Entitlement

i wonder how i feel
out on the public highway
do i need to obey any laws
or rules of the road?

Thank you, NRA

The National Rifle Association has finally done it.  They’ve given us a clear vision of the future of American society, at least for the first half of the twenty-first century.

The organization’s executive vice-president, Wayne LaPierre, has articulated an unassailable case for placing armed guards in every elementary school in American.  One really cannot argue with the perfection of his vision. 

It’s well past time we stopped coddling our youth.  These youngsters have no business being deluded by well-meaning adults.  The imagination stops here.  It stops now. 

As everyone with a pulse has figured out, we have nothing of value in our society.  There is nothing worth striving for besides money and power and trophy spouses.  Oh yeah, the cars.  One must have a statement vehicle.

But I digress.  The point is that we can no longer handicap our young by sustaining a notion that life is not horrible and stressful at all times and in all ways for the adult population.  This much is clear from recent public dialog, not only with regard to mass shootings of innocents, but also on the national front with elected leaders who are unable to work together or vaguely agree on what constitutes the “common good”.  Everybody loses is the new win-win.

If people of good will cannot break down barriers that keep us uninformed and stressed out about “those people” of whom we know nothing, it will certainly serve us right to degenerate into urban madness.  The homeland war that George W. Bush so often promised will be upon us, not perpetrated by the fundamentalist Islamists but by our own selves.  We have met the enemy and it’s us.  Can we all just get along?

 

Dear Mister President

Dear President Obama,

As you are aware we are today mourning the tragedy in Connecticut, the latest in mass shooting, mass murder made possible by use of highly efficient firearms. 

It is a huge task to address the causes of such horror but we cannot shirk our responsibility due to difficulty or complexity.

Please join me in calling renewed emphasis on zero tolerance for bullying in schools.  There can be no exceptions or excuses or acceptance of “kids being kids”.  The strong will prey on the weak and the weird, the outsiders. We must make an effort to identify this behavior in public schools and intervene.  It is a never-ending challenge but we must do better.

The kids bully each other for a simple reason: they see adults doing it to each other and to them.  The adults are the ones we need to focus on, not just the kids.  Adult behavior is at the root of this toxic issue.

I am a gun owner.  I have some rifles and shotguns and a couple of revolvers.  None of these are semi-automatic.  I have no concerns with semi-automatic weapons as long as the magazine is limited to a reasonable size.  What is “reasonable” size magazine?  I don’t know.  Perhaps something under 20 is a place to start.  Let’s get this discussion going today.

No one outside military or special weapons and tactics squads needs access to fully automatic weapons.  I don’t know of an exception.  The idea that we need firearms to protect ourselves from governmental authority does not work for me.  It’s an overly-simple idea, a tactic not a rational scenario.  (At least, not here in The States.)

Please join me in working to increase access to mental health counseling for at-risk youth and adults.  There is no reason we cannot improve social services in this area, except for the lack of willingness to spend the money and time necessary.  We cannot afford to let this opportunity go by without addressing the lack of drug and mental health counseling and the stigma that is associated with seeking professional help.

We can’t sit back and wait for someone to do this work for us.  We need to share the burden of this difficult task and get busy.  No more tragedies of this scale.  Please lend your voice and the power of your office to the effort.

Yours truly,

Thinkit: How Did This Happen

What is your connection to Indiana?  Do you live someplace near Indianapolis?

I live in or near Seattle, WA.

How did you become involved in an Indiana-themed Blog project?

It’s Heidi Gluck’s fault.  She shared the link on her Facebook and I took the bait.

Have you ever been to Indiana?

Yes!  I lived in Chicago for four years and worked for Amtrak during most of that time so I’ve crossed through the state on innumerable occasions on my way to points east.

How about Indianapolis?  What is your interest in or connection to?

Kurt Vonnegut and the 2012 WNBA Champion INDIANA FEVER!  Go Feve!  I can’t wait to see them at the White House meeting the pres next summer.  OMG.  Coach Dunn is the best and the funniest in the freakin’ league.  They had such a great season.  NOBODY thunk it.

How long have you lived in or around Seattle?

Um, since 1996, so … (pause for math) sixteen years and counting.

Are you a Washington native?

CALIFORNIA, baby. 

How did you become interested in blogging?

I’ve felt that Facebook and (dating myself) MySpace were not risky enough.  I wanted to put my name on something that could generate more heat.

What do you do, most days?

Get on the bus and commute across Lake Washington from Kirkland to Seattle where I work for a crazy Internet and Real Estate and Space Launch company that also owns several local sports franchises.  I usually read on the bus in the morning and listen to music on the way home.  It’s like, an hour each way (blurggggggh).  I am a technology professional.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

I would like to be retired from the daily grind, playing bass with a couple of bands and making jewelry from a 500lb cache of semi-precious stones I inherited from my grandpa about twenty years ago.

Word association:

Internet: bogus
Ideas: borrowed
Bicycle: dusty but serviceable
Sandwich: bahn mi
Ballard: Avenue

What is your favorite area of Seattle or nearby?

I work in the ID (International District) which is very colorful but I’m kind of fond of the Interbay, Myrtle Edwards Park area.  I love the trains and the water and the mountains and the sunsets.  It's world-class lovely.

What bands and/or musicians?

Local bands: Kissing Potion, Good For You, Soul Senate, Thaddillac, Cascadia Ten
National or non-local: Juliana Hatfield, Nada Surf, Carolyn Wonderland, Sarah Morrow, Fanny Franklin, Catherine Popper, Savoy Brown, Aimee Mann

Anything else worth mentioning?

I love my dog, Chloe, and my wife, Annemarie.  I’m a lucky duck.

Thinkit: Wise Decisions of 2012

The single best decision I’ve actually followed up on was to ratchet down my tolerance for anger to zero.  This bears a little ‘splaination.

In the toing and froing of daily hecticity we encounter multiple opportunities to take umbrage.  There is no end to the occasions for outrage.  My epiphany was to stop and ask, “Who is my audience?  Who cares if I’m angry?” 

Of course it’s all just me in my metal think-tank, my personal sensory deprivation pod, also known as the single-occupant vehicle on the way to/from work.

Everyone is anonymous out there on the road.  We’re not sporting very much on the exterior that provides a reliable link to our life story.  Yet we can react as if it were all so very personal, our own maneuvers and the behavior we observe in others.

My goal was to spend less time (zero time) reacting in anger at other people’s anonymous activities.  I developed this mantra: No Anger, No Impatience, (take) No Offense.  This is what I say over and over while merging onto I-405. 

Has it helped?  Yes, absolutely. 

The mantra has helped me notice how often I flip from “doo doo de doo” to “grrrr, grrr, arrrrgh” with apparent impunity.  In private there seems to be no penalty for nurturing the anger djinn but it has a bad effect on me and so I assume on everyone else who keeps this little flame burning.  As with most fire anger seeks to consume fuel and will seek it indiscriminately.

My goal is to not be angry out in society or in private or at the very least notice when I begin to queue up the justifications.  The results are better sleep, better digestion, and an odd awareness of how pervasive the anger response is in our culture. 

I’m saying it ain’t worth it, it’s not normal, it hurts our tiny minds and short-circuits the attempts we make to stay connected with our friends and family.  No Anger, No Impatience, (take) No Offense.

Who Would I Be if I Wanted to Meet Myself?

I’ve already met some of the people I longed to be introduced to.  It’s amazing how people can be easy to approach if you’re able to avoid deer in the headlights or drooling (remember to close mouth).

Meeting heroes has propelled me into a zone I knew existed: a realm of humility and gratitude.  The pattern has repeated often enough to stand out as a rule: If I keep my eyes open and limit the blah-blah we can achieve a plateau of harmony, a little equilibrium of status quo.  Remember to exit before it turns weird.

I want to stay in the humble zone.  I’ve found that there are fabulous people who want that too. 

Occasionally people want to meet me!  This is so hard on my tiny, peanut-sized brain.  Noooooo, ego!  Stay in check, you bloated dingleberry.

The best reason for someone to want to meet me is if I’ve done them some kindness, been patient when I could have been a short-fused bastard.  It’s not unusual.  No one would think it strange if I took the opportunity to prove myself a short-sighted narrow-minded mother’s little hypocrite.  That’s what men in positions of power do to prove they are on top and you are not.

unplugged but not unhinged

Walking the dog is my favorite unplugged activity.  It’s a journey into the wet, windy, serious water coming down this morning.  Doggie’s interest and enthusiasm wane as we struggle along the sidewalk. 

Although we’re not in the country I notice the sounds of wildlife, trees, and running water.  A stream discharges from underneith the road, disappearing madly into a thick stand of trees on its short trip to the lake. 

 

Tomorrow I’ll get back on the bus, surrounded by the plugged-in, the everything app world of modern finger touching smart phones.  I can only think about smeared boogers on the glass.

2012 The Year In Pictures

I was in Singapore in late February, working.  It was hot and humid but I was indoors, mostly, below decks.  We went out in the evenings for drinks and dinner in the Garden District, Orchard Road,  the westernized area.  The hotel was directly across the street from a prostitution hook-up spot, the Orchard Towers, a.k.a. “four floors of whores”.  We sat and watched the sometimes amusing action on the street when coming back from dinner.  (None of my team participated.)

Singapore is huge and amazingly calm.  Traffic is dense but no one uses their horn.  Workers ride in the back of small flatbed trucks, each of which is marked with how many people it can carry and its maximum speed.  We were grateful to have an air-conditioned minivan.

 

We took the subway a little.  The distances are great in this massive city-state.  You can easily spend an hour on the subway getting across part of the island.  It took us an hour or more each way to get from our hotel to the boat.

Towards the end of my visit I got a call that my dad had taken a tumble.  It was bad; a sharp blow to the head against a concrete step.  He was bloodied and cracked several vertebrae.  Not so good for an eighty-five year old man. 

My Mom cleaned him up, put him to bed.  They had breakfast the next morning and then drove to the local “doc in the box” clinic which immediately put him in an ambulance dispatched to the emergency room.  He ended up with surgery to repair the cracked neck, got some screws put in, eventually made it home. 

 

 

Switching from Five to Four

Playing bass is a seriously physical exercise.  There is no time when one is not thinking about the fretting, the plucking, and the wearing of a giant instrument around one’s neck.  It seems like holding on tight would be the right approach, hitting hard with the fingers, fretting the hell out of that neck. 

As with so many things it turns out a light touch is the right touch.

I began in the fret business with a nylon-stringed classic, a full-depth cedar and spruce instrument with a wide fingerboard.  When one is at the phase where holding strings down actually hurts, it’s difficult to play too hard, difficult but not impossible.  I began to watch flamenco players and marveled at how they could very lightly beat the crap out of their instruments, somehow balancing force with deft feeling to produce impressive tone.

After switching to electric bass I played a lot and I played hard.  For a young man nothing could be more normal and natural.  If one plays in an ensemble of rock musicians, one can get used to not being able to hear oneself above the roar of guitars and drums.  But this is a yellow flag.

I switched to the five string when my mates began playing the tuned-down metal and stoner drones that required access to a low E flat.  Carrying two instruments (one std, one down-tuned) proved cumbersome.  Switching instruments in mid-set was ridiculous.  The five was the answer.

Not only was the low E flat available, the low D and low C rocked balls.  I don’t believe the open B can be considered truly useful, but it’s there as well, not to be totally ignored.  This was my hearty basement of loudness for many years and several rocking bands.

Eventually I needed to back off the gigging band scene with some seriously bad tinnitus.  When the ringing didn’t diminish in between practices and performances there was no longer room for denial.  I quit the band and laid back, laid low, started un-learning all those songs and tried to work on new stuff.

Eventually I noticed that I didn’t know the fifty-song set list all that well.  We had been playing classic rock.   There is a huge opportunity to engage the audience’s brain-player when they know the melody and all the words.  I realized, as I fingered the tunes on my lonesome, that I had fudged over transitions and intros, outros and even some verses and choruses.  Because, why not?  It was all loud and I was told (and so believed) that the loudness mattered.

Playing by myself the fudging mattered in a big way.  I wanted more accuracy.  I needed more confidence that what I played was “correct” in reality, not just in appearance.  I read the sheet music for “Immigrant Song” and felt enlightened and perplexed.  What was the answer to this dilemma?

I signed up for an on-line lesson with a player of note, a person of some repute.  I had a few weeks to prepare.  I knew the instructor to be a four-string player.  She had already cajoled me for playing the five.  She cajoled in a good natured way but I didn’t wish to have a meaningless distraction during the lesson so I switch to a four string for the prep.

What I learned is that with four strings I had better command of the frets and strings.  I could stop staring at my left hand night and day.  I could mute without thinking much about it.  I could wear the instrument around my neck without fantasizing about the thing deforming my spine.  I could visualize all the notes in open position, the fifth position and started pasting in the grey area above eight.  The thing seemed easier because it was suddenly easier.

I asked my teacher, “how to you avoid plucking too hard with the right hand”?  She said something like, “turn up, tone down”, meaning use the power of the amp to get volume, not power of the muscles.  Get better tone by playing easier. 

I’m playing short, easy grooves now, only a few bars so I can visualize the notes, memorize the passage easily and not stare at my hand.  This is a revelation and a serious infusion of joy to the practice routine!  My next goal is to begin charting these small sections using crude but meaningful notation on blank sheets or staff paper.  Writing my own parts! 

I still love the five but I’m not sure I’ll gravitate back in that direction.  I am in need of serious four-time, I need to hear the whole register of the four before heading back to the five.  I believe we bass players are not making use of the entire register no matter how many strings.

Wish me luck!

Blog Manifesto

I’m contributing to a group blog project for the month of December.  Since this implies more eyes will be upon my writings I figured a minor blog manifesto would be in order.

 

What I am not about: anger and angst, vitriol spewing, chest thumping or victory dancing. 

To be sure, I am no saint but it’s not my intention to contribute to the vortex of mayhem and intimidation.  Do we not get enough of this on the highway? 

I am interested in how people come together, working together to create something, everything.  I know we all need our private moments but I believe it’s gone to excess with the age of consumerism.  I think we’re more isolated than is healthy.  We’re social creatures!  It’s transcendental to get together with a group for travel, music, sightseeing, food and drink and chit-chat, and of course, work. 

Why are we all sitting alone in our cars or in our portable electronic sensory deprivation pods?  I don’t want to hang out with everybody but being alone has got its limits.  My observation is that we’re easier to market to when isolated from the herd and constantly distracted.

I will go on and on about how the single-occupant vehicle has ruined America and will apologize to anyone who takes offense.  No offense is intended.  We are bigger and better and far more complex than our giant vehicles can represent.