Monday, November 19, 2007

The Cry

I'm sorry, my friend, that you now have The Cry
Deep from the gut, powered through the throat
Flattened with face to the floor
Spine twisting
Abrupt and looming
Cathartic and primitive
But shameful, loathsome, and possessive
Joy-depleting, age-accelerating,
Friend-confusing, family-frustrating
Tears drain away parts of your soul

But I remember who you are is who you were
The glide of innocence is gone
The bumps warned of have come
I pray for rapid return
Of your former state of mind
Of the uninhibited and lasting smile
The one I knew before the mask went on
May your face be resistant to the digs of the frown
To the wrinkles that crack me
To the pounds that weigh me down
May time pass quickly and busily
And new love come soon to soothe and swoon
Who you are is who you were
and who you will be someday too

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Uncle Andy



My uncle, Andy Caire (above), died September 1st. He died in his sleep after a brief illness. Andy was the youngest of three boys, my dad's youngest brother. He was an artist, most accomplished with sculptures, I believe. He was a marksman, connoisseur of rifles and southwest history. Lived for many years in Lubbock, Texas. Most recently he moved to Williamsburg, Virginia, where he worked as a smith in the historical village. Andy was a big guy, deep voiced, wore a very long ponytail and a mustache with curved handlebars. He was a lover of dogs. In Williamsburg he often sat on his porch with his dog, Wally, as other residents passed walking their dogs and gave out dog treats to them. One of my earliest memories of visiting Uncle Andy was seeing his St. Bernard named Buck, and we were small enough to ride on Buck like a horse. As I mentioned, Andy was an unofficial historian of southwest U.S. history. He had an incredible personal library dedicated to the subject. He was a member of rifle team in college at Texas Tech, and I remember visiting his home in Lubbock and seeing his personal awards for marksmanship, such as a seven of hearts card with one heart in the corner shot out from something like 50 yards. In my apartment I have several small desktop sculptures that he has made throughout the years. Uncle Andy always remembered our birthdays, sending us a yearly check for $20, written with his distinctive small handwriting. And he always gave my mom such beautiful Christmas gifts to make her home more beautiful, even after the divorce.

I must say I feel a certain kinship with Uncle Andy, being the youngest of three boy, single, and kinda artsy at times. In fact, my dad will sometimes accidentally call me Andy while talking. I think I carry on his sarcastic and sardonic sense of humor, as well as perhaps an extended bachelorhood. Unfortunately there is much more to him than I will know. And his life ended fast and early, though relatively painless and easy given the circumstances. Please remember my grandparents, my dad, my Uncle Beau, and the rest of our family in your thoughts, as well as all of Andy's friends and coworkers in Williamsburg.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Disco-Cyborg Takeover

From Rolling Stone Issue 1035
Sep 20, 2007

by Joe Levy

In the third week of August, a new Britney Spears song surfaced briefly online, a ballad so negligible it may have been a demo. It was suprisingly stripped of digital processing, leaving Britney's voice completely exposed, and it soon disappeared, only to be replaced by the first single of her comeback campaign, "Gimme More." This was business as usual, with the same mechanized Ann-Margret purr she's used from the beginning and lyrics that equate the gaze of the crowd and the cameras with sex. Is it too unkind to point out it sounds just like Justin Timberlake's "Sexyback," but without the hooks? And is it even unkinder to point out its intentional provocations weren't nearly as shocking as the ballad that had leaked a week before?

What made that ballad so can't-look-away strange was hearing a vocal free of Auto-Tune, the pitch correction software that defines pop music today. You know the sound of Auto-Tune, at least pushed to its limits, when it produces the vocoder-like robotic vocals of T-Pain's "Buy U a Drank" and other summer ubiquities such as Rihanna's "Umbrella" or Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls." All of them deploy the digital efect that comes when vocals are tuned too tight, a quavering disco-cyborg melisma that's become the keynote of so much of the Top Forty.

Auto-Tune is infamous for making possible careers that would never exist without it, allowing the turd polishing (as producers call it) that can turn the wee-packaged mediocre singers into stars. But used sparingly, it allows producers to seamlessly correct flat or sharp notes--literally to pull them in line with the proper pitch on a computer display--and it's likely that most of what you hear today is pitch corrected in one place or another. Not because the vocalists can't sing--because they can't sing perfectly. "Auto-Tune is like the fake tits of the music industry," says one producer. That is, it both creates and fulfills inhuman standards of beauty.

Auto-Tune is nothing new, and neither is that disco-cyborg effect, which powered Cher's "Believe" nine years ago. There's no more sense in complaining that it's fake than there was in bitching about drum machines twenty years ago. But it dominates the current moment, for better and worse. It merges the singer and the track, reducing everything to technology, which is perfect for ringtones or music on YouTube. It has its uses. But it rarely sustains more than a song. Try listening to Rihanna's entire album (which has sold sluggishly, despite a massive hit single) and you'll soon know thte truth of the philosophy limned by Justin Timberlake in the hook of 50 Cent's new single: "I'm tired of using technology/Why don't you sit down on top of me?" Sometimes, you want the human touch, even if it's a wobbly Britney vocal no one was ever supposed to hear.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Blame it on global warming!!

What ever happened to old fashioned heat waves? Rainy seasons? These days, it seems to me like every environmental abnormality is being blamed on global warming. Perhaps the wild fires are worse now because trees are drier because of global warming. Maybe someone will find a link between autism and melting ice caps.

Here's an article that highlights some of my own thoughts about this new-found gusto for environmentalism...



Prius Preening
Is my hybrid turning my kids into eco-snobs?
By Emily Bazelon
Updated Thursday, July 12, 2007, at 4:24 PM ET

On an average Saturday morning, there are five blue Toyota Priuses in the parking lot of our synagogue. I know because my children count them, starting with ours. They could do this with any popular item they own, of course (not that they have too many chances in our late-adapting household). But their hybrid love made me cringe last week, when the New York Times ran a story about the success of the Prius (purchase required), and I saw myself in it.

Why are Prius sales surging when other hybrids are slumping, the Times asked? Because buyers "want everyone to know they are driving a hybrid." According to a marketing survey (which the Times ran in a graphic I couldn't hide from), more buyers bought the Prius this year because it "makes a statement about me" (57 percent) than because of its better gas mileage (36 percent) or lower carbon dioxide emissions (25 percent) or new technology (7 percent).

If I'm being honest, I'd answer "all of the above" in response to that survey. It also made me worry about how my kids perceive our family Prius ownership. Do they think we're doing our small bit to save the Earth, or are they imbibing a look-at-me smugness?

This is a problem that can arise in many contexts—nationalism and religion spring to mind. There's a fine line between pride in one's identity and unearned moral superiority. But environmentalism has particular pitfalls. One's salvation from sin doesn't depend on anyone else's salvation, not directly. But one's salvation from global warming does. My air conditioning is cooling off my house and heating up your planet.

Kids get this, I think. They also get that grown-ups think the matter urgent. It's a hard lesson to miss when we're surrounded by a doomsday culture spawned by fears of global warming. On Earth Day, my son's first-grade class learned about saving Dear Mother Earth by recycling and conserving water and, yes, telling other people to do those things (starting at home with their families). Don't get me wrong: I'm all for Eli turning off lights and telling his younger brother, Simon, to quit blasting the hot water. I'm also all for Al Gore sounding the alarm to adults. But the mass death threat lurking in kid-aimed lessons about climate change reminds me of the antinuclear propaganda I grew up with in the 1980s. Remember The Day After? I don't think my 7-year-old and 4-year-old really need exposure to end-of-the-world scenarios. I've read them the 1971 The Lorax lots of times, but one later Seuss title we don't own is the Cold War allegory The Butter Battle Book.

Scare tactics and smugness will not win the day for the planet. Thomas Friedman makes this point well with his proposed motto, "Green is the new red, white and blue." He argues that going green should be "capitalistic and patriotic," an ethos that belongs to Kansas as much as to the liberal precincts of Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. If environmentalism remains the snooty project of the Pious Prius Brigade, then my kids and your kids, or their kids or grandkids, will be moving to Greenland.

Following Friedman, I want to make sure Eli and Simon never utter the kid version of the sort of overbearing environmentalism exemplified by this New Yorker quote: "I do daily yoga with my wife. We live in an energy-efficient house with solar-panel appliances. We use organic linens and towels. We try to ride bikes to work." Don't you want to punch this guy? I do. I thought of him a couple of weekends ago when we went on a family camping trip. In the middle of a clear West Virginia stream, some of our fellow campers soaped up, shampoo and all, with nary a thought, seemingly, to the chemicals they were injecting straight into the water. Eli looked at them and then at my husband and me. "Those people shouldn't be doing that!" he said. "We should stop them, shouldn't we?" We shook our heads and told him to keep his voice down, and while I can't quite remember what we said, I hope it was some halfway coherent explanation about how sometimes you just have to let other people be.

At the same time, when kids feel the pull of a powerful family ethic—a strong belief in its own way of doing things—that's a thing to behold. We know a 14-year-old who is a strict and committed vegetarian. He believes that it's wrong to kill animals to eat them, and he converted his parents and his two brothers to eating His Way. There's real force to their collective choice to respect and live out his principles, and a kind of beauty, too. I've written before about trying to inculcate a countercultural family ethic. I'm still committed. And, in our house, some greeniness is part of it. Last winter, when we decided to buy our first new car in 13 years, I was editing the Slate Green Challenge. My husband does environmental work for a living. It seemed ridiculous not to take the biggest chance we had to reduce the family carbon count—and the tax break we got from D.C. was nice, too.

Also—and here's where the "making a statement" part comes in—neither of us really wanted to drive a minivan, our other logical option, given the many-kid carpools in our future. This feeling was tied to green values, sure, but it was also about an aesthetic: avoiding, for now, becoming a minivan mom.

I like our Prius. It's quiet and easy to park. It's averaging gas mileage of 43.4 miles per gallon, not off the charts by any means, but significantly better than the car we traded in for it. Eli and Simon enjoy watching the small video screen on the dashboard, which shows the car's relative use of electricity and gas at any given moment (at least I think that's what it's doing). We all like that hip feeling that comes with other people asking questions about a new product you've decided to make your own.

So far, I'm happy to say, the kids don't seem to have jumped from Prius pleasure to Prius preening. When Eli spotted yet another blue one on the road yesterday, he asked why the car is so popular. I couldn't resist annoyingly answering with, "Why do you think it is?"

Silence in the back seat.

"Well, why did we get one?" I prompted.

More silence, then in a small voice, "So we won't poison the air."

I launched into Gore speak: We're still driving, so we're still poisoning the air, except that actually we're not poisoning it, since carbon dioxide isn't poison, but, yes, we'd gotten the car to help at least a little bit with global warming. I took a breath so I could continue with my explanation, when Simon cut me off.

"I know why we got it," he said. "Because the old green car smelled bad."

Good answer.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Jack Laughing

This is my cousin's baby Jack:

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Imus

This is an editorial by sports columnist Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star, who, if you can't tell in the article, is a black man.


Imus isn’t the real bad guy
By JASON WHITLOCK - Columnist

Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.

You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.

You’ve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.

Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.

The bigots win again.

While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.

I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.

It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.

Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.

It’s embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white and black people, and we all laugh out loud.

I’m no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.

But, in my view, he didn’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.

I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.

Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.

But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.

In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?

I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?

When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re not looking to be made a victim.

No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Please Pray

...for my good friend whose little 1yr old boy is in a hospital with a lung problem...he's been in the hospital too long during his short life...prior to this he was a sweet quiet little boy with flushed, ruddy cheeks...now his disease has made him far too quiet...please pray for his momma too, who has had to bear so much burden...pray for healing, and if not healing, then peace beyond all understanding...thank you

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

bags

those sons a bitches
who made you suspicious
are holdin' for riches
your hearts best wishes

Thursday, March 01, 2007

I AM SPECIAL

Inspired by this article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17349066/?GT1=9145
Fueled by my own thoughts...

Among the phenomena of my generation, as well as the next one which is teens and college students, is this notion of being suuuuuper special. That everyone has a right to their dream, to their ideal, to perfection, to never settle. While I think this is okay to a degree, I find that it can plague a person's life to be perpetually unsatisfactory, that the goals they are striving for are just not fair to themselves and their failure to achieve leaves them sad and wanting.

An example I see today is these silly American Idol auditions, where the auditioner is really just not that good by almost all accounts. The judges tell her she's not going to Hollywood, and she throws a fit (loud or quiet) and says things like, "I'm never going to give up on my dream," or, "This will only make me stronger and I'm never going to stop."

Well, maybe they should stop. When do we draw the line on chasing the dream vs spinning the wheels?

I had a patient the other day who I decided to ask what she wanted to do in the future for a job. (unusual small talk) She said she wanted to get into law, then become a federal judge. I commended her on her aspirations, and asked where she was in school. This 20 year old was not in school, was beginning courses at a local junior college, and aspired to "law classes" at a local university.

Now...I'm 30, and if I got the notion that I wanted to be surgeon general or something, I know it's already too late for all that stuff. These offices and dreams are long in the making for the people who arrive there. And, better or worse, there's often a pedigree one must have that often does not include junior college and a few years languishing in your early twenties. So I found it funny that this girl thought being a federal attorney was completely achievable if you just "set your mind to it."

Maybe we need to encourage less single-mindedness. We should encourage the periphery. Just because you want to, you are HIGHLY likely not to become a superstar entertainer. And maybe you should call off the dream. Or maybe just readjust it. Even the finalists on American Idol will make a living, but they won't be superstars. And eventually most of them will retire from entertainment and pursue a different life. So what makes you think that, if you're rejected early on in the process that you should "get stronger," and pursue this even harder? Just because you want to? Because you wanna be a star?

It is not a right to become highly successful. Yes, we hear stories of the self-made millionaires and celebrities who were down on their luck and had a breakthrough. But the problem is in expectation.

The word "passion" means "suffering." When you tell me music is your passion, don't confuse yourself because it is simply what is fun for you. If it is your passion, then it brings suffering to you. You will suffer anything to do music in any shape or form. You will suffer to try to find your niche, whatever that is. And that is certainly different than expecting success to come to you just because you want it.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

There are times...

...I feel my face get stuck in a pursed-lip grimace
...I can catch lightning in a bottle, but there are holes in my lid
...the dealer always wins, but I never get up to leave
...I'm pessimistic about optimism
...I'm too realistic about ideals
...I feel like the sun is a long lost friend

...that I am satisfied
...that I am dutiful
...when I feel unrecognized
...that I am an underachiever and disappointing
...that I am overly criticized
...I am hopeless
...things will never change
...things have to change
...that the testimonies are true
...that God just might not intervene
...that God is silently waiting, tapping his fingers

...that I will be stuck like this for a very long time
...when I am waiting for a savior
...when I know I am a complete fraud
...I believe time heals all wounds
...when the wounds reopen
...when my imagination overtakes me
...when my anger boils
...when I look at old pictures and wonder where I went
...I long to laugh until I feel tired
...I forget when I last laughed like that

...I feel like I am really smart
...I'd rather be flipping burgers
...I wonder why I'm still single
...when I believe Emily was the worst thing that ever happened
...that the break up ruined years of my life
...memories tear me down
...I feel cheated
...I cannot sleep
...I eat too much
...I can't wait to move from here
...when I believe I'm the same kid I was when I was 22
...I am alone and I know it

...when I believe in the odds
...when I know God has a safety net
...I have great company
...memories hold me strong
...people believe in me strongly
...the guitar is an extension of my emotions
...God is near
...I smile and it feels like I'm working new muscles
...I feel great peace and try to exploit it

...I know I'm a whiner
...I know I'm ungrateful
...I know I'm oblivious
...I know I'm safe
...it could be worse
...I know it's really good

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Shadow of the Super Bowl

OK...so I borrowed this from another blog, who borrowed it from another blog. But I like it.
“Fax of Life” from Rubel Shelly:

That there is “life outside of football” may be a necessary reminder for some sports fans and couch potatoes now that Super Bowl XLI is over. Now that the Indianapolis Colts have the Lombardi Trophy in hand, some of them may be wondering what they will do until next season begins.

But the line is actually from Tony Dungy, the Colts’ head coach. It wasn’t spoken after last Sunday’s water-logged victory over the Chicago Bears but just after his son James committed suicide 13 months ago.

In a speech he made shortly after that tragedy, Dungy talked about all three of his sons. He spoke first of his middle son, Eric, and said his competitive nature is so focused on athletics that “it’s almost a problem.” Then he turned to his youngest son, Jordan, whose rare congenital condition makes him insensitive to pain.

“That sounds like it’s good at the beginning, but I promise you it’s not,” said Coach Dungy. “We’ve learned some hurts are really necessary for kids. Pain is necessary for kids to find out the difference between what’s good and what’s harmful.”

“Cookies are good,” the coach explained, “but – in Jordan’s mind – if they’re good out on the plate, they’re even better in the oven. He will go right in the oven when my wife’s not looking, reach in, take the rack out, take the pan out, burn his hands – then eat the cookies and burn his tongue and never feel it.”

“Pain sometimes lets us know we have a condition that needs to be healed,” Dungy said. “Pain inside sometimes lets us know that spiritually we’re not quite right, and we need to be healed. And that God will send that healing agent right to the spot. Sometimes pain is the only way that will turn us as kids back to the Father.”

Only then did Coach Dungy speak of his oldest son, James, who took his life three days before Christmas 2005. He spoke of his family’s pain. He talked about lessons they were learning from it. He and his wife have since joined an organization dedicated to preventing teen suicide.