the curious case of kobe bryant

Bill Plaschke wrote a piece on Kobe Bryant this week and while I usually do not care for Plaschke's work, and in this piece I think he was perhaps friendlier than necessary, I agreed with the main thrust of the piece. Kobe has been paying dues for a few years now and if I am, mad at him or disillusioned for his public mistakes, perhaps it is time to let bygones be bygone.

Plaschke's article was an excellent piece, (for an LA Times Sportswriter.) He may go a bit far in his love of Kobe, but at the same time he is right in proclaiming everyone else hard on him. The tricky thing about Kobe is the fact that the criminal justice system has either forgiven him, exonerated him or excused him, depending on how you want to look at it. That being the case, the Lakers and the NBA were/are only too happy to have him back on the court increasing the value of their product.

The tricky spot to be in is ours. For fans, this situation is a bit like knowing someone who has committed a murder, (let's just say,) but for whatever reason we are forced to live with this person and every single day, the person is just as nice as can be. The murderer is cordial and chatty, a good listener who gives of himself, has a sense of humor and is warm. In other words, we would be inclined to like the guy in every other way were it not for the fact he killed a person. But as time passes, and the nice input of the everyday interaction grows into a mountain of personal experience. . .(I guess it may be like the prison guard who grows close to a convict,) I think we forget or forgive or simply lose identification with the sin we still know of.

Kobe goes to work every day and he plays for my favorite basketball team. I see him doing his best all the time. I think he probably raped that girl in Colorado a few years back, (or at least had intercourse that was not concensual,) and that is unforgivable. I don't know for certain-it's just my feeling. I would never consider him a role model for myself or anyone else. I do find him to be immature on the whole. He lacks a certain grace, perhaps it is humility, actually.

I remember Jordan putting 63 up on the Celtics one year, (and if memory serves, it was in the playoffs.) I was living in japan so it had to be '86 or '87. I was stunned. I was wearing his shoes but I was still stunned. 63 points?! In this era?! Wilt was a physical specimen in his era unrivalled, but 63 points against a team w/ bird and mchale and parrish?!

I missed the game the other night. I had been watching sports earlier and had to give up the remote to maintain relations at home. (By the time the game against Toronto was on, I believe I was watching a movie called Hitch w/ my fiancé. Imagine the bullet contacting my chranium, shattering my skull and boring into my gray matter.) Bummer I missed it but I did get to see the highlights the next day on Sportscenter and as Kareem said, the variety I saw on the tape and in the box score is amazing. 7-14 from the 3-point line? 60% shooting from the field?! 18-20 from the line?! (Those are from memory so if there's a slight error...) that's 18 more points than Jordan scored when he impressed me so. 81? Yep, 81. 81!?!

I don't know if Jordan's performance was more impressive because he was playing a great team and it was the playoffs or if Kobe's was because he went for 81!?! I'm sure Kobe's field goal percentage was higher. I know Kobe is easily the closest thing this league has seen to Jordan since Jordan, and that is primarily because of his jump shot and the elevation he gets in order to shoot it. He is not Michael Jordan. Not today anyway. Then again, at 27 he may just be entering his prime. And with three championships under his belt and a lifetime of experience to draw on, I am closer to believing he could eclipse Jordan today than ever.

So it's hard to hate Kobe these days. He keeps showing up for work and perhaps thanks to Phil, he is getting better, (light years better than last year.) In my memory, he is likely a sex offender, but still, every third night or so, he is there, entertaining me while I eat dinner or play with my daughter. There is no one guy in the NBA who can stop him from scoring. Only a few teams have shown successful strategies for limiting his game. He plays defense like a mule: work, work, work. His shot is like chocolate. His sneer is fun to watch and his late game game, is unparalleled in the league today. He's so entertaining they should play scott Joplin when he walks on the court every night. And I can't help myself but re-embrace this guy.
To err is human and in so much as we have seen his errors, unlike just about any private person, he is super-human. Maybe having him in our faces every night doing daring acts of do on a basketball court is a lesson for us to know that even a sex offender can earn pardon by avoiding more trouble and being a responsible citizen in the time after the sin was committed? I don't know.

Native American tribes had very little crime in their midst in the days before this continent was invaded. When a man committed an undesirable act, he faced utter ostracism. I understand he could win his way back into the tribe but it took a considerable amount of time constantly showing regret and making amends. Because of that process and because of the consistency of treatment within the tribe, offenders were rare. That is not our world.

Our criminal justice system is set up to favor the wealthy, which explains why Kobe was not locked up and the key thrown out. He greased the machinery of justice plenty and while he still has endured much public derision and surely some personal problems, he avoided jail and a conviction. So maybe from Kobe we glean the essence of a dysfunctional system and we understand the nature of our society and its need to trade on commodities? I don't know.

Still, I think it is worth considering the duality within myself. I disdained Kobe both for the likelihood he committed a major crime, (a reprehensible act,) and for an immaturity evident in many of his public acts. And now he is in my face. And now he had a brilliant night, one for the ages. And now I find myself rooting for him more and more. And now I am supporting him for the MVP award, (stipulating the Lakers must make the playoffs.) It's not like suddenly I adore all things Kobe, but all things considered, I find I am rooting for him again. I don't know if this makes me a hypocrite or an ignorant or a dullard, I mean, I feel like a reasonable man, but I am, I'm rooting for him again.

freedom!

i've known for nine days now. tommy got parole.

he is still on the inside and said it could be up to two months before he is outside but he had three years lopped off of his sentence and i am ecstatic about that. he called me that evening and said he had talked to my dad but asked him not to say anything to me as he wanted to reach me and tell me himself. and he was excited. i could hear it in his voice.

he sounded like a reprieve. he sounded like the tommy buried deep down, the one not allowed to come out in prison, the goofy kid who used to tickle himself under the arm to make me laugh, just a little. i think that tommy is surfacing now. headed up. coming for some fresh air and so much more.

and i could not possibly be happier for him and for little tommy and for irene and for myself and for my dad. . .

i have spent brief times in jail in my life. the four days in los angeles county nearly killed me, or at least it felt like that. it wasn't simply the freedom restrained that felt bad, it was the cave mentality that was so utterly disheartening.

in jail, (at least in our jails and prisons in this country and i doubt they get much better elsewhere,) man can be seen going back a few centuries in time. as we evolve, we unevolve when conditions change. in jail i saw people hiding contraband in their rectums. i saw the world change from this big-brained man's world we live in back to the big man's world of yesteryear. there is no reasoning in jail. their is only muscle, power and brutality.

so i hope tommy did not lose himself. i hope the part of him that was buried deep down makes it to the fore and allows him to warm up, to warm up to his son and his family and the strangers out on the streets and the cops and the robbers and the homies and the man.

and if he wants to talk about it, henry shared a coldplay song with me the other day after reading my previous blog posting, i am here and would love to talk and help and be helped.

talk (by coldplay)

Oh brother I can't, I can't get through. I've been trying hard to reach you, 'cause I don't know what to do.
O brother I can't believe it's true. I'm so scared about the future and I wanna talk to you. Oh, I wanna talk to you.
You can take a picture of something you see. In the future, where will I be?
You could climb a ladder up to the sun, or write a song nobody has sung or do something that's never been done.
Are you lost or incomplete? Do you feel like a puzzle you can't find your missing piece? Tell me how you feel.
Well I feel like they're talking in a language I don't speak. And they're talking it to me.
So you take a picture of something you see. In the future, where will I be?
You could climb a ladder up to the sun, or write a song nobody has sung or do something that's never been done. Do something that's never been done.
So you don't know where your going and you wanna talk. But you feel like you're going where you've been before.
Tell anyone who listens that you feel ignored. And nothing's really making any sense at all.
Let's talk, Lets talk. Let's talk, Let's talk

parole

my brother sees the parole board today. everybody is optimistic. everybody is guarded.

tommy has been away for five years now. he has has missed 6-11 of little tommy's life. (he has missed 2-16 of his older son levi's life, but that is another story.)

don't ask me what tommy did to end up in prison. i don't know. i know about the running from the law and i have some idea about some past activities and i know what he was incarcerated for in nevada but i don't know why he was extradited back to colorado after serving two years in the silver state. i don't want to know.

in the past i have asked tommy what got him into trouble and he has himmed and hawed and looked away and smiled, exposing a mix of shame and pride and reluctance to share. and that was that.

for me what's done is done. i want tommy to get out of prison and to become a positive force in the lives of his sons. i look to the future.

the parole board will know exactly what tommy did, why he is imprisoned. when they look at him they will see the tattoos and the hardened exterior. in his file they will see his gang affiliation and perhaps his status within the gang.

i have no idea what criteria the board will use in determining tommy's fate. i guess they will consider his record since he has been on the inside. i suppose time served will be a factor. i assume they will take into account his original crime or crimes.

i hope they will be fair. i hope they will consider their own sins of the past. i hope they read the letter i sent them and i hope they appreciate how i shortened it out of respect for their busy lives.

here is the letter i faxed to tommy's parole officer last week to be presented today to the people who are to consider paroling him.

January 4, 2006
Faxing to (719)555-4168
Esteemed Members of Parole Board,
I have condensed a much larger letter into the following bullet points to entreat you to consider my brother for parole. I appreciate your consideration on Tommy’s behalf.
· Tommy has been absent for five of the most fundamentally important developmental years of his son’s life.
· It will be a challenge for Tommy to reassert himself into Little Tommy’s life and effectively parent him again so that Little Tommy can avoid the mistakes of his father, but it is important Tommy gets home and gets involved and becomes a force for positive change in the life of his 11-year-old son.
· Tommy has assured me he will do his best regarding his family and abstain from committing any acts of crime in the future and I believe him.
· My trust does not come easily. Tommy takes it seriously. I have never written a letter on his behalf, nor would I again if he were to let my nephew down.
· I am 40-years-old, (five Tommy’s senior,) and I have a 14-month-old daughter Tommy has not yet met, and I am getting married for the first, (and hopefully only,) time of my life on May 6, 2006, in Claremont, California, and I am hopeful my brother can attend this occasion and meet his niece; Terra Tresina James.
· Tommy and I have never met our biological fathers and our mother spent her life incarcerated before dying of a heroin overdose when Tommy was 15-years-old. This is no excuse but I hope you recognize statistical likelihoods and will consider giving Tommy the chance to change the direction of his life.
· I cannot guarantee Tommy’s future behavior but I promise you I will do my best to influence him positively as it relates to abstaining from his former ways. I am always available for my only brother and I mean to help.
Thank you so much for your time and consideration. Please feel free to contact me for any reason at all.

Sincerely,
Michael J James

i hope my letter helps.

mi ninez loca

terra is 14 months and it is odd to realize how deficient her long term memory is at this point. soon, she will lose all recollection of this time, of these first three years or so, really. (Ah, but i will remember.)

this and a friend's blog entry have had me thinking about my earliest times of consciousness, specifically what i remember and how different the world was through my eyes.

when i was three and four i lived with my grandpa and his next wife after my grandma, lupe. lupe was from mexico and for all intents and purposes, she was my mother figure from 3-8.

i remember spending my days at lupe's feet. wherever she was in the house, i tended to play on the floor near her, and this was usually in the kitchen. the smell of albondigas and menudo and pozole were so familiar to me i thought something was wrong when i would go into someone else's house and it did not smell the same.

i remember holidays, how i had to get up early with lupe and go from one end of la puente to the other to aunt virginia's house so they could start making tamales at 4:30am. aunt virginia's tv seemed to only get channel 9, which in those days was known as khj, so i would get a blanket and curl up on the floor in front of shows that were not cartoons and held no value to me whatsoever, (but everyone was sleeping and the outdoors was frosty so my choices were limited.)

i remember my cousin rudy eventually waking up on those holiday mornings and emerging from his room for me to pester. he was a bohemian, i think now in retrospect. i mean, he fits all the criteria. he was never in good standing with his family. he played the guitar. he was smarter and more insightful than everyone else as far as i was concerned. i remember years later when he moved to el monte and we visited him once and his tiny apartment was overrun with clothes and junk and food wrappers and how everyone verbally chastised him for this behavior. i think his mind was on higher things than tidiness.

rudy taught me how to play chess. he taught me well, too. we played virtually every time i showed up at his house, on east prichard street, and i remembered all through my adolesence and still play and have taught others. i read somewhere that chess exercises the brain in such a way it allows certain synapses to remain working substantially later into life than what happens in the brains of those who never played the game.

thank you, rudy. what ever happened to you? my inner child misses you.

i remember wrestling with lupe's youngest son, the only one who was still around for me; luis. everyone in the family called him squeaky-i do not remember why. it is a sad thing to lose memories. it is not so sad it makes one want to cry but it is sad. you feel as though you didn't care so much to have lost your grasp on the handles of factoids, to have let these little treasures slip away when you weren't paying attention.

luis used to torture me affectionately. he'd pin me and tap my sternum until i thought my head might explode. he'd let loogies drip out of his mouth and dangle over my face before sucking them back up, (usually.) in addition to pendejo, cabron, puto, dont-do, and chinga tu madre, he most definitely taught me how to say "tio?!"

relatives tell me i was fluent in spanish when i was four and five, but i don't recall that. i remember being comfortable with certain words for certain times of the day or certain events but both of my vocabularies were fairly limited in those days.

my best friend on greycliff avenue in those days was raymond, who lived down the street and was one year younger than me. no one in his house spoke english except him so when i showed up at his door, there was always a limited conversation of recognition and fetching raymond. i think he learned his english from me and he never could say lupe. for some reason he called her snoopy.

there were twins a few houses up the street from me named rafael and gustavo but they were two years older than me. still, they were good friends to me and i wonder what happened to those guys.

i loved that neighborhood. years later i moved to downtown la and lived there and in hollywood from 9-11. my mom's husband was mexican and the neighborhood was mexican and all of our friends were mexican but it was different from la puente. puente trese was like a street gang on training wheels compared to alpine, the members of which were ubiquitous in my life during those years. some got shot, some went to jail, but always the turnstile of people arriving and leaving and when those years concluded and i moved in with my uncle mark, he had just bought the house on greycliff avenue from my grandpa so lo and behold, i was back in la puente. back at del valle elementary school, (except on thursdays when i bussed to nelson school for an extra learning period.)

but lupe was no longer with me. she and my grandpa had moved to montebello. i came to a startling conclusion when i returned to my old neighborhood, i now lived with white people. to compensate for such misfortune, i did everything i could to look mexican. i begged for a black pair of hush puppies and i tried hard to wear an outfit with a button-down, blue shirt that i most identified as the uniform of my people.

to the kids in la puente, i wanted them to know i had came from la. i wanted them to know i had done time in mclaren hall in el monte. i was 11, this was the 6th grade, and i needed to out-mexican these kids by being harder then them. sure enough, with an attitude like that, i started getting into a lot of fights. i beat up a white kid named mark and two days later his older brother and another kid pummeled me but good. (i had to make up a skateboard accident to hide my new tendencies from an aunt and uncle i needed to impress.)

the culmination of all this was a fight with the school bully, a kid named jimmy who was seriously a foot taller than me. he had stalked me for about a week and i got tired of looking over my shoulder so one day after i school i tore of in his direction, sprinting from across the playground and screaming at the top of my lungs too. he turned and adopted an odd look. he was surprised and it was like he didn't know what to do. he put his hands up as if to box and braced himself and i remember jumping up on him, clasping my legs around his torso, (we fell,) and i started punching him on both sides of his grotesque chranium. it didn't last long. the screaming and the interminable sprint attracted much attention and i was pulled off him quickly but he had a bloody nose and was crying, literally, crying, in front of everyone who was there. i was still raging but i can remember the recognition that he was crying making me feel like quite the little champ.

not long after that a kid popped me in the eye and i had to tell my uncle it was from a fight. i painted myself the victim and wasn't punished in any way but i think my aunt and uncle moved us to covina in part because they thought the brown neighborhood was a little rough. . .

and it was in covina i lost my mexijo. (my mexican mojo.) covina had maybe 20% mexican families but the other 79% were white. white like dirt bikes and boats and long hair on boys and baseball not beisbol. white like led zeppelin-these people had never even heard of the chi-lites. the vitalis, ricky ricardo flip i had in the front of my hair was suddenly out of style and i'm pretty sure i was voted on to covina people magazine's ten worst dressed list.

but then one day i realized, i really am white. i really am, and was. the 25% of me that is of filipino descent may have given me a skin color similar to that of my mexican brethren and i suppose the white kids identified with me even less than the mexican kids, but 75% of me is white. (mostly irish with perhaps a bit of either german or english or welsch, or all three, and possibly a sliver of native american cherokee a few generations back on the white side but basically, a big mix of paleskin.)

i adapted quickly. i ran for class president, (basically as "the new kid,") and lost by 3%, (to the white girl i had a crush on; sally.) i played little league baseball and because of my own personal development, everything was just getting better in those days.

my little chicanito self fell away from me like a favorite coat that suddenly lost its lustre and just didn't quite fit anymore. in my heart, it remained; my love of the mexican culture, (as i knew it.)

i often tell people today i was mexican from 3 to 11, or that i was once a mexican, migrant farm worker. i cherish the memories i retain. i hold on to the idea that as a 6 or 7-year-old boy i lived in a mobile home in nipomo and bussed into santa maria to go to school and we picked strawberries when they were in season and potatoes when they were, and my uncle george dug for clams at 5am at pismo beach and how ricky went off to the marine corps and suzy drove a little blue karman ghia and how connie used to take me to the beach with her and the smell of fresh tortillas and authentic mexican foods and the sounds of their rolling r's when they would refer to the barrrrrio or when luis taught me to say viva la raza and the 'r' was hard, rolled like a taquito, and 'z' sounded like the 's' in style.

i don't miss it. i only cherish it. i miss my people, the ones i lost contact with because of the behavior of ridiculous adults.

i heard both uncles and one of my aunts all succumbed to diabetes. both my uncle manuel and uncle george lost limbs before ultimately dying. my aunt aurora is supposedly still living in santa maria, likely in the same house right across the street from the park with the rocket with the slide in it. i hope she is well and i hope robert and isaac, my once "cousins," are also thriving.

i have not seen nor heard from connie nor luis nor any of the others in close to 20 years.

in my 30s i remember looking around one day and realizing all of my friends i hung out with on a day-to-day basis were mexican and it did not surprise me.

my mexican friend who writes like garcia-lorca and who wears his mexicanness right next to his heart on his sleeve like a badge of honor, takes me back with his writing. (every time.) and i have to say, it's good to remember. it's good to have a history even if it is just your own and not that of a race of people.

persons of the year?

"For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are Time's Persons of the Year."

i am not clear as to how i feel about this situation. on the one hand, i have adored bono for years. i like his music and i like his positivity, (for lack of a better word.) i also like my pc. i was pried away from my mac by lower prices, the business world and compatibility issues but i have adapted and i enjoy the modern conveniences and nuances of the information age.

on the other hand, i do not care for the wealthy class and clearly, these two cats are as wealthy as it gets. time calls the three of them, (melinda gates, bill's wife, being included,) "good samaritans." this is the news magazine passing judgment, (and it may be correct.)

still, just the other day i saw something on tv while watching a football game about how much cash the nfl and its partners have donated in charity this year and i was disgusted, completely and thoroughly disgusted.

i am sick of corporations lauding themselves for their charitable donations. i don't care if it is microsoft or general motors or the nba.

i don't give money to charity and i am not apologizing for it. i barely get by as it is. i would love to give money to charities i deem worthy of a donation but as it is, corporations are constantly trying to gouge me to increase their own profit margins and pad their coffers.

fuck them. fuck the corporation. it is time for us to get a grip on these institutions used to hide small, evil men.

when i hear about the massive donation this or that corporation made to some charity or another, (likely another entity not to be trusted,) i imagine the profit margin that allows for such a gift. it is the same with marketing campaigns.

marketing costs money so when i see a company spending a lot of marketing dollars, it pisses me off. imagine that profit margin. imagine how much they are over-charging you for their product. fuckin' creeps. (at least bono and u2's only royalty for their ipod commercials was in exposure and to mac's credit, they did not pay a whopping amount of cash to the artist.)

most people i associate with cannot go to a ball game, (nba, nfl, and the mlb, specifically, with the nhl and mls not far behind,) because they are priced out of the market. (forget season tickets.) i rely on gifts from the corporation to go to games.

i love to see a game and will enjoy most sports but i cannot afford to purchase my own tickets. my company has season tickets for the dodgers and i usually get those four seats 2-3 times per year. (the people i invite received the gift from the corporation just like i did.) i have relatives who often kick me down tickets to go see games that are paid for by their corporations.

i would like to buy myself a ticket to go see a game but by and large, i can't afford it. from all this i deduce the profit margins of corporations are too high.

so is bill (and melinda,) gates the good samaritan or the richest man in the world and are these mutually exclusive clubs? he got that rich by having a healthy profit margin, even though i love my yahoo music engine i listen to on my pc with windows xp. he has certainly spent a lot of money in advertising, (and paid the stones at least a couple of times.)

is there a rationale that suggests he needed to spend the advertising dollars to crush his competitors so he could be in the position to be the good samaritan? would the same sort of rationale exist for the profit margin? in order to grow the business, does the corporation have to behave in the ways we have come to expect, (i.e. high profit margins, large advertising budgets...)?

surely u2 and bono could have behaved more altruistically by demanding smaller profit margins for their records. but how reasonable is that? i think it is fair and reasonable to want to get to a place where you do not have to worry about money, or, that is, to worry about paying bills. I don't begrudge anyone who wants to work as hard as the guys in u2 do for making more money than me.

i like that u2/bono started www.one.org. it gives the individual both a chance to give to charity and a chance to "act locally," (as they say.) further, i trust this particular charity more than i do others because of the people involved. his work with data and jubilee 2000, (to say nothing of the live aid famine relief efforts,) is wonderful stuff. bono is truly a good samaritan. further, he works so hard, that is, his time is in such high demand, i admire his dedication.

bono has become the stuart smalley of crusading rock stars. he seems to lack the ability to offend. and i think back to when he was the young, angry rock star and i realize his anger was always against something everyone could agree with him on, (except perhaps a handful of north irish, protestant, terrorists.) i would this aspect of him were different, but then, he would not be bono.

it pains me he does not rage against agents of injustice, especially gven his position. but then, woulld he be in his position if he did? (that is a rhetorical question. no. he would not.)

i wish bono's reaction was not this big "i am so humbled," thing. it seems faux to me, which is oddly often other's complaint about him and something i am apt to defend him on usually. but this time, it is as if he is claiming to be unaware of who he is and what he does, as if there are a host of others in the world who are as effectively doing good in so many areas. then again, he has been so effective at controlling his image, i feel like i'm demanding perfection by being even this slightest bit critical.

so time's criteria for person of the year is based on who has affected the world most in that year. i remember the year it was the ayatollah khomeini, which reminds me the person is not expected to be admirable. w/ that in mind, i come full circle and can agree that time has made reasonable choices. cheers to these three and time's momentary diversion.

class warfare

i’m reading a really interesting book; a people’s history of the united states. it’s said that history is written by the victors so what howard zinn did in writing this book is he rewrote the history of the united states from the perspective of the masses, based on any reliable documents and sources he could find.

it is completely fascinating stuff. i’m only so far into it but it is amazing to see the same thing was happening then that is happening today. class divisions were the same. the white middle class was involved in politics etcetra but in reality was controlled by the upper classes. The masses of people of color were used as slave labor and such in order to increase the wealth of those above them. this is all happening today.

so from columbus landing on haiti and in the course of a few years destroying the indigenous arawak population completely in the name of stealing their gold and spices and whatever other natural resources they could take from the island to sell back in europe, to the slave trade in which ships were stocked with africans taken against their will and brought to north america, (a trip that often killed up to 2/3 of the slaves aboard the vessel, who were made to endure the trip in coffin-like conditions,) essentially because capitalizing on slave labor was the only way people could get ahead in the new world. . .to the indian wars and all the efforts and tactics used to suppress slave uprisings and rebellions like bacon’s or shay's, to the doctrine of manifest destiny when our government copied the old european catholic church and their divine right of kings in declaring that it was our obvious, god-directed destiny to push on to the other coast and rule/own the land, (in the name of manifest destiny we killed the indians and mexicans of california and arizona and took their land adding them to a long list of populations leveraged to the advantage of the few, the white, the wealthy,) the uppermost class can be seen in their fullest, most pronounced, powerful glory.

the book does a great job of outlining the policies that were put into place to protect the minority ruling class and this phenomenon happens today but the truth is, the masses are simply too ignorant to address it despite the power inherent in their numbers. in fact, it is often a combination of ignorance and a feeling or desire to be one of the wealthy, which keeps people in the dark as to the nature of the big picture and what their role or place in society really is.

many republicans today are on the short end of the stick, being taken advantage of regularly, but they have a belief that they, too, can and will be rich one day, (which is so unlikely they have to be viewed as buffoons to some degree.) we the people can talk about campaign finance reform until the cows come home but in fact, it is unlikely to happen and if it did, the rich would find other ways to make their money influence power. we sometimes talk about discarding the electoral college, a device ridiculously outdated and unnecessary, but likely to stay in place for a long time still because it is a tool which may or may not be used [by the wealthy] to take advantage.

did bush win in 2000? no. we are even privy to this information that he lost the popular vote but it is said that the rules are in place and we value fair play above all else, which is of course a joke, but the fooled do not like to admit they’ve been snookered.

did he win in 2004? unlikely. more likely true is the side that won cheated. i won't go into issues in ohio and elsewhere, related to the counting of votes and who was allowed to vote, etc., that make me think it is at the very least, plausible that these guys cozened their way into power that time, too. we were told bush won the popular vote this time, and while i have my suspicions i hate the idea of being marginalized by someone who would throw around the word "conspiracy."

i have to admit, it is strange to me we [the people] cannot see and evaluate these things in time’s big picture and simply get together on the idea that we will not be oppressed any longer.

marx predicted the ruling class would need to go overseas for cheap labor and that is happening today. wealth is being concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer individuals every day, though those who are wealthy are wealthier than ever. In the u.s., we manufacture less and less. labor is cheaper elsewhere and that is where industries go in order to prosper. our economy is becoming one based on consumerism. how long do you think that can last?

so far, we’ve been, (or rather, the wealthy class has been,) especially clever at keeping the masses basically satisfied and at bay. but think about it. in the ‘50s one man provided for a family of (let’s say,) five. that family likely had a nice big cadillac and a house in the suburbs and everything the joneses from next door had.

to maintain that very same lifestyle today, both man and woman have to work. and even then, it's just a lifestyle. how far are they from poverty? two months? if a stock market crash occurs, who will weather the storm with grace? not 99% of the people who live basically check to check and have outstanding debts.

(as for me, i've been thinking of taking an extra, part-time job. i am not making ends meet.)

we still make some cars and some other stuff but not much. jobs are going overseas in record numbers. and speaking of overseas, china has a very interesting experiment underway. they are allowing for a wealthy class within their otherwise socialist structure. the difference from us is they do not let that minority class of people set their policies and ultimately rule them.

(we do. one good example would be the way we can pass legislation like legalized medicinal marijuana then stand idly by as the ruling class uses the federal government to intercede and maintain the prohibition.)

speaking of how clever our ruling class has been at keeping us basically happy and at bay, they have turned incarceration into an industry unto itself. in our capitalistic society, one either works or they end up in the hospital or the prison or on the street. that is basically true.

laws like three strikes (and you’re out!) have created a booming industry. prison guard unions have become some of the most powerful unions in the country and as you might imagine, having so many peers right on the other side of the fence has legitimized the entire process and policy. (we incarcerate at a higher rate than any country on the planet. why do we put up w/ this?)

people are good at seeing black and white and apt to see things that way. in the future, when people look back on us, they will see the creative ruling class pitting us against one another, by criminalizing consensual crimes, by emphasizing differences in belief systems so that people in the lower classes would feel superior to one another and fight with one another rather than turn their attention onto those who oppress them, in order to occupy us and keep us from questioning them and their tactics.

this stuff sounds like the vitriol of class warfare but I promise you, I am not interested in that, (per se,) however, it may just naturally follow that what I would change would look like class warfare.

what i have learned from zinn's book is that we americans have been taking advantage of others for a long time. and of course, this is what capitalism is all about. we arrived as european emmisaries and we took advantage of the indigenous populations and the land. we took advantage of a race of people by enslaving them.

now we are the mightiest nation on the planet and we are running out of groups to take advantage of. those we took advantage of based on their skin color have revolted and gained their freedom. those we took advantageof based on their gender have pulled themselves up to equal status and protections under the law.

today we take advantage of peoples from other, (less affluent,) states, (namely mexico.) we yell and scream about how they are in our country illegally and how important it is for us to make stricter immigration laws while failing to recognize the blow our economy would suffer if they were suddenly all gone. food first, a group intent on eliminating malnutrition, considers migrant farmworkers the modern plantation worker. (i suppose they find use of the word 'slave," unseemly.) http://www.foodfirst.org/pubs/backgrdrs/2004/sp04v10n2.html

i say we are running out of people to take advantage of but in as much as that is true, there is an entire globe of people and places out there.

it is (not so) funny to see how the various presidents placed themselves in the role of "father," to the various groups we mistreated, telling creek and seminoles their "father," cared about them deeply and would protect them if they would just move west, only to pillage and plunder and indirectly abuse them at every turn. when voices like lincoln and thoreau and emerson can be heard speaking out against our tyrrany, they were marginalized in much the same manner the voices of today are. (how shocked i was to hear no less than walt whitman urge us on in our conquests.)

but here is this book of zinn's presenting the facts, and the heroes, those whose words will ring true forever, are these men of justice, while the names of presidents like jackson and van buren and polk fade into obscurity. history truly is a great judge.

i am anxious for the second half of this book and all that i will learn. and maybe one day i can write about what we can do today to hasten our own evolution, stop repeating the crimes of the past and move toward a more balanced view of our lives and our species.

yahoo indeed

a friend of mine hooked me up with the yahoo unlimited music service for my birthday. i think he paid $50 or $60 and i get access to all the songs yahoo has, which is considerable but not everything. for instance i've noticed they must not have given michael jackson any cash because there are virtually no beatles songs. similiarly, radiohead must have failed to sign on with yahoo. (and hey, sometimes the computer is a more convenient vehicle to play music, compared to fishing through a rack of cd's to find a desired song.)

in short, i really like the service. i seem to be reconnecting with my inner-80s man. (stranger still, i must have been more effeminate in the '80s than i recall because abc and talk talk and soft cell and many of the bands i sort of left behind, were tragically unhip and teetering on the brink of quentin crisp, if you know what i mean.)

all this browsing and rediscovering reminded me of where music was a few years ago as an industry. napster was seemingly banishing music exec after music exec to a life on skid row and metallica was sueing and mtv hosted round tables and legislation was introduced all in the name of the struggling business of selling music.

let me approach the point i am struggling to make from a different perspective. reading a new yorker article on brent scowcroft the other day i was reminded the main reason for the first gulf war was because saddam hussein had invaded kuwait and american oil interests were jeopardized. where vietnam seemed more an idealogical war, (we feared the soviet union and in light of the cold war made a high priority of fomenting democracy, [capitalism,] abroad,) george h w bush took us to the gulf to protect american business interests. and while lives were not lost protecting the music industry, the government did step in with similiar goals; protect an industry's interests. instead of oil supplies, the music industry required the protection of intellectual property.

something about this doesn't sit well with me. i know we've bailed out other industries in the past. i know we've loaned money to chrysler and a couple of our aircraft builders and none of these sit well with me.

it has been said that insider trading does the stock market a favor. it nudges prices in the direction they are going to go anyway thereby abating sudden, more cataclysmic shifts that could initiate the harm of panic. i think that's crap too. when you are constantly propping up systems to avert challenges (problems,) you are essentially just hiding problems with the system. if the market needed the pre-movement spurred by insider trading, (which it does not,) the viability of the market as a system would have to be questioned and a systemic change would need to be implemented as opposed to relying on a group of cheaters to make it right.

when chrysler had it's trouble in the '80s, the federal government should not have intervened. if our economy took a hit, it would only have caused us as a nation and a society to work harder to right the ship.

books are free at libraries, (as they should be.) the intellectual property rights are not protected in the manner of a recording artist, nor should the recording artist's rights ever been protected in the way they were/are.

by constantly propping up various industries within our economy, we do it a disservice. it is no longer organic. the economy no longer takes on a life of its own as capitalism suggests it should. instead of growing into areas as demand deems, it tends to stay within a fenced area and in effect, eat it's own ad nauseum.

i believe had congress left napster to its bidding those years ago, we would have arrived at this current state of bliss known as yahoo music engine much sooner. the consumer has known the album was a lousy way to purchase music for a long time. the industry sold us this idea that the album somehow represented a larger work. it could cover a period of time or even a concept but the idea was, it was better than the single, which was so limited by its accepted format. well this was a slimy way to sell us poor u2 songs like 4th of july, when i look at the world and bass trap. (in fairness, u2 has been the kosher hot dog of bands over the years, very little filler, compared to others.) the idea was that we were all collectors interested in the arc of the life of the band blah blah blah and it was just so serious. right. . .

well, the single is making its return and not in its old form. with the yahoo music engine, (and yahoo is just one of many companies, likely not even the best at it, offering similiar service,) the consumer can pick and choose songs to listen to or purchase. the price i've seen seems to be between 79 and 99 cents per song. as an example, (and sticking with u2,) at 99-cents per song, i could have paid about $8 for the songs off of how to dismantle an atomic bomb that i like and ignored the last three songs. that is a more consumer friendly business by light years than the old model.

is it unfair in some way to the artists? hell no. in fact, it merely rights previous wrongs, (selling us filler we nver asked for.)

did you ever hear a song called birds fly (whisper to a scream,) by icicle works? i liked that song back when it came out so at some point in time, i went out and bought the whole record. every second of the record outside of that song sucked. it was horrible.

how about tell that girl to shut up by transvision vamp? digging your scene by blow monkeys? what was that song by robbie neville? how about interpol or the spin doctors? (in their cases, since every song sounds just like the one i liked, all the rest of the songs are filler.) collective soul? that evan dando got a lot of mileage out of one good song because the record company sold an album full of filler and had the good fortune of some media critics proclaiming the emperor to be exquisitely attired but now we can admit the truth, the lemonheads sucked.

so i am ecstatic about the emergence of this form that is the yahoo music engine. there are about three jet songs i really like and one by the darkness and one by remy zero and several songs from the past i need to pick up for a cd i'm compiling to give out as a favor at my wedding and i can do this for the cost of one album.

had legislation never passed to beat down napster, it is likely the music industry would be weaker today as people would still be freely sharing, (something we were all taught to do in kindergarten,) their music with one another but it would have evolved more quickly, in search of the avenues of revenue recently discovered. these devices such as the mini ipod and the nano would have come along sooner.

oh really. . . (*yawn*)

a friend of mine sent me a story from bill o'reilly's blog. my friend knows i tend to disagree with o'reilly but i think he finds o'reilly fairly agreeable and thought as i once studied journalism, i would be interested in o'reilly's thoughts. the story is reachable by clicking on the header, in case you want to see for yourself.

about 3-4 weeks ago the new yorker ran a story on the la times, specifically on what is happening to their business. (bill was correct-it is in decline. in fact, i need to cancel my subscription. some days their sports section does not even run a kings story. sports is usually 8 pages during the week and the quality is poor in comparison to other local papers like the daily news or even the oc register. i prefer to read the san francisco chronicle online.) but i digress in talking about sports. . .

the new yorker's article got me to thinking about the role of the press. their stated role. at least in many cases, should be similiar to that of a watchdog. it is why we have the freedom associated w/ the press. so they can watch our leaders while we're doing the dishes and picking up the kids. if, in our current culture and political climate, they are considered liberal, so be it, (though i find them far from liberal enough, by and large.)

still, the real question that occurred to me upon reading about the la times' business was one of supply and demand. more and more the editors of our papers around the country are forced to treat their work like a business. this is to say, they have to give the public what it wants. you might disagree with me if i say the public gets dumber by the hour, but then again, you might agree w/ me. and as such, the public wants less and less as it relates to real news, controversial stories, facts about our leaders, etc. so the press is in a quandary. give 'em what they want, or continue its role as public watchdog? well, business wins, generally. and so it looks like we will let the press go to pot. and i would say this is yet another early sign of the decline of the empire.

as "the people," if we can't take a stand with our business community to say we will find ways to perpetuate journalism as we know it, to hold journalism to a standard in the tradition of our great journalists like pulitzer and bernstein, we have a problem. because if we are willing to let the quality of journalism decline, if we are willing to cater to the lowest common denominator, it is us who loses, specifically later generations. it is us who will not catch the politicians when they are hiding things from us and/or not doing what we pay them for.

and it is not just politicians whom journalists check. they check the cops lest they get too heavy-handed. they check the corporations lest the top executives raid pension funds or use fuzzy math to show profits that don't exist or hide their money in offshore tax shelters. the stories appear every day but it seems no one is reading them.

and so, journalism finds itself at a crossroads. feed the people what they need or what they want? right now, it appears what they want is getting the upper hand. still, i have hope we still yet get it right.

i get frustrated w/ journalists who act as if the public knows, (100% and unerringly,) what is good for them. the truth is, often they do not. when scarborough goes on the air and says americans prefer this to that by a 55-45% margin, he means to lend the choice some sort of innate divine right of kings blessing, as if the majority could not possible be wrong. but we know better than that. right?

the truth is it can go either way at any time. sometimes the majority is spot on. other times they're overwhelmingly wrong. but to posit that their (our,) endorsement makes it so is ludicrous. and if we can get to this point where we admit the public sometimes does not know what is good for it, it seems to me it isn't much further until we get to the point where we value journalism and its role in our society so much that we protect it, (nurse it back to health even.)

media outlets that gain money from the basest instincts of its consumers should pay a tax to promote the public service side of the business that puts those reporters out there watching the various entities on our behalf, that gets that front page section ready every day and promotes a lively debate in the op-ed pages. how do you ensure they do such a thing? mandate it? i guess not. but i don't purport to have the answer. i am more interested in the questions.

why does bill o'reilly say many newspapers do not want to report the story? is it true? i suppose maybe it is but it's hardly a part of the story considering how much coverage the story's gotten. i've been reading about it for a long time. i think the following two paragraphs say much about bill o'reilly:

There are a number of reasons for the depressing situation, pardon the pun. The internet provides news efficiently, the decline of public education means fewer Americans care about what's going on, and people are very busy these days. Many of us don't have time to spend an hour reading the paper.

that paragrph was factual and reasonable. and he hit the nail right on the head. he is accurate-these really are the reasons newspapers are in decline.

But the collapse of journalistic standards is another reason some have turned away from the press. Most Americans are not ideological junkies, craving their daily dose of political propaganda. Just give us the facts, and some lively opinion based on the facts. The political jihadists who have taken over some newspapers are driving people away.

the first sentence clings to truth in journalism by sheer hint. in fact one could say almost anything in this manner and be basically correct. for example:

the adherence to religious dogma is another reason the u.s. leads the world in murders per capita.

i'm sure that is a true sentence and yet, it is far from relevant, really. the fact that americans are not ideological junkies, (that characterization may hint that o'reilly's staged outrage is wearing on him,) craving our daily propaganda, is a platitude. i find o'reilly's use of the word "lively," to be most telling. what scholar would say the debate need be lively? how about evenly matched? or erudite? well supported?

but lively is bill's game. he gets in there and blusters and talks like a man who is ever ready to take someone behind the wood shed and give them a whooping if necessary, and he is lively. but in a way he is right too, despite his swipe at self preservation. the facts are key. the debate is a natural but we do not need to hold it sacred. whenever two or more gather, there will be debate. no need to protect it.

the facts are another matter. they need to be accounted for at all times. hence, we need the journalism of ethics and standards. bill's last sentence in this paragraph, (i have to admit,) gets on my nerves a little. again, it's quite colorful. as if the islamic culture is not being demonized enough over here and americans are just not frightened enough, bill takes the opportunity to use "jihadists," to drive his point home. political jihadists. this is meant to say the liberals who stand by their journalistic standards demanding all things political be held accountable, are conducting a holy war against the people who might have subscribed, (i think i am supposed to get, the good and decent people who might have read their paper.)

bill gives opinion which is how he gets away with a sentence like that (again.) the political jihadists, (who these people are we must guess. bill could be implying it's the owners of the new york times but who really knows? he goes on to say the times ran 53 articles critical of the president in 30 days over katrina. katrina may represent the single most easy episode to be critical of the president for in his tenure and given the number of op-ed pieces the times prints, is almost two a day really that much? is it overkill?)

maybe the jihadists is the chicago tribune corporation which took over the la times or maybe it is the owners of the nyt, for bill? but these are also the papers whose ownership is most alligned with o'reilly's values. the corporate owners are the ones most focused on profits and therefore, most willing to listen to what the people want.

it is interesting to note the family owned papers like newsday have maintained staffing levels at a higher rate than the corporate owned ones and allowed profit margins to slip down in order to maintain their journalistic integrity. (meanwhile, the la times wins a record number of pulitzer prizes and loses its editor in chief and another fraction of staff, not to mention pages.) so bill attempts to bite the hand that feeds him in order to perpetuate the myth he is really trying to sell here, which is that the media is liberally-biased.

oh? and so, the jihadists is really just liberals again. bill is ranting against liberals. i totally get it now and i should have gotten it sooner but the truth is, one has to dissect what a guy like bill o'reilly says if one is to understand it for what it is. seriously, he uses language like a tool in order to promote his opinion. it's worth saying too, o'reilly is an articulate fellow.

when bill goes on to say this paper or that paper has 9 to 1 liberal columnists to conservative, he further means to polarize. and this is what i dislike about bill o'reilly. it's not the bloviating so much as it is the divisiveness. if he were less obsessed with polarizing people, less concerned with telling his audience they must be attached to an accepted wing of today's ideological poles, i wouldn't mind dealing wth what he actually has to say.

later o'reilly mentions the new york times (in a way meant to imply they are especially liberal,) yet it was an nyt reporter who was doing the bidding of the current administration when joe wilson wrote a piece critical of their motives for going to iraq, (and critical of their "evidence,") by publishing the name of a cia operative who was undercover, (joe wilson's wife.) (robert novak, another right wing schill faux journalist was also involved.) when her (judith miller,) editor removed her from all things washington and assigned her elsewhere, because of the appearance of journalistic impropriety, he later said she kept drifting back over there. this is to say, she continued to turn in the occasional story on national affairs and washington politics. and no wonder, she was the tool of karl rove and scooter libby who of course, are tools of dick cheney.

the point is, o'reilly should stop lumping everyone together. it does none of us any good to label ourselves or stigmatize another perspective we see as contrasting with our own. so it is that o'reilly later says this:

And then there is the hate factor. Not only do many newspapers aggressively push an agenda, but they demonize those with whom they disagree.

i guess o'reilly would say i am demonizing him right now if he were to read my lengthy retort, but i don't mean to demonize him. i mean to take issue with his methods and techniques, and with the substance of the things he says. in fact, i hope i have said enough to withdraw myself from liberalism's corner while pointing out the error of o'reilly's way, which of course is his liberal use of bias and innuendo. . .

the nba sends a message?

when the nba mandates a white, business-oriented dress code for its players, i wonder if it has fully considered the message it is sending.

on the surface, the message is: society is more comfortable with people who dress in a certain fashion, (the fashion itself, a non-fashion of coats and ties and slacks and loafers and tucked-in shirts,) therefore, because the league's image is in need of a cleanup and because the league needs the players to look like role models, (even if they are not that,) for the many black kids who look up to them, (so the league can sell the players and itself and make lots of money for both parties, but disproportionately more for the owners and executives whose job it is to supply the capital on the front side and market the league believing all the while theirs is the real talent and guys who are athletic and play basketball well are a dime a dozen so the league is justified in taking the lion's share of profits,) we impose this dress code to make our athletes who happen to be mostly black, look, well, white.

is that the message the nba meant to send? the underlying message is directed at those young and impressionable the nba deigns to tell that clothing, yea fashion choices, make the man, which should be considered a lie. the nba is telling kids not to dress like a rapper and one can only speculate about the reasons. is it because rappers are considered bad or evil or in poor taste? is it the white man's incessant fear of the black man? (and if so, isn't that fear a natural byproduct of the slaveowner-slave relationship?)

are jay-z and sean "puffy" combs not role models?

look, draw your own conclusions here. i'm always more interested in the questions than the answers but this move by david stern is topsy-turvy.

the nba is in effect saying, (by this dress code edict,) the clothing of the white man is respectable and anything that deviates from it is not. (at the same time they are saying long live the status quo, hooray for the establishment, and rich people rule.)

this is not the message we should be sending to our kids, especially those who do not come from advantage. we should be telling them substance is what matters, not attire. maybe the dress code is not even about black and white. maybe it's about young and old. maybe the kids who play basketball for a living are doing their version of the vietnam war protest, only their rebellion comes in baggy, low-riding pants and throwback jerseys, backwards baseball caps and doo rags.

are the black kids who enter the nba still wet behind the ears, embracing white, corporate america? or are they merely paid by that monolith, happy to take the cash and accompanying lifestyle, but inclined to move off in their own direction as it relates to their personal and private lives? for way too long we have asked if david stern approves of ai. i wonder if ai approves of david stern. i wonder if stephen jackson is a fan of ken lay. does ben wallace endorse the corporate world of the halliburtons et. al., shuffling money off to the caymen islands to shelter profits from taxation and paying off politicians in nigeria at the expense of the people whose babies will breathe polluted air?

is the nba telling all kids the uniform preferred by corporate america is the only acceptable attire? if so, is that fascist and misguided?

also, if shirts and pants today, is hair next? will wallace's corn row/afro puff tandem be replaced by a fade? or is corruption solely the realm of fashion? what about cars? can they pull up to the arena in a stretched hummer limo with spinning rims or will they be required to own a town car or a navigator? and what of tattoos? so associated with jail and drugs. . .perhaps stern can ban them? surely he would have to grandfather in the tatted players of today but he could get the word out that outside of the tats in existence this very day, tattoos are banned from the bodies of nba players and punishable by laser removal and a charitable donation.

how pathetic the various elder statesmen of sport, too, this past week lining up in support of david stern's misstep. the anti-role model charles barkley declared the new code good for the black kids of america and michael irvin could be seen grinning on espn in support of a dress code that would tolerate his suits, (which tend to look magnanimous in a hollywood nightclub but would likely get a young, black kid in a corporate job interview a "good-luck-and-we'll-keep-your-resume-on-file," and the door.)

isn't it time we stopped kowtowing to the insecure? who cares what the person is wearing? care about their performance. care about their actions. ron artest is not a thug because of his clothing. nor is jim brown a thug because of his skull cap. actions should define people, (and it could be argued they do for the reasonable but in this case, the unreasonable exercise command.) when teaching children i think it is wise to denounce the action, as opposed to the man. (by the way, for those who haven't been paying attention, jim brown is closer to being a saint than a thug.)

on the other hand, if the lesson the guys in the nba and the black kids are getting is: the world is not fair and does not necessarily makes sense but if you do not conform, it will break you so it is important to choose your battles wisely and suck on a lemon from time to time, then that is a whole other thing and brings up an entirely new set of questions.

the blank page

ahh, the blank page. at once so liberating and so initimidating, the question (to love,) is: why do i write?

the answer is a mish-mash of catharsis, vanity and aptitude.

i write because i need to write. it is catharsis. when i write, i take the time to study my motives, to listen to how i've come upon a conclusion or why i've arrived at a certain place. if god is truly in the details, i understand god is understanding. i sense the little steps of meaning.

recently i have come to the realization that i have something of an authority complex. it did not just dawn on me one day while napping in the park. i arrived at this epiphany through a complex series of smaller epiphanies.

from an early age i distrusted the adult world. i had three childhood homes. in the first, my grandfather sat around the house collecting disability and devising new and improved ways of tricking people and padding his bank acount all the while tinkling cubes of ice in a glass of scotch whiskey. he was a severe man, wise in the ways of the world, dumb to the means of true happiness. next i lived in an abusive home wherein actions were dictated by a sinister drug; heroin. finally, i spent my teen years in a fundamentalist christian environment. instead of thoughtful answers to questions, instead of conclusions drawn from standing on the shoulders of giants, i received stock dogma.

writing has been my redemption and my reward. writing allows me to hear what impels me through my days. writing helps me to shhhhhhh.

it is funny too, i am so insecure about my writing. i want anyone who reads it to like it. i want them to consider it worth reading or at least satisfactorily written. moreso, i want someone who writes to consider it a quality product, (because i think in writing they must have some kindred aspect to myself.) simultaneously, i really do write for me and i could hardly care less how it is received or if it is received. (most of what i have written has never been seen or heard by anyone but me.)

still, i write. here, on a blog. in a file i call (ingeniously enough,) "writing," in email, on smack boards in cyberspace, in journals kept at the side of my bed, in the note pad of my blackberry, in a personal file at work, whenever and wherever. whatever. it is not a sentence, nor is it a glory. it simply is.

korn again

get ready to be sold. emi group is giving korn about a $15 million advance in return for an over 25% stake in their sales, publishing, merchandising and touring revenue.

read the article in the la times, (click header,) and you may get the feeling it is a groundbreaking deal people interested in business should ooh and ahh over. it seems barnumian in so much as the record company is banking on their ability to sell you a product.

the product, of course, is korn's music and image. an emi executive is quoted in the article saying the quality of the soon-to-be-released record played a role in the commitment the company made to the band.

in fact, the company has merely negated the risk they usually confront. by committing the upfront money to a band whose sales have dropped over their last two albums, (and 5+ years,) significantly, they are simultaneously committing to spending enough money to ensure sheep will listen. by sheep, i mean the easy targets of marketing who never consider the fact they are being marketed to and are indifferent about the effect of that marketing on their lives.

emi has assessed the risk and calculated statistical information on how their investment will perform and they have found the numbers wholly agreeable. they are now set to persuade the public and bully their way into markets they were not formerly a part of.

with all the record industry has been going through, you had to know these executives were conspiring on how to save their places in an industry that has produced massive amounts of wealth for a relative few.

i hated the way things turned out with napster. by protecting the artist's rights, courts have chosen to support industry over humanity. a kid in a room in italy likes a record so much, he wants to put it up on his website for anyone to download and enjoy just as much, (connecting him incidentally to a kid in hoboken, and let's face it, there is only so much music one person can consume,) is vilified in favor of the idea that the artist can own this piece of art they created in such a way they deserve the right to collect on it from virtually everyone who enjoys the record too, or even doesn't enjoy it but for whatever reason was allured enough to make the purchase.

the artists are kings, the recording industry is the catholic church and collecting is the divine right.

if this right was taken from the artist, he or she would have more avenues to make money but might be less likely to make the sheer volume of profit that may well be available to korn as they embark on a relationship that will severely hamper their ability to make business, if not artistic, decisions. not only is there not anything wrong with forcing the artist to work harder and perhaps in a more locally oriented way, it would create an environment that would push back on the globalization and homogenization currently having a greater and greater impact on the industry and the quality and diversity of product available.

korn has recently hauled in about 20% of what they did in the late '90s. their angle is clear. struggling band wants to maintain spot in current canon of globally available artists for obvious reasons. by giving up unprecedented control of their business, they get the golden egg of top notch, well funded, marketing.

(go ahead, sing the reel big fish song with me: "sell out, with me today. sell out!")

if you are one who will go out and buy the korn record, you are one of the sheople. you do not mind being manipulated. the integrity of your taste is seriously in question. because of the relationship between the artist and the corporation, the product has to be ba-aa-aa-aaad.

walk on

terra took four steps at 10 months, and one week, (or 8 days to be precise.) she never looked back from there. never was interested in crawling really. only invested seven weeks on it.

some day i want terra to know she began walking at this age. i suppose i want her to know everything really. i want her to understand as much as she can so she can make the best decisions possible.

three weeks later she disdains crawling altogether. sometimes she wobbles, (but then, who doesn't?) mostly she sets her mind to something she must investigate and she walks to it. there she attempts to taste it, she pokes it with her index finger like she is interrogating a surly suspect, and she tries to pick it up and drop it. or throw it, though her throws have a soft touch tossing sort of style.

tonight she handed a ball off with me, back and forth. her brain is whirring as she pieces together how to operate herself, a little like a loony factory worker unsure of the capabilities and controls of his machinery, sure, but with an aptitude and improvement curve that would blow your socks off.

she is a little girl, so full of promise and delight, so life-affirming. i am anxious to see her choices. i'm anxious to teach her and learn from her, a process in full swing, really.

i'm anxious but patient for all of our shared experiences: active vacations and games and holidays and lazy afternoons and open houses and the both of us snuggling up to her mother during rainy, thunderstorming nights.

i'm anxious but patient for her experiences: school and work and social activities and learning music or a foreign language and staying up late with her friends, baking, kissing a boy, backpacking in europe or joining the peace corps and travelling to a faraway land, starting a family or doing something great.

i'm anxious but patient for the difficult times too. i'm sure a day will come when i will be chagrined by her behavior. i know we will grieve together and i hope i am a good example and deserving of her trust through the worst of times. i expect she will suffer disappointments and i hope i hide my own disappointment well and bathe my reaction in love.

the world is open to us, me and terra. she is a child in the world and i am a child of the world. i sense my essence in the imaginary question mark i see hovering over her head. from here we grow together, learning to live in love.

cold

I am so cold this morning. The weather in mid-august has turned chilly. Clouds have taken the morning and the thought that sunshine hides out awaiting a glorious return seems like astrology.
The air-conditioning in my building, in my office, is set to "august," so my hands feel thick and slow. I feel these nipples on my chest, contracted and taut beneath my shirt, and I know the cold is real and not just some paranormal concoction of my brain in response to everything I see and sense this morning.
When I arrived I turned the key in my office door and flicked on the lights. Once I had taken a seat and pushed the button on my computer, I glanced at my phone and the red alert button denoting the presence of voice mail, and I remembered the ominous buzzing of my pager from the evening before.
The voice on the first message was one of my employees updating me on her daughter's health. The previous day the daughter had a tumor removed from the surface of her brain. All had gone as planned and on this day, the ides of august, she had endured a heart transplant. My employee informed me the surgery had gone well and her daughter was breathing on her own and she had even opened her eyes briefly though slowly.
She emphasized how slow her daughter's motion had been and I slowly moved the handset from one ear to the other, trying to ignore the budding frost in my office and my own lethargy. I made notes: "Heart Transplant went okay-breathing on own-opened eyes." My employee planned on coming to work the next day.
An icy smile cautiously pursed the corners of my mouth as I reached out and erased the good news. Star-D to delete. I should have savored that message. I should have listened to it twice, maybe even saved it. I was too cool just letting it go as if I can always expect good news and everything always works out for the best in the end.
The next message was marked by uncontrollable sobbing. My employee coughed and wheezed and her breathing was like another language communicating the same message on some foreign wavelength to a felt but unknown audience as she explained the reason for her 4:37am call: "Michael, I won't be in today. . ."
In that moment I begged in my mind to hear something other than what I knew I would hear in seconds. I didn't pray to god nor did I call upon any higher source, I merely begged in my thoughts as if throwing pleas against the inside of my chest, the lining of my stomach, as if hurling these wishes so forcefully within myself could create a hole in my being, could create a vacuum in the universe and suck all the numbing news and tragedy out to a place far away from me. I wished she wouldn't say it. I wished it weren't so.
"My daughter passed away two hours ago." Aww fuck. My employee cried and wheezed and clamped down on words before releasing them like a rolled-up, damp towel was strapped between her teeth.
"MMM-mm-michael, I just wah-wwwh-wanted you to know. I won't be innnnn, this week." Near the end of her message her words were like silence. Gradually I could hear no more sobs, no more panting, no more clenching phlanges.
". . .need to reach me my cell phn nmbr zz eenh-oonh-hee, ay-hoo-o, hay-ainh-hree-hainh." It was clear mumbling. I scratched out the numbers below my previous note. Star-D. I had grown used to listening to messages from this employee. For about four weeks she had been leaving them at all hours almost every day. I would listen regularly around 6:30am and one of the days she made it in to work I joked with her about the loneliness of my morning not having heard from her.
She will be lonely now. Her daughter is gone. The time she had her will never be long enough. All the happiness she brought will be remembered and when it is, it will be followed by bitterness and anger and frustration and despair. (No other response would be sane.)
My employee joked back that morning, exhibiting the strength only women know. When things were bad, she had the strength to cry. When they were good, she went to work and laughed when it was appropriate to laugh.
Today is my brother's birthday. He lives in a cell in a prison in another state. It is winter in my office. Yesterday I received a letter from him. He wants me to send him a care package I can purchase online. Hygiene products and microwaveable stews and chicken breasts, these are the commodities of prison life.
I wish I could go to a bar with my brother today and down a pitcher of beer and talk about how good it is to be together for our birthdays, (mine was four days ago,) but we are not together. One month ago I became engaged to be married. I wish my brother could be there on the day faith and I wed. problem is, wishes do not cause holes in the chest nor the universe. I will wish anyway.
My office is like an igloo now and I sink down into my chair in order to increase the surface contact with my skin. What I wouldn't do for some warmth.
There is one more message on my machine from another employee. Seems he has diarhea and won't be able to make it in today. He actually said that word. Star-D.

yeats' quote

The best lack all convictions, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

yeats earned his ink with that line alone. bad ass.

i'm reading this book that is essentially a big interview with bono. in a passage i read today, bono was quoted on alternate lyrics he wrote for ave maria singing with pavarotti at a charity event a couple years ago. (i understand the alternate lyrics appeared in about every major newspaper in italy the next day and i wondered about a people so in love with their opera singers.)

(may 25, 2003, u.s.'s intention to go to war in iraq evident around the world)

ave mariawhere is the justice in the world?
the wicked make so much noise, ma
the righteous stay oddly still
with no wisdom, all of the riches in the world leave us poor tonight
and strength is not without humility
it's weakness, an untreatable disease
and war is always the choice
of the chosen who will not have to fight

side by side it is as if bono is merely elaborating on yeats' theme, projecting the sentiment of yeats' in his time to that of the righteous in our time, ripping him off perhaps or paying homage.

(surely it is homage.) but the relevance of the discovery herein is this: the essence of man is unchanged. the essence of man is 51-49, good to evil or light to dark.

as i get older i realize how gray the world really is. and perhaps this is why our artists love the greens of nature, the blue of the sky, the golden yellow of a sunflower and the black of night.
i have to come to revile the characterization of a man as good. "you're a good man, charlie brown."

the intentions are great but intentions are fleet-footed warriors who go awol as often as they fiercely battle. charlie brown was more likely 51% of a good man and perhaps 49% of a bad one. when shulz wasn't capturing him in stills for us, brown was likely picking his ass or telling lucy some crazy lie trying to get to that other 2nd base. (not that there's anything wrong with 2nd base, au contraire, but trickery to get there is shameful.)

the world is gray and george w bush himself is a good man, (probably 30%.) most of us are somewhere closer to 50-50 and herein is the hope.

forget god.
forget a 2nd coming.
don't be lazy.
strive on behalf of goodness.
learn.
challenge yourself.
push for righteousness.
evolve.
do nothing flippantly.
relax to the max.
work hard, but always in the direction of goodness.
teach.
forgive, (including yourself.)
grow and interact.

live your life by these ideals and you will be noble, for you will be pushing the envelope of the evolution of the human species in a positive direction. if reason gives us anything over the animals, it is the ability to change and project our light upon future generations and in that, we should find a balance of living for ourselves and living for our posterity.

my generation

so this is my generation, eh?

watching an hbo documentary about tommy smith and john carlos' fists held high to symbolize black power at the 1968 summer olympics in mexico city and suddenly i was struck with shame. the '60s were 40 years ago, (a generation,) but they seem an eon away.

i'm about to turn 40 years old. where is my generation's bobby kennedy? where is our martin luther king jr? our malcolm x? our people's park? john lennon?

'power to the people' seems to have got sucked into the vacuum that was the '80s, (for lack of a better explanation.) the generation that was chided by ronald reagan elected him president and instead of reacting, my generation embraced him. we embraced his trickle down economics. we embraced his mentality of 'grab for the brass ring now and let later generations take care of themselves.'

it is horrifying to look around and see what we have become. most people i know admit that corruption is intrinsic in our politics. this is to say, a person is unelectable to any office of any worth unless they are ready to repay favors for favors. if tobacco money gets a senator elected, that senator needs to repay the favor by fighting for tobacco's interests on capitol hill.

this is a shame. where is our revolution? is everything just so groovy now that my generation is in complete agreement with the status quo?

i can hardly write this. it is that frustrating.

i had a friend tell me recently, when i asked why the president should not be required to just come out and answer every question put forth on this whole karl rove affair until we the people are satisfied, it's just how the game is played. instead the white house press secretary pleads the fifth on the basis of not interfering with an ongoing investigation. everything nowadays is couched in language so whipping out the old "ongoing investigation," clause is hardly something our current leaders are shy about.

why should we stand for that? some time back when they asked the president directly if rove was involved in this affair and rove was standing over the president's shoulder, why shouldn't he, (as jon stewart suggested,) just look over his shoulder ask him for himself, (for all to hear?)

you know what my generation stands for? my generation stands for buying a house. this is what we hang our hat of self esteem on when we get home from work every night. my generation stands for "family," as if outside the boxes we live in lurk so many thugs opposed to that value.

my generation does not stand for civil rights. a previous generation can claim that victory. my generation lets those affected carry on the fight, or a gifted and enlightened few. my generation would rather regress.

my generation stands for not confronting one another, not discovering the differences, never reaping any of the benefits of diversity yielded only through confrontation. my generation stands for feeling superior to their neighbors, their loved ones, their coworkers, the people they see on tv, all from the comfort of their safe, living room, (with american idol on in the background no less.)

my generation stands for getting along. my generation stands for the individual's right to be right in the face of any evidence to the contrary. my generation stands for marketing. my generation stands for more cops on the streets, tougher laws on crime, plastic surgery, hair dye and restoration, lyposuction and botox.

a criminal president, blood on our hands, sullied institutions such as the current state of journalism, a debt/weakening economy blowing up by the hour, utter disregard for the environment and hence, future generations, and still we think everything's cool. so long as we have our houses and our latte mocha frappucinos.

all this is not to say we do not have ralph nader and noam chomsky and howard zinn and many, many more. but what about the every day guy? are we all taking our cues from tiger woods and michael jordan? is ryan seacrest our guy?

my generation is pathetic.

disappointment

i preface this piece with a word about the importance of recognizing a moment in time, not being trapped by it or held hostage, but rather admitting a temporary defeat, understanding the sheer humanity of it, and learning to entertain the idea of a next day when everything is glorious, birds chirp, trees provide cool, breezy shade, food is brilliant and love is sublimely cradling my every step and gesture.

sometimes it weighs.

i come home from a disappointment disappointed. i would be angry but i'm too tired for that, too disappointed to express the energy of anger. i wake the next morning to the upbeat sound of a radio show host talking about the loons of the fox news network and i am disappointed it is time to get up and about the situation in iraq. i trudge to my dresser then to the shower where i am disappointed by the performance of the drain. it is clogged and the water, along with the soil and soap scum i generate, builds around my ankles. toweling off, i am disappointed at how creaky my knees are from playing ball the previous night. age is disappointing and the mirror only highlights my need to exercise, which my knees and back disagree with like outmanned troops on a battlefield. my hairline is receding and time takes its toll on my person in several ways.

i am disappointed in myself as i am late arriving to work. the work i find in my virtual inbox is disappointing but then, not so much in comparison to how i felt about coming to work in the first place. i find it can be endured. i am disappointed by the urge to orally gratify myself but the trail mix i reach for tastes good and time passes.

after two hours of working i look over to my right and find my first moment of joy this day. a picture of terra with her lips pursed, a close up of her face with a quizzical, honest look about her, catches me off guard as if i'd never seen it and i smile, (inwardly if not outwardly.)
the moment is fleeting.

i am disappointed i am not in a higher position. i am disappointed about reporting to my boss, a person i find lacking in too many ways to enumerate. i am disappointed by the effort it takes to mend relations with her, trying to make her feel secure and like my intentions are golden in trying only to please her and make her look good, while also wanting those above her to recognize my value to the organization in the proportion i see it in. office politics disappoint me.

i am disappointed by the status quo. things can be better, i know they can.

i am disappointed by my many coworkers who make happy all day, every day. i wonder if they crash later in the day. i wonder if they crash every day. i wonder how ugly it is when they crash. i hope they do not crash but experience tells me sometimes they do.

i am disappointed by spending eight hours a day, five days a week, toiling in an office, creating trainings and managing people and updating records and talking to customers and coaching representatives and having lunch.

i am disappointed when my phone rings and someone requires something of me. i am disappointed when things do not go right at work. i am also disappointed when they do because my job, (like so many,) is hardly a challenge at all. surely a rhesus monkey could do it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/pictpops/473.shtml

lunch disappoints me. perhaps "bores," would be a better word than "disappoints."

i am disappointed i still live check to check. i am disappointed i have not shown the discipline to save money after all these years. i am disappointed i still rent. i am disappointed people with short attention spans can claim they have attention deficit syndrome, (they have a diagnosis,) while instant gratification syndrome has not yet received the status of official diagnosis. surely i have igs. my bar tab should serve as evidence. what kind of an idiot would spend so freely on beers and prepared food except the one who cannot control his own impulses to please himself instantaneously?

i am disappointed when i have two more hours in the office before i take my leave. i am disappointed when i do leave at what i have not accomplished. i am disappointed in what my company has become and how they treat me, the average guy. i am disappointed i have not up and left by finding another job with a more employee friendly company.

i am disappointed by how full i feel after lunch, but i am pleased with my dessert, two red vines. i am disappointed my company has increased restrictions on internet use through our i.t. department barring me from blogging from my office, (during lunch, of course.) i wonder if updating my fantasy baseball team, a morning ritual, will be next.

i am disappointed by how much work there is in life, (voltaire be damned.) it seems to me, we the masses work in order to sustain while a class above us reaps far greater rewards for our efforts. i recognize it is nearly impossible to live a creative life without starting out wealthy. but i want to find my own way to make my life rewarding in that way. i want to create things for me. i want to take in as much as i can-it is the books and articles i read, the music i listen to, the art i feel upon viewing, the movies that move me, that enrich my life and nourish my being. it is important for me to make time for these things. i can't get too ridiculous about dusting fixing the fixture in the bathroom.

i am not quite ecstatic when my time to leave work arrives. there is a feint sense of ecstasy within but it just feels too deep to quite define. i can discern it is a good feeling though, so i focus on it. it seems like a little red tootsie roll pop buried at my own mushy center, emanating a goodness that fails to reach me but remains nearly within reach none the less.

traffic is disappointing. mine is a tiny drive home and i am used to the traffic emanating from la and going my way but still, all these cars, all these people. who was it that said the planet is a living organism and like any organism it has diseases and humans are the earth's disease?

picking terra up from the babysitters is a joy. it's my first moment of the day when i forget about everything that disappoints me. i see her smile back at me and the noise of life ceases but doesn't become nothing. it becomes better than nothing. there is a clear stillness, not ringing air but a crystalline sense, a hyper-awareness, and the babysitters voice and the bark of buster the dog, are pleasant accompaniment to the clarity and terra wiggles in my arms and the involuntary recognition is like an unexpected gift. how sweet.

i bring her home and a bowel movement makes me feel healthy. but disappointment is persistent and there are household chores lurking around every corner. some days i tackle one. some days i need to lay down after baby-proofing the room and read a spell. i need that, sometimes. and if terra naps, i may nap though i feel somewhat guilty for not doing more than my very basic every day tasks like cleaning baby bottles and taking out various things.

faith deserves more.

dinner disappoints me. i enjoy cooking but rarely do it. going to a restaurant costs money i shouldn't spend. faith's meals require her to do work in addition to her feeding the baby and (hopefully,) taking over for me at some point in the evening to give me time to spend watching a game or reading a book or writing before bed.

insomnia can be diagnosed but who wants to tax the liver with meds for sleeping. i endure and sometimes i have weeks of getting to sleep quickly and easily. but not in the hot months. the thoughts of finances and my relationship and plans and responsibilities and insecurities about my performance as a father, (among other things,) open my pores and make me aware of my digestive tract.

sleep comes one to two hours later. it is disappointing i spend two of my waking hours trying not to be awake.

"a sad day for the country and a sad day for the Constitution."

a sad day for the constitution indeed.

if you do not think supreme court justices are important, if you do not think the idealogy of the president who appoints a supreme court justice is important, please consider this article. (Click on header to be directed to it.)

today the court increased the ability for a state or the federal government to sieze a person's private property.

The Constitution's Fifth Amendment says that private property may be taken by the government if fair compensation is paid to the owner. But there is a second requirement: The property may be taken only if it is for "public use."
The precise issue before the Supreme Court was whether a privately owned development project amounts to a "public use" of the homeowners' former properties.

the effect of the court's ruling, is to define "public use," as that which has any public benefit. the case before the court involved a group of citizens in connecticut who were displaced, (and disenfranchised,) because by removing them, the state would be able to increase the value of land in the area and thusly, charge higher taxes. voile, increased revenue for the state is translated to mean, "public use."

it has been said that the bush family got rich via a government invocation of the eminent domain law. the same has been said about the o'malley's in los angeles, in which case thousands of people who lived in chavez ravine were displaced from what was considered a slum housing project.

(in fact, ry cooder has recently worked on an album he says was inspired by the plight of those people. read about the musical project and a bit of the history here: http://csmonitor.com/2005/0623/p11s01-almp.html )

for a real understanding of the history of public housing programs in this country, try reading this paper-it's truly a lucid account of the many factors which have affected the various decisions over the years. http://www.fanniemaefoundation.org/programs/hpd/pdf/hpd_1102_hoffman.pdf

i'm concerned with the court's decision because i think this country was founded on individual rights. while i am a firm believer the public good is the greater good, and recognize decisions like these sometimes have to be made, i am concerned by the continuing shift in this country toward segregation.

the proliferation of gated communities is alarming. personally, i can't help but feel like tearing down one of those gates every time i see it. they exist on a presupposition that bad people lurk right out there somewhere and these gates may be what keeps them at bay. methinks the division created exacerbates the insecurities of those who might commit crimes to begin with.

where do we stop? when will the supreme court of this country stand up for the little guy? lately they never do and if rehnquist retires as hannity suggested yesterday, the liberals on that court are in for a constant thrashing for a while right along with the little guy.

and how is it that south pasadena has been able to stave off the 710 freeway extension all these years when connecticut can separate people from their property in the name of higher taxes? (Read about that here: http://www.nationaltrust.org/news/docs/19990603_pasadena.html )

reading and trying to understand the implications of many of the laws involved in relevant cases, i see this is an especially complex issue. but it strikes me as fundamentally bad when the government can run people off a piece of land in the name of higher taxes.