What Are You Going to Do with That?

This has got to be one of the best things I’ve read in a long time.

It is based on the commencement address given to the graduating students of the Department of English of the University of California at Berkeley by Mark Danner in the Hearst Greek Theatre, May 15, 2005.

So I went biking with Dimitri and my friend Steve yesterday.

We were about 5 miles from where we started out, when we decided to traverse down a hill to a pond down at the bottom of this ravine. We were almost to the bottom, where there was a small (estimated by Steve at 12 feet) cliff. It was actually more like an 8 foot cliff, then a little ledge, then another 4 foot cliff after that.

Well, I was riding along the ledge, and about to hit a stump, so I turned slightly more downhill to avoid the stump, which shifted my weigh just enough to make it impossible not to go flying off the fucking ledge. So I tried to kick the bike off, in the hopes that I could get down to the ground quick enough that I didn’t follow the bike off the ledge. I almost accomplished that, being that I actually did hit the ground at the top of the cliff. But I had some difficulty with my right toe-clip…I think. I’m not really sure what happened, although I did hit the ground at the top of the cliff, I didn’t stay there long. Anyway, the last thing I saw was the bike sailing over the edge…then I felt myself hit the ground, then a little freefall, then hit the little ledge, slide, and fall another 4 feet, where I landed on my backpack, complete with a Nalgene bottle lodged under my left shoulder.

Either from the right toe-clip not letting my foot out, or due to some other part of the accident, my right ankle ended up twisted and sprained like a bastard…and I have a nice bruised and sore shoulder from where I landed on my Nalgene bottle. But other than that, and a few assorted scrapes and bruises, and I came out OK. I’m way less injured than you would assume someone who had just fallen off of what I fell off of would be. I was looking at the cliff after I fell, and couldn’t believe I was actually OK enough to even stand up. At least I didn’t land on any rocks, or branches that could have impaled me.

The worst part was that I then had to climb back up the hill with a screwed up ankle, and then ride 5 miles back out to the car.

So I came home, iced and elevated the foot, and drank some margaritas. So at least the day ended OK.

Why smart people defend bad ideas - scottberkun.com

Put simply, the fact that you’re not dead yet doesn’t mean that the things you’ve done up until now shouldn’t have, by all that is fair in the universe, already killed you. You might just need a few more data points for the law of averages to catch up, and put a permanent end to your short term thinking.

I thoroughly enjoyed this essay, and you might too.

I was reading over on lolo’s site about how he feels guilty for downloading all his music, and never buying it.

I’ve gone through those same pangs of guilt, and trust me lolo, they pass. Don’t go doing anything rash by blowing your money on CD’s.

The last time I let the guilt take over, I bought what was for a me a rash of CD’s over several months in 2003. It was somewhat sparked by me chatting with an old high-school friend. We always used to share music recommendations (and in fact, he introduced me to my Big 3 Artists - but that’s a story for a different time), and we quickly fell back into the same dynamic after not speaking for a few years. I ended up buying the following, before I got it back under control and stopped.

That was it, until 2004 when “Smile” by Brian Wilson was released, which obviously had to be purchased. “Smile” is the only album I can think of I’ve purchased recently specifically for the purpose lolo talks of when he says he wants to somewhat “endorse” an artist. I simply couldn’t believe that Brian Wilson was actually doing it, and couldn’t stand the thought of it flopping. So I felt I had to do my part.

I didn’t buy another CD after “Smile” until this month, when I bought “69 Love Songs” by The Magnetic Fields. It’s a three CD set, and so far, I haven’t played any of the actual CD’s. I just read the liner notes (which contain an extensive interview with S. Merritt) and then put it on the shelf.

I guess the way I’ve rationalized it to myself is somewhat a bastardization of a point Robert Fripp used to make. A musicians job is to play music, not to play it once, record it, and live off it forever. I consider going to actual shows to be supporting the artist, and that a CD shouldn’t be any more important than any other promotional tool.

Not only that, I don’t really like CD’s anymore. They seem quaint. They occupy too much space for the amount of music they hold. You can damage them really easily. You can only listen to a little more than an hour of music before you have to change CD’s. I know it’s going to come off as sheer iPOD snobbery, but really, once you have one you CANNOT even think of going back. Since receiving my iPOD and more recently my first Mac, I’ve become and unabashed Apply fan-boy, so take that for whatever disclaimer you want.

I still buy CD’s when I know the liner notes contain something I want, or when I really can’t fathom an album by a band I like flopping. But I don’t do it because of guilt. If you aren’t going to some crazy indie store, or buying your CD’s out of the artists van, you aren’t doing that much to really support them anyway. An easy way to check if the artist you are attempting to support actually *needs* support or not, is to search MTV.com. If the artist has a page there, keep your money unless you just absolutely love the artist (such as my Brian Wilson buy) and simply must have the actual CD.

The caveat to all that, that really destroys my own internal reasoning, is that I’ve spent countless hundreds of dollars on used vinyl LP’s in the last few years. They are bulkier than CD’s, usually somewhat damaged as soon as I get them, and contain even less music than a CD. And while many of them have indeed been recorded, cleaned up, and placed on the iPOD, vinyl is stil a pursuit relatively removed from my day to day listening habits. It’s more like treasure hunting. I can’t imagine stopping. Since I’ve moved out of my old apartment, I don’t even have a turntable hooked up, and I have boxes and crates of records occupying most of the free space in my room simply because I don’t trust putting them in storage. But that didn’t stop me from spending $20 a piece on two 12 inch first release singles from the UK. (Chris Raven’s “I Know You Love Me Too”, and the Thrillseekers/Binary Finary Remixes of Ascenion’s “Someone” - because I’m still a big Trance nerd at heart.) I haven’t played them, just bagged them, tagged them, and stuck them into their spot in the crates.

Oh, and just so you know…most of the vinyl I buy is not electronic stuff. Those are just two big tracks for me that I had to have. Although my vinvyl obsession did start in the electronic realm, my non-electronic collection has since overwhelmingly dwarfed my “electronic” records.

So anyway, to wrap this mess up, I say go to the shows, live music is what it’s about anyway. I’d rather support them by watching them do their jobs, rather than furthering the idea that recording success are the be all end all of an artists career. And start an obsessive compulsive habit of buying records you’ve never heard for $2 used, on vinyl. It’s great fun.

Soldiers lived in remote hideout since WWII

Wow…if that doesn’t have “potential movie plot” written all over it, I don’t know what does.

||Link Here||

It makes me feel so much better to know that our government just makes mistakes with intelligence just like anyone else, and doesn’t actively plot to deceive us.

US Poor Fare Badly by Comparison

We certainly do know how to take care of our own here in this country.

Anyway..the article contains some rather eye opening numbers to toss around next time someone starts bashing on the Canadian or European social safety models. Such as, “A table available at the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe shows that the life expectancy for American women in 2000 was less than for women in 11 of the 15 European Union countries, Canada, and even Israel, while for men, it was less than for all but one (Ireland) of the 15 EU members, Canada and Israel. ”

Israel? The place where they are supposed terrorists killing everyone one necessitating the construction of the apartheid wall, and they still have a longer life expentency than we do?

Madness I tell you..

Apparently June 21st 2005 is “Go Skateboarding Day.”

I’m going, even though I haven’t really skated for about a year, since the time I crashed after drunken hooky-bobbing behind my friends BMW through our apartment complex parking lot at 2:00 am.

Not sure where I’ll go. Probably downtown. I got a really interesting comment from a guy there one time, which as I remember it was “Oh…skateboards….no better sign of a misspent youth.” I was about 22 at the time I think. Dick wad.

Man what I would give to go back to my youth when I basically got waste whole summers just skating around various towns, primarily Oroville, California. Shit was totally awesome back then…or at least it seems like it was when I look back on it.