More than just music

I purged my iTunes library again this weekend, and it’s the latest in a series of add/delete push-and-pulls between the better angels of my nature.
For now, the musical ranks in my 7.7 GB library are dominated by names like Mozart, Chopin and Wagner. I deleted all of my punk and industrial stuff last night while watching “The Sound of Music” with my wife. I’ve added and deleted these types of songs countless times over the past year, and it seems that they end up back there within a week or so. At first, I thought it had to do with music, but upon reflection, I think it had more to do how I’d like to think of myself. I’d LIKE to think of myself as the kind of guy who would like to spend an evening watching “Citizen Kane” with a glass of red wine. In reality, I greatly enjoy watching “Star Trek” movies while eating pudding cups. I’d LIKE to think of myself as someone who can discuss at length the genius of the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. In reality, I’m more at home discussing the differences between punk music from England in the early 1980’s versus hardcore punk from Los Angeles around the same time.
I am a mixture of conflicting impulses. On one hand, I appreciate righteous anger, and how it can manifest itself in a barking three-chord chorus. On the other hand, I’ve been at best hindered by such anger in the past, and realize that it doesn’t have a place in my future. Classical and choral music calms me. It helps me think in a clear, focused manner, and keeps me relaxed in the sometimes-stressful environment of a newsroom. However, there are limits to the moods it can suit. Sometimes, after an angry day, Nine Inch Nails is the only sound that can tame the savage beast within.
This isn’t about music at all; it’s about me being at a crossroads. I can either proceed down the path of the future, or turn around and head back down the dark path I came in on. It’s an ugly, stark choice, but it seems one that begs to be made with any amount of certainty. The two schools of thought are not compatible; they are fighting for dominance, and control. For now, the better half seems to be winning.
With a CD collection, it’s easy to own a variety of things that you might not be especially proud of (Marilyn Manson, ABBA, etc.) because each CD is its own entity entirely separate from a generic whole. With iTunes, on the other hand, whatever is in the library is a reflection of various facets of the listener’s personality. When I look at all of the ugly on it, it reminds me of the ugly I’ve yet to tame.

Trojan Horse

I thought of an interesting theory the other day. After considering about how odd it was that John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate (relative unknown, pregnant daughter, etc.), I realized that it was a calculated move on the part of the GOP. It is calculated due to several factors. The GOP could never hope to get another governor with a narrow resume (a la GW) and strong adherence to conservative Christian values into the White House without being torn to shreds under the laser-like scrutiny of both the Old and New Medias. The comparisons to the Current Occupant would just be too obvious. To get around this, the logical move would be to keep the actual candidate hidden until the last possible moment. In this case, John McCain would not actually be running for president in the traditional sense - he's merely a Trojan Horse for Palin, the actual candidate who, when the time came, would replace him. McCain is no spring chicken - he could very easily step down for health reasons and no one would bat an eye.
In doing so, he would be turning over the reigns of power to an unknown and perhaps easily shaped president who would probably be more willing than not to bring in cabinet members with their own powerful ideas (a la Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz) and own agenda. Palin, from what I know about her, seems close to the sort of conservative GW is. She is, using quotes from her own speech at the RNC, suspicious of the media, pro-drilling, pro-Iraq War and anti-tax. If it seems the attention on the campaign trail has shifted to Palin, it's no accident. Now, it's all a matter of McCain bowing out and letting the real candidate come through. The sympathy generated from whatever "accident" or "health problem" McCain "succumbs" to could take Palin to a sweeping election victory.

I admit, it's just a theory. But it still scares me.

Illusions of Choice

Obama. McCain. Obama. Biden. McCain. Palin. Paul. Obama. Lather, rinse, repeat.
At this point in a ridiculously long election cycle, I’m tired of all of it, and try as I may, I can’t put my heart fully behind any of the candidates. It wasn’t always like this. In 2004, I felt something for the candidacy of John Kerry, because he seemed an intelligent man who offered us something other than what our faux cowboy president had given us. In 2000, I voted Bush because, unlike Al Gore, he seemed to have a personality. I regret that vote. I regret that I didn’t have the foresight to see what could have happened down the road when a blank man who seemed to project whatever we wanted to see in him (as a “compassionate conservative,” whatever that means) revealed himself for what he really was: a dynastic phony with a very narrow band of interest. I used to consider myself a conservative, but that changed in the years after 9/11. I’m not a conservative anymore for the following simple reasons:
1.) The war in Iraq is a poorly planned affair based more on the charisma of the Bush Administration than on the actual facts at hand. The war in Afghanistan, on the other hand, had a clear objective and point.
2.) Our civil liberties are being infringed now more than ever in the name of “our freedom.” What’s the point of trying to defeat our enemy when we become more and more like him with each passing intelligence bill?
3.) A grossly offensive terrorist attack on New York City and Washington, DC. in which thousands died, has been used for political gain ever since.
4.) The very planet we live on is being chewed up and spat out by companies whose foresight seems to be where their hindsight emanates from.
5.) The gap between the rich and the poor grows wider with each passing year.
6.) An American city was left to drown after rampant cronyism proved less than successful at minimizing the damage.
I’m not a conservative. I’m not a liberal. I’m not sure what I am. But I know that I’m angry. I’m angry because my electoral choice this fall isn’t much of a choice at all. Which is worse: voting for someone who you know will screw you, or voting for someone who says they won’t but probably will anyway? Obama, for all of his charisma, is untested. The last thing we need in office after eight years of Bush is another man with a fairly narrow resume. McCain, for all of his fighter pilot heroism (justified, to a point), has been in Washington for 26 years but only now claims that the system is broken. Biden, before he was chosen by Obama, talked a lot of trash about Obama’s lack of experience, a tune that changed markedly once he was picked as vice president. And Palin? A good speech does not experience make. She’s the Republican version of Obama – good at getting people’s passion stirred up, but lacking any real sort of qualifications to make her the next president of the United States.
I’m reading poll figures today that are saying McCain is pulling ahead in the race. How is this even possible? How could Barack Obama, who seemed to have the world on a string a few months ago, have fallen to this point? Why is this even a race anymore? It shouldn’t even be a contest by this point. What does it matter to me? I don’t like either of them. McCain, for all of his “maverick” tendencies, has voted more with President Bush than against him. I’m not comfortable with that. Obama, for all of his rhetoric, doesn’t convince me of much of anything concrete. This Election Day, I’m going to vote for “None of the above.” I’m not happy to have come to that conclusion, but so far, it’s the only choice that makes sense to me.

A Double Standard on Political Affairs

This week, former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has been (rightly) criticized after finally admitting to having an affair with a woman who worked on his campaign. While much of the coverage on this story focuses on the possibility of an illicit love child born earlier this year, I find marked inconsistency from right-wing blogs (and to some extent, the mainstream media) in coverage on this event. Let us not forget that John McCain, too, cheated on his wife, divorcing her after she was in a car wreck and later marrying a woman 20 years his junior.
I'm not saying that either of these men can be defended for what he'd done. Cheating in any circumstance is completely wrong, but it is even worse when your spouse suffers from some sort of affliction (Elizabeth Edwards - cancer; Carol McCain- disfigurement from car crash). The fact that McCain ended up marrying his mistress does not change the fact that he cheated on the person he was married to at the time. The fact that he's been married to her ever since is not an ablution to the stain of the original sin.
Both of these men cheated on their wives. Time notwithstanding, one is getting off lightly, and another is being strung up on the front pages of every major publication in the world. Now tell me: both crimes being equal, how is that a balanced response?

A Different World View

My baby girl hasn’t even come down the chute yet, and I’m already turning into an overprotective father figure.
The ultrasounds were pretty clear, when Evelyn wasn’t squirming around or playing with her hands. The clarity of the image was striking – and a clear line between her legs made any doubt we had about her gender assignation seems moot. She is very obviously a girl, and part of me sat there watching the little TV baby knowing that my view on being a parent had shifted gears from “carefree” to “serious” in a matter of minutes. In a matter of minutes, I felt something within me change. I was well on my way to becoming like Walter Stratford, the protective (to put it mildly) father figure in the 1999 movie “10 Things I Hate About You.” Stratford, a gynecologist, is obsessed with keeping his daughters safe on prom night.
“Kissing? That's what you think happens? I’ve got news for you. Kissing isn't what keeps me up to my elbows in placenta all day long,” he says. “I’ve got news for you. I'm down, I've got the 411, and you are not going out and getting jiggy with some boy, I don't care how dope his ride is. Mamma didn't raise no fool.”
I love his character for two reasons – one, he obviously cares, and two, he lamely tries to relate to his teenage daughters using “hip” lingo, which, as happens when most parents seems attempt it, turns out sounding unintentionally hilarious, like listening to tourists two almost, but can’t quite, carry a conversation in English. Since my wife has been pregnant, I’ve looked at things in a different way. Those movies scenes where a guy’s family is held hostage? Yeah – not funny anymore. Little kids gone missing? No longer a subject that provokes little response in me. Now, the empathy is heartbreaking. On our way home, we saw two teenage boys on bikes waiting for a stoplight to change. They were skinny and slightly insolent looking, wearing aviator glasses and plaid shorts. Normally, I would have just seen “teenagers.” Now, knowing I’ll be the parent of a daughter, I saw something else: “sexual threat.”
This sensation reached its apogee last night when Karla and I were watching a Wal-Mart commercial (of all things to find meaning in) featuring a mom dropping her daughter off at college. We, soon-to-be-parents, started to cry. We get it now.
Seriously though, finding out that I’m having a girl makes me look at things differently. First, my mind is burdened with the thought of what it is going to be like when she is a teenager, when teenage guys (who can get girls pregnant merely by being in the same state with a girl) will start calling for my beautiful (of COURSE she’s going to be beautiful!) little girl. I’m going to be that CIA-style dad who interrogates every date, who insists on regular communications checks with his daughter and who waits up until she gets home.
Yes, I’m going to be the biggest jerk those teenage boys have ever seen. And I can’t wait.

"Everybody's talking...and I can't hear a word they're saying"

My musical absorption has been off-key since I bought my first iPod in 2006.
It was a tiny silver 2 GB Shuffle model, packaged very cleverly in a plastic box with instructions so simple that anyone with half a brain could figure out how to use it. I wondered at is sleek lines, its logically arrayed controls, and above all, the hours and hours of music I could store on it. I didn’t realize it at the time, but just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Let me explain.
Musical technology has changed a lot over the years since I bought my first record album (“Thriller”) in 1984. While records were always around me growing up, I didn’t feel any true appreciation or ownership of an album until I received my first tape deck in 1987. The first album I ever bought was the “Beverly Hills Cop” soundtrack, and I can remember being very proud of having that off-white cassette with black writing on it. It was something cutting-edge, something I could take around as a badge of coolness. I used cassettes for the next eight years, learning how to dub and do my own remixes of songs using two different players. By the time I’d finally joined the CD revolution in 1994, I was at the height of my mixing powers.
CDs had been around for years, but for me, they took ownership to a new high. Not only did the album come with its own plastic case, it came with the promise that they shiny disk it contained would provide crystal-clear sound forever. The height of this “CD love” was reached in 1999, when a friend of mine tried to borrow my copy of New Order’s two-disc “Substance” set, and I was unable to part with it for more than 12 hours. The sad part was that I was utterly serious; I could not bear parting with something that had bored itself a tiny home deep within my soul. It wasn’t just New Order. I felt the same way about my Joy Division boxed set, and especially about my Germs “Complete Discography” album, which I loved so much I carried the booklet around and memorized.
I purchased my first digital album (two albums by the German electronic group And One) last year. I felt futuristic at the time, but upon reflection, the experience was lacking, and empty. Digital music is exactly that – it is digital, meaning there is no physical product to take home. There is no “thrill of the hunt” with iTunes. It’s not like hunting for a rare CD or vinyl album. If it exists, chances are that it can be had, which isn’t as great as it seems. If something is really rare, there is probably a reason for it (like there isn’t enough demand for it to actually be made on a mass scale; the “Terminator” soundtrack and TSOL’s “Beneath the Shadows” fit this scenario in my experience. Both were better in theory than in fact).
With iTunes and Internet music blogs, there is so much to listen to that I really doubt I am really hearing any of it. It strikes me as an endless all-you-can-eat buffet with multiple servings. By the end of the “obtaining” process, you are so gorged with food (or in this case, product) that you can’t remember if you were even hungry to begin with. For me, the temptation on my iPod to try to listen to everything at once is simply too great, and it is rare that I make it more than three songs into any particular album. Some days, it just seems there is too much to hear at once.
More than ever, portable music is the soundtrack to our lives. But is it a soundtrack, or a backdrop? Are we really listening to the sounds we hear?

A year later, bridge collapse shakes foundations of confidence

A year ago today, a bridge crumbled in the August heat, taking with it a bit of our confidence in the system we’ve built over the course of years and take for granted.
I was getting home from work. After changing into work clothes and making my way to the Nordic Track, I was stopped by a phone call from my friend Adam, asking me if I was all right. At first, I was confused; why wouldn’t I be all right? I asked him why, and he told me that the Interstate 35W bridge fell down.
“Which part?” I asked.
“The whole thing,” he replied, sounding oddly fascinated.
My heart sinking, I raced out of the room to flip on the TV. The scene was the same on every channel; footage from helicopter nose cameras showing smoke pouring out of crushed vehicles, dazed survivors being rescued by people unconcerned by tons of tipping concrete and re-bar. The talking heads of the TV news stations babbled over this surreal scene, but their words were not needed. The photos told the whole story – which wasn’t so much about the bridge collapsing as it was about the every day event that had gone horribly wrong that day. Commuting has become a part of American Life, and every time we buckle our seatbelts, we subconsciously assume that our commute is going to be two-way; otherwise, why would we do it? The bridge collapse not only snarled traffic for weeks after the disaster, it punched a hole in the idea of the mind-numbing typicality of a daily commute.
For the survivors, it became a game of “what-ifs.” For the rest of us watching our TV screens, it became a matter of “how many.” In the end, the toll was remarkably light (13 dead) considering how many people had been on the bridge at the time. As with any disaster, response from political leaders was to blame the other party, and use this tragedy in the shameless way most politicians use tragedies. The story spread all across the world; I even recall reading about it in Der Speigel, a German news magazine. There was a very good reason the world found this story so interesting: bridges don’t fall down in America, pure and simple. We’re the most powerful country on the planet, and things like this seem completely impossible for a might eagle built on a foundation of steel and concrete.
The whole thing made me wonder how strong our infrastructure is. Infrastructure is a natural last-choice for funding; people can’t usually see the repairs the way they can a shiny new building. Infrastructure is like bathroom fixtures – so long as everything works, people don’t think about it, or how it all goes together to make modern life possible. The new 35W bridge, built in record time, should be open by September. I’m not sure what I think about this – I almost wonder if the hurried pace of construction will lead to another tragedy down the road. I’m no engineering expert, but common sense would lead me to think that rushing anything, from a batch of brownies to a multi-million dollar bridge, is probably not the smartest idea. I’m hoping time proves me wrong.
All I know is that every time I drive over that new bridge, I’m going to remember the sounds and images of a hot day in August 2007, when our hearts plunged along with a falling span of concrete over the Mississippi River.