. McCain's campaign should have immediately trashed this line of questioning, and Obama's campaign should have followed it up with "so what?" But none of that happened. And in this blogger's opinion, the world is just a tad sadder for it.

The Perfect Marriage.....Facebook and Blogger!

2008-10-30T17:30:00.001-04:00

OK, so this is sweet. For a while now, I have been pretty steamed there hasn't been a way to link the audience of friends I had on Facebook and/or Myspace with my Blogger site. Until I found this cool app (MirrorBlog). I am starting to get the idea behind coding these little apps. Maybe I'll try something.

If there's a good service out there you like, and you'd like to see it interface with Facebook, give me a shout. I'm always looking for good ideas for the next big webapp.

In the meantime, I may give a new API for Twitter a shot, cause the one they have now for Facebook suuucckkkss...

Enjoy the posts, I haven't updated my blogger site in a while, hopefully now that some people may read it, I'll try to hit it more often. I'll do one more election post, then I'll go back and hit some of the places I've been to in the past year or so.

Belated "We Are Marshall" Post

2007-07-15T02:52:00.000-04:00

I want to apologize, since I just saw "We Are Marshall" for the first time
last night....

In a nutshell, WOW, what a movie. I grew up aorudn the time of the
disaster, so I know all too well how hard it shook the football world, and
the country as a whole. The fact that the program continued on was
largely overlooked, I feel, and I think this film, while a little "Hollywood"
(and who can blame them, they did need to make money in the
process, it's a movie after all) really brought the point home....

...and I'd be lying if I didnt' say the recent events at VT weren't part of
my motivation in finally watching the movie. At a glance there's little
parellel, but when you think about it: a community, centered around a
sport, losing its heart and soul in a senseless tragedy, using that very
sport as a rallying point, and as I feel that part of this season, even if it
isn't said outright, will be to honor those taken this past April in our
togetherness, cheering on our team, as a family.

If you haven't seen the film, or if it's been a while, watch it again.
Honestly, I'd have to think that after what we've all been through, as a
community and a family, you'll see it differently.

Too soon.....

2007-06-28T09:03:00.001-04:00

Sports Unable To Heal Small Town Following Tragedy

Don't get me wrong, I love the onion, but.....

Akon Dry Humps 14 yrd on stage

2007-04-19T12:44:00.001-04:00

........wow

4/16/07

2007-04-16T16:01:00.000-04:00

32 dead.....and counting.

It started this morning, around 7am from the news reports that are available. 2 shootings, no one knows if they're connected. I can't believe two unspeakable acts would occur on such a wonderful place as VT on the same day, but who knows. With all the tragedy and reckless violence in this world today, just who knows.

32 students, faculty, maybe more. there are still many in the hospital being trated for gunshot wounds. 6 critical, last I heard.

I wanted to just take all my posts down again, I mean, who gives a shit about Rutgers or Don Imus at a time like this. Not me. That can wait. Forever for all I care.

I was worrying about the price of gas this morning. I was worried about how I was going to pay for my wedding. None of that matters. I feel selfish for even thinking any of it.

I remember the last time I felt like this. I think you all do too. It's amazng, how much death is enough to bring you back to that place? I don't think there's a number. 2973. 32. What's the difference when it all comes down to it. That many more people won't be alive tomorrow. That many more families in their darkest days.

I read about this week, this week in April, so many awful things have happened this week. Columbine. Waco. Now this.

If you read this, promise me you'll spend 5 minutes thinking about all the worries in your life. Then clear your mind (try to, I know it's hard) and spend 2 minutes thinking about all the great things you have. I'm willing to bet that list is 5 times longer and it only took you half the time to think of them.

We spend too much time thinking about all the things in life we don't have, all the things that have gone wrong, things we miss. Then today happens, or something like it. and it just all seems s petty. So silly, in the grand scheme of things.

If there's something, anything, to take away that oculd even remotely sound positive from all this horror, it's that.

I Hate Rutgers

2007-04-12T18:57:00.000-04:00

I've always been taught hate is a strong word....

But man am I pissed off today. What has happened over the past few days has been nothing short of a huge black eye, a goose egg on the face of Personal Liberties in this country. Today, CBS fired Don Imus, for referring to the Rutgers Women's Basketball team as a group of "Nappy-Headed Ho's".

I'm not going to go into a nother full-length tear about all the reasons this is messed up; with the amount of reporting this has gotten on the radio waves and news wire (nevermind a lot of them are just now making points I made days ago), I am going to try and come at this from a different angle, one that won't be repeated over and over.

The arguments are many. To use an overused phrase, Al Sharpton and the detractors of Don Imus over this fiasco have pushed American mass media down a slippery slope; indeed, where will this all end? I have no idea, neither does anyone else for that matter. There's the fact that during this assassination of Mr. Imus' character, little was said about the many things he has done and said for the black community. No, he's never been a civil rights activist, but he raises millions of dollars for sick children every year, to name one cause he champions. And the black community is still part of the world community, right? Or did I not get the memo that they now have their own completely different set of rules, authored by Al Sharpton?

This makes me so sick on so many levels, not just because of the blatant attempt to dismantle the first amendment, or by Sharptons overt actions to use this as leverage to exert influence over the FCC (by the way, I'd love to see him get the FCC to toughen broadcasting rules without them deeming 90% of rap songs as violations), it's because the nation seems to not really care that much. It's like a car accident happening in front of the country and everyone acts like it's happening on TV, when it's really right outside their window.

There was a time when people on BOTH sides would take to the streets and fight not dor Don Imus, but for what he represents in all of this. He never had a chance, the black community protested, the white community did nothing. Radio hosts, whose butts are on the line with this decision CBS made, hid behind their mics lobbying several half-hearted opinions, but not much more (O&A excluded, they opened up with all cannons). This man's career was hanged in town square; the most public victim of cruel and unusual punishment in quite some time. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, the Athletic Director of Rutgers University, these people did more in 4 days to re-write free speech laws than congress has done in 200 years. Doesn't that bother anyone?

I might sound like a doomsday blogger here, but how far out of reach is that exactly? No, Imus can't be brought up on charges, but he was effectively lynched by the media; skewered for saying something that is, in the words of his accusers, permissible to be said by some, but not by others. Doublestandards have no business in modern day society, and here, right now, we're letting yet another one be created.

this is far more reaching though; this is going to come back and bite everyone. It's not going to stop with white hosts and black victims. Oh no. Sorry Steve Harvey. You think your redneck jokes are safe now? Well, they are, but only because white people still have 250 years of reverse racism to sit through before we're allowed to complain. OK, how about those Mexican jokes? Think those are going to fly for long, once Latino leaders see what power they can gain with this type of stunt? And how they can squeeze politicians like Obama and Clinton into conditioned, almost Pavlovian-like responses? Yeah, it's all celebration now, but just wait until a black radio host gets taken out for saying something maybe just a little unacceptable. Setting a precedent like this is a dangerous thing, and the problem with letting the public dictate policy and setting precedents like this is that the public tends to not have very good long-term vision. No, the unruly mob never thinks about what is going to happen after the stores burn, the cars are flipped, the windows are shattered. They want justice, and often times at a price that ultimately, they are unwilling to pay.

So for anyone who is cheering today because Don Imus is gone, his personal liberties and protection of his livelihood by the Constitution be damned, well, you probably should have thought it through a little more. Destroying a man's career over something that personally offended you is one thing; again, it is subjective what people may or may not find offensive. But to remove all context form the situation and take the matter to the FCC as some sort of proposed rule is an attempt to make the decision an objective one, and that is something I sincerely hope no regulatory board will touch with a 10 foot pole. And how is that rule going to read, anyway? Do we hear the offensive statement, then google the person who said it to find out what race they are, then look at some web site that has a list of all public figured and which races they are allowed to joke about (it'll be easy to figure out for the white ones, they just get screwed).

No, my biggest gripe here are the corporations involved. CBS, MSNBC, Rutgers University. Rutgers, and especially the Coach, who in the hell do you think you are getting involved with this outside of making sure your players are ok? Your job is to provide an education, provide a safe environment for your students, and foster a creative, open environment for the students to operate in. Vivian Stringer, your job is even simpler. Your job is to teach them to play basketball. Not parade them up on stage, portray them as a bunch of wounded girl scouts, all the while putting your face out there as much as possible (hey, any publicity is good publicity,right?), and throw your hat in the ring. What is wrong with you? you aren't teaching these girls to stand up for themselves, you are teaching them to manipulate a situation and a defensive man who I bet if you were to explain the situation FULLY to them, would not harbor half the resentment you lead us to believe they hold in their hearts (after all, half the team is white, but who cares about them). CBS, MSNBC, you will reap what you sew. One of these days, corporations will have to stop acting like the people who run them and stand up to the big, ugly bully minority rights groups who take pot shots at these companies because they know they'll fold. I don't know when that day will come, but I'm glad the laws of this country and enough politicians have enough backbone to stand up for what is best for this country.

Just an honest question: What would have happened had Imus said something similar about the Rutgers Men's Basketball team? You think he'd be fired right now? I have some bad news for you if you think you do. And that's my point. I don't know what set this off, but this whole issue had been bubbling since the whole Michael Richards thing, and this was the flashpoint, the flint on the powder keg that set it all off. It'll be interesting to see what happens now form here on out.

And seriously, to my gay readers, how pissed are you that Imus got the boot for "nappy-headed ho's" and Isaiah Washington got a slap on the wrist and anger management for calling an actor a "faggot" at least twice and choke-slamming another actor for defending him? You have to be fuming right now. I know I'd be.

Racial Doublestandards

2007-04-11T11:48:00.000-04:00

Sorry to take today's blog off an yet another rant, but I feel as though I have an obligation to speak out on something in the news today. Last week, as many of you have probably already heard, famed radio host Don Imus got himself in a pot of hot water by referring to the Rutgers Women's Basketball team as "Nappy-Headed Ho's". He followed up this comment by a sincere Mea culpa on his show the following morning, and went on to launch a full-scale apology tour across the state of New York, including paying a visit to Al Sharpton's show to discuss the hot topic. Unfortunately for Imus, the interview did not go as planned (I don't know what in the hell he was thinking walking into a situation like that, doesn't he have an agent?), and indeed made things much worse for himself battling with the Reverend, even at one point muttering "I can't get anywhere with you people". That obviously set off round 2 of the racial firestorm, and it has continued through today and probably will for weeks.

Don Imus

My objections to what is happening to Don Imus are many, so I'm going to try and organize my thoughts for you, the reader:

1) The fact that this issue is overblown, and that his use of the term, in context, just wasn't that bad
2) The use of this small story by black leaders and black radio hosts to gain publicity for themselves by playing "the race card" in a most hypocritical fashion
3) NBC throwing Don Imus under the bus, sacrificing a man who has made millions of dollars for them by using very offensive content
4) The fact that with all the issues facing the black community today, this is the predominant issue
5) In the larger picture, yet another example of the racial doublestandard minorities place on the white community in this country (and how the black community's attempts to differentiate what is permissible language for different people serve to segregate society instead of unify it)

I don't need to say this, I feel like any time a white person takes on the issue of race, they have to issue a full disclaimer expressing how NOT racist they are, how many black friends they have, and so on. I'm like 90% of this country: I don't really even see race any more. Older folks don't want to admit it, because they like to fight about these issues, but young people today really don't see race any more. Yeah, I can tell the difference between a black guy and a white guy, but they're both just people. I'm the first generation raised in a largely desegregated society, and that's just what's going to happen. And I have opinions. So read them and agree, or read them and complain. This blog is not posted in hate, it's posted in frustration.

1) I don't know how many people out there listen to Imus. I don't regularly, but I have in the past and the guy is pretty consistent. He makes fun of everybody. EVERYBODY. He has slammed Oprah, The Kennedy's, Giuliani, the list goes on and on. All nationalities, all creeds. So if the Rutgers Basketball team and the Al Sharpton Media Circus want to take issue, so do about 1000 other groups. But they don't.....hmmm, wonder why? Starting with this point could get me into trouble, I mean, who am I to say whether "Nappy-Headed Ho's" is really offensive or not? I can't relate. But you know what? I've heard worse, on rap songs, on Comedy Central, on the news. And these athletes, these women are being used as billboards, posterchildren for a cause I doubt they believe in. And they're being used to empower another silly word or term tha really means nothing except for how people construe it. The fact is, it's the people who are objecting to Imus' use of the word that are giving it the hateful power they're claiming it has.

2) None of us are a stranger to Al Sharpton's tactics, nor were we surprised by Jesse "Hymetown" Jackson, has thrown his hat in the ring. Take an issue, one where there is no conceivable chance of this falling back on the black community taking ay responsibility, and hang the perpetrator. At the same time, get your mug on TV cameras as much as humanly possible. Anyone remember Tawana Brawley? you remember, th 15 year old girl who lied about being attacked by a white man, who Sharpton vilified on the national stage without examining for once second the facts of the case. The man was exonerated after police found Ms. Brawly had lied, and Sharpton was sued for defamation. But was he punshied by the media? Did Jesse Jackson lose his political career for making derogatory comments about Jews? No. In some cases, both of these men have used their spot in the public eue to do Good; everyone knows of Jesse Jackson's peacekeeping efforts in the Middle East and in other parts of the world. But it doesn't excuse them from inflaming arguments over sensitive issues, andblowing any racial issue that's in the newspaper out of proportion to capture headlines. And Sharpton's trend towards jumping into an issue before taking in all the facts infuriates me and should infuriate the black community.

3) NBC owes Don Imus a hell of a lot more than they're giving him. Are we really supposed to believe that the content of his show os 100% him, without ANY direction from producers or executives? They aren't aware that Imus draw listeners based on his controversial, but funny, viewpoints? Heck no. So are we then to believe the NBC was shocked, appalled, any of the choice words NBC Execs have used to describe this case, by anything other than Imus getting in trouble, as opposed to the content itself? It's just like what has happened to O&A, savage, Bubbe, and a ton of other radio talents, except Don Imus is a legend, has been a gold mine for NBC for decades, and deserves to be treated better. It's always a shame whe na DJ gets tossed under the bus for doing exactly what they were hired to do, but hey, that'ds part of the job and why they get paid so much. It's like built-in unemployment insurance. But Imus deserves at leasrt a second shot, advertisers be damned. And if NBC would stop making him apologize every 5 seconds, people owuld run out of things to write about and this would blow over. Remember Kramer???

4) I wanted to start out this point by posting a Bill Cosby quote, one speech I can think of right off the top is his speech at a commemeration ceremony for Brown vs. Board of Education (Kansas) but honestly, they were all so good, you just heed to read it yourself.

Pound Cake Speech

You read that speech, think about the great man Bill Cosby is, and ask yourself why so much energy is getting poured into a dumb comment by a radio talk show host? Of a hundred things the black community should be concerned with, Don Imus hsould be #99 or #100 (more like #10045), not #1. The whole issue has gotten so ridiculous that I am hoping it keeps gaining steam. Because at some point, the people involved are going to lose all credibility. It truly is becoming a parody of itself.

5) Which leaves us in the direction we're heading with race relations in this country. you take a racially insensitive comment, protest, bitch, moan, make rules about how language should be used and who should be allowed to use it, and you have distinct communities with their own dialects and permissiable ways to communicate and live. That's what Martin Luther King Jr. wanted, right? Oh crap. Wait, that's wrong. No, he didn't want that. I think he actually said something about us all living together, not standing around and intolerantly calling for people's heads, paying no mind to intent or context, making up rules for each race to live by.

Steve Harvey commented on the issue this morning (it really pisses me off a clown like Steve Harvey feels he's entitled to project his beliefs on anyone, let alone a large listening audience). Ths is what he had to say:

"If black people want to talk about each other a certain way, that's their option," he said. "Mr. Imus, you don't have that option. You can't say what I say."

He went on to say this:

"You can't fire white folk. You fire white folk, you'd best believe somebody gettin' shot that day. "I'm fired? I'll be right back, you sons of bitches." You fire a brother, we be mad for a different reason. "How come you didn't call me at home, m***********? You knew I was fired yesterday. Makin' me burn up all my g****** gas."

Oh wait, sorry, that second quote was from his stand-up act. you see, it's cool for Steve Harvey to joke that all white people are homicidal maniacs. I get it now.

It's been like this for years. Blacks seem to get carte blanche as far as racial humor is concerned. Most minorities do. Look what Carlos Mencia does on Comedy Central (hilarious stuff, by the way). But when that sense of humor jumps the racial fence into a white person's territory, now it's not funny any more, it's racist and cruel.

Personally, I'm sick of the double-standard. In my opinion, there's enough funny stuff in the world that race doesn't need to be comedy material for anyone. But I think that's how a lot of people deal with the fact that race was such a divisive thing for so long; to poke fun at it, and in turn, drain the venom. Fade the painful memoried with humor; it's human nature. But some, the Steve Harvey's, the Al Sharpton's, these rabble rousers need something to talk about, and they will use the indignant cry of fighting racism as their cover. But it's just a line, and what they're doing is far damaging that what any radio host could say. They bring the hate, the pain back into these meaningful words, and worst play judge and jury over who is and who isn't allowed to say it.

Maybe Mr Sharpton and Mr. Harvey can sit down and write a book of rules that all of us can use for racial humor. I know that would keep a lot of people out of trouble. They can work on that, and maybe we can deal with poverty, education, gang violence, drugs, all that stuff they can get to afterwards.

People in the media who take up race issues as their cause will never turn the flashlight on problems in their own culture because they're frequently attacked for doing it. the media crucified Bill Cosby for making the speech I linked above, even though is you do some research you'll find he was met with round s of applause throughout the speech and a consensus among Black leaders. His words aren't untrue, and I'm not even saying Sharpton, Jackson, and even Steve Harvey don't all feel the same way. They just don't want to get smashed for it. They take the easy way out. Hey look, a white guy just saidsomething stupid. Let's go get him!

I just hope we're all a little too smart to buy it.

I have been SANJAYAFIED!!!

2007-04-03T21:43:00.001-04:00

There. I said it. It took a while, I'll admit, but Sanjaya has finally reeled me in. I loved what VFTW was doing, if just to be obnoxious, Howard Stern throwing his hat in the ring added some comedy, but tonight....TONIGHT did it for me.

I mean....WOW. Just look at that coif. This guy is either ocmpletely oblivious to what is happening around him, or is a marketing GENIUS the likes of which this world has never seen. OK, maybe not that far, but I don't think he's a victim. I think he's enjoying the 15 minutes, much like this guy......

But he's got a little bit more going on upstairs. And I am really starting to think he might knock the freaking legs off the rickety table that is American Idol...

I guess I am an American Idol fan.....a big one, apparently. I blog about it lot more than I'd like to admit. But I jsut find it fascinating. Never before have I seen suc ha large chunk of America continue to believe pure hype. It's like millions and millions of Americans routinely fool themselves weekly into mistaking this show for a real talent contest, more than a reality show, more than profit maximizing television....something that somehow transcends all of that, no matter how many fact-riddled articles are written, how many candid interviews with former contestants there are, all saying the same thing: American Idol is a huge rip-off.

And America doesn't care! For that, I tip my hat. I like the idea of people saying "so what?" to reality for an hour a week (ok, 4 hours a week in the beginning!). I even stick up for the producers and how they routinely wheel awful singers across my TV screen so I can watch the judges destroy them...hey, they're adults, or they're borught to the show by adults, so somewhere along the line someone is responsible for makign sure they understand what they're sigining up for. But I draw the line at these maniacs who are all in a huff about what may be the greatest mass media prank ever perpetrated

ok...ok.....SECOND best......

People are soooooo mad that "Sanjaya is ruining the show". What is he ruining??? Ratings are up. The contestants all still sing. So what is he doing? Dashing "real singers" chances of winning? What about all the really amazing singers Idol producers never even let try out because they have a deeply and opely flawed screening process, at least on delivering the show's "true" premise. And what are the producers so pissed about? THEY put him there in the first place! you know what, though? The only thing they're MAD about is that trends like Sanjaya making it far into the show threaten its chances for long term success. Like every producer, they all think they're running M*A*S*H or Taxi, and their show will run for 400 years. It won't. AI won't. And just like the Germanic tribes brought down Rome, chiggers brought own the aliens in War of the Worlds, and I brought down Chuck Norris in a bar one time with a furious roundhouse kick to the jugular, someone just like Mr. Hung or Mr. Malakar will be the end of this show. People will stop believing it is what it is.....even though it's right there in front of them all the time.

So I applaud VFTW, Howard Stern and his listeners, and everyone who is calling in for Sanjaya. Because the sooner the poor, sad people who are "fighting for the purity of American Idol" have to opentheir eyes and see the show for what it is; a contrived, silly, heavily-marketed source for entertainment (and yes, a springboard for certain musicians, albeit musicians who are mostly already on somebody's springboard), and nothing more. It's what they want you to think it is....wake up. Wake up and spend a little more time focusing on something more important in your life. And really, just about anything, including checking the batteries in your alarm clock or polishing the bar that holds your roll of toilet paper, would qualify.

Long Lost Friends

2007-03-30T14:46:00.001-04:00

Despite the aches and pains of Myspace and other sites like it, the invasions of privacy, the overrunning of messaigng traffic with spam and viruses, the heckling by relentless perverts, having to check your friends for leaving profanity-laced comments when your grandmother is checking your blog daily, despite all this, I'd have to say websites like Myspace have done a lot for people in general, especially me. Probably the best thing it's done, besides giving me a place to drop a line and say hi to friends when I only have a quick second between meetings or I'm up way too late and cant exactly call and chat, is the way it's literally brought back friends "from the dead". I always thought it was so sad how as years go by, you get older and move into different phases of adulthood, and you lose touch with people who at one point in your life you couldn't imagine being without. It's usually whole groups of people, whether you become separated by physical distance, life choices, maybe a difficult ordeal, something happens to create this rift; at some point you just cut the connection. you may not mean to, I can honestly say most of my friends I don't keep in touch with isn't intentional, it just, sort of happens.
So it makes me wonder, is it a natural thing, a healthy thing, to drift apart for no good reason? Or is it my innate selfishness, my own self-service, tunnelvision if you will, that makes me so focused on what is important to me and my life, that I allow to let others just fade away? It may be, I think just about everyone would be guilty of that to a degree. And it has to happen to everyone, the lingering regrets of losing touch with people who at least used to mean so much to you, because most of the time, it takes just one phone call, an e-mail, a chance encounter, and the friendship can just spring back to life; sometimes better than before (usually with time comes wisdom).
I have a point here, I really do. I have let some of the most amazing people on this earth walk right out of my life (or I out of theirs) and that has probably been my one true regret in my life. And I have, in the past year and a half, found a few of them again. And that is something I'm proud of, and thankful for. I've spent a lot of my blogging career chastizing things, criticizing mentalities, politics, all sorts of things, mostly negative (negative is easier to write and I'm pretty damn sarcastic, it's a marriage of convenience), but lately I've desperately wanted to create something positive. Whenever myspace or facebook or any of those sites come up in conversation, it's usually negative. Dirty photos, copyright violation, blah blah blah. I tell whoever is whining to shut it. I say "look, I had my doubts, but I have been able to find (or have been found by) at least a dozen kick-ass people who I thought were just gone, people who at one point would have laid down and dropped dead for me if I asked them to, and who knows, maybe still would.....so, just give it a shot. you never know what could happen."
So to all my friends I had so shittily vanished on, I apologize. And for those of you reading this who I have been fortunate to be able to get in touch with again, I'm sorry, I love ya, and I swear the next time I am in Virginia, I owe a lot of people drinks!

American Idol - still just a show, right?!

2007-03-30T14:46:00.000-04:00

Spring television used to be a death sentence for those of us who enjoy a little night time TV before bed during the week. There's that awkward space between football and baseball, your favorite shows are in sporadic repeats gearing up for May Sweeps, it's still a little cold outside and gets dark a little too early, and for us students, classes are still in session, so happy hour is usually out of the question. What's a guy to do? Enter shows like American Idol (24 is a separate and blissful entity in and of itself, I will write that glorious 60 minute weekly experience later).
I've blogged about good ol' AI before, and I stopped, partly because I got bored with it and partly because my zeal was getting a little scary. I got way too into the show last year, to the point where my ramblings on hidden agendas and secret Seacrest-Cowell hair gel cross-promotions kind of horrified me. I took a break; a much needed one. But apparently when I took some time off, everyone else who watches this show apparently jumped straight off the deep-end. I've been really into this website I found lately, VFTW (www.votefortheworst.com), partly because it annoys people who worship AI like a false idol, partly because I love going against the grain and exposing anything flawed (like the AI voting system), and partly because it's just dang funny. The concept is genius, and this year it appears to finally be having a dramatic effect on the show's outcome (Taylor Hicks doesn't count last year, he actually had fans.....and talent). And probably the best thing to come out of this VFTW/Sanjaya phenomenon is exposing the sheer multitude of total whackos out there who have taken what used to be a fun little show and turned it into something bigger, and scarier than I ever thought possible...sort of like Oprah.
OK, let me run down how it works. American Idol relies on people to call specific numbers each week and each call is registered as a vote for that person. The person with the lowest number of votes each week goes home, til one is left (with the winner usually the result of the "lesser of the evils theory, which is a whole other problem with the method). Enter Vote For The Worst. This website promotes one of the "underdog" contestants (usually someone with no talent) in an attempt to dilute the voting pool and push the undeserving contestant through, thus exposing how easily skewed AI's method of determining a winner is (essentially making the judges, and singing portions, obsolete). Genius!
The byproduct of this, of course, has been the intesne backlash of some of the AI fans out there......who really, really need something better to do with their time. The guy running the website receives copious amounts of death threats and other threatening e-mails every day........DEATH THREATS. Over a gussied-up version of Star Search (but with a crappier way of determining the winner). AI has their own website where fans can post messages about their favorite singers....and it just gets scarier from there......if you're feeling bored, hit up Amazon and check out some album reviews for some of pervious seasons "winners" (some of the people did not actually win, but whatever)....you'll see what I mean.
It's one thing to say that a show like American Idol will eventually become a parody of itself. It's a virtual certainty, as the goal of any show is to generate maximum profit. They're ALWAYS going to go too far. But I get concerned when the fans go further than the show, well into the realms of pure lunacy. People have more important things to worry about than a silly show....I don't need to tell you that. But more than pop hysteria, it's just one more sign that people today are starting to lose their grip on reality on a larger scale. I genuinely fear for a society who puts more emphasis on Sanaya Malakar than soldiers dying overseas or devastating pandemics wiping out entire generations. A 19 year old kid with a mohawk screeching on my TV every week? That's the problem???

Blogging 2.0

2007-03-30T14:32:00.000-04:00

No, your computer is not broken.

Any visitors have probably noticed a change around here, on this blog....namely, there's nothing here! Well, I have an explanation for that. See, it's been about a year and a half since my last blog, and I felt it was time for a change. First, a little history...

When I first really was getting into blogging, I was all about the freeflow thought; the here, the now, whatever was on my mind just came out on the screen, and out into the world. You do that for a while, it feels good, even therapeutic....but then something happened. I took some time off, life went on, and I made the biggest mistake a blogger can make....I went back and re-read my old posts.

I'll be honest, they were pretty funny. But there was an overriding theme that just ate away at me....they were just so.....NEGATIVE. Filled with profanity, overly-general statements, stereotypes, needlessy scathing sarcasm.....it occurred to me reading all this that most people who read it don't know a thing about me. This is all they now... and some probably think I'm a jerk because of it. Truth be told, I am a nice guy. My sense of humor has always been a little "off"; I wouldn't say Andy Kauffman life because he was WAAAYYYY funnier (that would be like comparing a drunk streetfighter to Muhammad Ali...they they both stumble around and look silly, but one could kill you with one punch and the other was just plain silly). But I'm funny. And a lot of my humor has always come from sarcasm. But you know, it's erasy to write funny stuff down, matieral made funny out of the pure shock of it, the uncensored wit, but at who's expense? I'm not saying I'm afraid to insult people, never really have especially if some good can come out of it, I'm just saying I have learned there's more than one way to drive a point home; and doing it in a slightly more socially repsonsible manner, well, now that's what I call Blogging 2.0

It's not code for inserting Biblical quotes into my blogs (although if it'll help make my point, don't think I won't do it), I haven't been born again (although I will admit, my spiritual life has taken on a greater importance), I'm not afraid to curse or upset people, but I feel like I need to make a case for the internet maybe not being such a cesspool of humanity. I am saying you can make points, you can criticize, you can argue, and you can do it without being obnoxious and counterproductive.

The truth is, I blame Britney Spears. I really think that whole head-shaving incident really was the final straw....how depraved are we going to become that watching the unwinding of a young girl's psyche moves more newspapers than governmental conspiracies and bloody battles our young men and women are dying in on a daily basis? My blog is not going to change any of that, not in and of itself. Eudora Welty once said "All serious daring starts from within". Well, I believe that, and I'm going to use this blog as a way to make my case.

Watch and enjoy, or watch and cringe. It may not work, I may totally lose focus and choke on my own ability to make an entertaining read something I can actually show my own parents.....but I sure as hell am going to try.