September 2009 Archives

Yes, I hate those 'week-in-review' type posts, but I feel like I have to write something both just to write something, and perhaps to shake out the cobwebs.

I've been to three pottery classes now and I've started to learn those techniques that I mentioned in a previous post about pottery, that will allow me to start making more complex shapes like Vases and Amphorae. My first experiment in making a closed shape was very successful, but I chose not to keep it. Next week I hope to make several.

The health-care debate rages on, but now we're at the point where legislators are beginning to introduce Bills. The Senate Finance Committee has rejected the only two Bills proposed that included a Public Option, but fear not, the fight isn't over. There are still ways in which a Public Option can happen, but we need to get on the phones and remind the 'honorable people' that inhabit our Congressional Halls, that two thirds of the people in this United States Of America, support the Public Option.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, since I'm not much of a TV junkie, but in the last two weeks I've really become a huge fan of the Rachel Maddow Show. She's smart, and witty, and she calls out all of the hypocrites who tell lies, or attempt to obfuscate the truth. That's so rare in the media today, that I find it refreshing, and addictive.

Today, Alan Grayson (D, Fla) made me smile with his outburst on the House Floor when he called out all Republicans (and their Blue-Dog Democrat friends) on their opposition to any form of health care reform. I regret his use of the word 'holocaust' in his sarcastic 'apology' that he later made on the floor after the Republicans had called for one, but I agree with everything else that he said. Why aren't more Democrats speaking out like this? Unfortunately his regrettable choice of words has allowed his critics to completely ignore the truth in most of what he said, but instead, to deflect and talk about everything but.

I have mixed feeling about the Fall Season. I love it because it cools off, and the foliage is amazing, but I hate the fact that Winter is coming. Hopefully this winter will be tolerable for me, and some cool things (no pun) will happen. Here's to already hoping for an early Spring.

My best to you all.

When I was a younger man, in the mid eighties, I remember having talks with a friend of mine who was very into world politics and history. In fact he was the biggest influence in my becoming interested in politics. Not only did he spark in me an interest in the topic in general, I also saw the logic in what he was saying, and in many ways, he was the role-model for my own political beliefs. Naturally, in time, our beliefs became slightly divergent, but our core values remain the same to this day, and I expect will remain the same until our last days on earth. If you've read any of this Blog, then you have some small idea of where I'm coming from, and if you continue to read it, in time, you will be served a generous helping of my values.

My friend happened to be very interested in Russian/Soviet history, so our talks would often revolve around that very topic, and as you recall, at that time, the Berlin Wall hadn't fallen, and the Soviet Union was still in existence. I remember conversations about how perhaps in time, when all of the 'Old-Guard Cold-Warriors' had passed, that perhaps it would allow for positive change for the betterment of the Soviet Union, and her people.

I had similar hopes for my own country as well. In time I thought that our own 'Old-Guard Cold-Warriors' would pass, and we would get some responsible, progressive leaders both in government, as well as in the military, and that maybe one day we would be able to forge a strong and meaningful relationship with the Soviet Union/Russia. One of the obvious benefits of such a relationship would be a world without the constant threat of nuclear annihilation.

I mention the 'Cold-Warriors' because to my way of thinking, these people embody a way of thinking that we would simply be better off, without. Extreme paranoia and distrust, combined with a completely blind sense of patriotism and nationalism. Seriously, are these the people whose finger we want on the button of most of the world's nuclear arsenal?

I also remember being in Social Studies class when I was a Junior in high school, and the teacher was explaining to the class that things like Socialism and Communism were kinds of economic systems, and not political systems. Most of the students were shocked. They had always believed that if you lived in a 'Communist' country that you had no freedoms because governance was by dictatorship. They incorrectly thought that Communism equaled Dictatorship. This is just another of the many untruths that the American people have been led to believe, by people either too blinded by patriotism, or who benefit too greatly from capitalism, to consider an economic alternative.

Well, twenty five years have passed since the mid eighties and many of those Neanderthal Cold-Warrior types have left us, yet we STILL have a right-wing dominated by this Cold-War mentality. How is this possible? How can people possibly be throwing the name 'Communist' around in the year 2009? Just as in my Social Studies class of 1983, I would be willing to bet that most of the people who use the word as a pejorative today, don't even really know what it means. They use it simply because their favorite television and radio personalities do, in their on-air buffoonery.

How is it possible that more than fifty years after the end of McCarthyism, that we still have people in political power, and on the air-waves, that would bring back the House Committee on Un-American Activities Hearings, if they could? Are these people that deluded, or was former President Jimmy Carter correct with his recent comments, and is the word 'Communist' perhaps only a substitute for the word they would rather use to address the man who is our president? Either way, I find it profoundly disturbing, and long for a world where these ways of thinking are long things of the past.

I have been thinking a lot lately about what it means to give your word. You know, to make a promise, or even to agree to something, and it appears as though I find myself in the minority on this topic. Not that this is anything new to me.

I recognize that I have a sensitivity to people not keeping their word because of things that happened when I was a child, but when did people start expecting others not to keep their word?

A few years ago I had a conversation with a dear friend about expectations. In the beginning they thought I was talking about the kind of expectations that we dream up in our own minds about something. For example, you might be out with your buddies and you do something amazing, like hit a home run in the softball game, or eagle a hole on the golf course, and expect them to slap you on the back at the pub afterward, and buy you drinks. If when you get there you find that they aren't paying, and you get disappointed, then my friend would argue that it's not really fair of you.

Another friend refers to expectations as premeditated resentments. The previous example demonstrates that perfectly, and I see what they mean. In that example, there was no real reason to expect your friends to buy you drinks, you had only hoped/imagined/believed that they would.

Perhaps there had even been some precedent for it. Maybe on a previous occasion they did buy drinks for the guy who did something cool, but does that mean it's going to happen every time? Not necessarily.

In either case, I can get behind their thinking, and I agree with them. But those kinds of examples are not the kind I am talking about. I am talking about people committing to you that they would do something, and then they simply do not do it. I'm talking real promises here. People giving their word and shaking your hand on it.

When did it become OK to break those kinds of promises?

Earlier today I had a discussion with some friends in an IRC channel that I frequent. These people are from all over the globe, so I always tend to get quite a range of opinion from them. This topic came up, and they were utterly shocked, that I actually expect people to keep their word! I recognize that there are always extenuating circumstances, and that sometimes people are not able to honor a commitment, but the people in this IRC channel expect to be disappointed. They expect people not to keep their word, even after they told you they would, and you were given a hand shake on it.

In some ways, I can see their point. It's the old Boy Scout motto of being prepared. If you expect the worst, you're never disappointed, but is that any way to go through life? Also, if you're always expecting people to disappoint you, doesn't that give society permission to do exactly that?

I would rather that people were honest with me. If I ask of you a favor, and you are not able, or not willing to do it, then simply say no. I get much more upset when people say yes, and then disappoint me, than if they simply say no from the beginning..

A few paragraphs ago, I used the word honor, and I do not use that word lightly. I think this is about honor, and I think that honor is still relevant, even in this hi-tech world in which we live. So what has the world come to? Am I truly the crazy one, or is the world just that messed up? When did it become OK to shake a person's hand, and then stab them in the back, later?

The conversations that I've had about this topic over the last few years have definitely driven home the idea that either I live in some sort of bizarre fantasy world, or I was born a few centuries too late.

What do you think? I would appreciate some feedback on this one.

Our brief history here on the North American continent has yielded many great slogans. The political arena has always been an area rife with sloganeering, and in that spirit, I am attempting to give rise to another. If you read the title, then you know what it is:

 Handguns, Not Health-Care!

I have several friends whom in the last few years have been diagnosed with cancer, and had to undergo various types of treatment, including surgery, and radiation. I have not asked them this yet, but I am wondering that if instead of medical treatment, they considered the benefits of handgun ownership as an alternative? People with guns have been showing up at so many health-care rallies of late that clearly there must be a medicinal benefit.

How is it that in the forty three years that I've been on this planet, that I denied myself the joys of handgun ownership? They really must be quite the thing, considering how often I've seen them on TV in recent weeks, and where they've been appearing. Apparently they're quite the fashion statement, since people are wearing them to Presidential speeches, and to Congressional Town Hall Meetings.

Perhaps this is one area where Vogue Magazine is a little behind the curve. I was always told that Vogue was on the cutting edge of fashion journalism, but, apparently they've really missed the boat on this one. I suspect that won't be the case for long, however, since fashions change quickly. I feel strongly that on the Fashion Week runway next year in NY City, we will see the entire Walthers line available in all of the latest designer colors. The truly fashion-forward will be wearing their Glocks with Gucci and Prada holsters.

Many people think that the song 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun' is a scathing, sarcastic response to an article of the same title, that John Lennon saw in a gun magazine. I don't think so. I think Lennon was simply way ahead of the curve on the joys of owning deadly weaponry, and saw then, what I am only beginning to see now.

It has taken a long time, but is becoming so clear to me now, and I can only hope that it is becoming clear to you as well.
 

Today, I started my third semester learning Pottery at the Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute.  It felt really good to get my hands into the clay again.  I was afraid that after four or five months of not being in front of a pottery wheel, that I would have lost my chops.  Well, the good news is that it's as if I had never left.  I was able to do what I wanted with the clay, immediately.

Lest semester I did nothing but makes bowls.  Bowl, after bowl, after bowl.  Of course repetition is a great way to learn, and if you know me well, you probably have one of those bowls.  This semester I intend to make more bowls, and to learn a few techniques that allow you to close the form to a smaller diameter, so that I can eventually move toward classic forms like Vases, and really classic forms like Amphorae.

I have always loved pottery, and had wanted to learn to do it since I was in the sixth grade.  It took thirty years, but I finally got around to it.  Despite the fact that I enjoy modern technology, one of the things that I love about pottery, is that it is a technology that in thousands of years, has changed very little.  All you need is clay, and heat.  How beautiful and elegant is that?

Last year I was on the phone with a friend late one night.  He had called after midnight because he couldn't sleep, and apparently I was supposed to baby-sit him until he got tired.  I happened to be awake so it was really no big deal.  To entertain him we both got online and I gave him a tour of the MWPAI.  For years I had been telling him about the Independent Film Series that I attend there on Friday nights, and more recently, the Pottery Studio.  He was under the impression that because Utica in a small city, that I went to some backwater podunk theater to see films, and some tiny cellar studio to make pots.  He was quite surprised to see the photos of the facility, and I feel lucky to go there every week to learn, and to work.

Hopefully some day I'll get really good at this.


 (Pictured is the back of the Pottery Studio from the Courtyard looking into the Glazing Room, and below that, some of my pots.)

Set around the current day U.S. occupation of Iraq, we follow a group of men around as they disarm Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's), better known as bombs.  Because it was filmed mostly in Jordan, and in the documentary style, this film has a frightening amount of authenticity.

The most compelling character is Staff Sergeant William James, played by Jeremy Renner, and this guy is a stone cold adrenaline junkie who gets high from his job.  He likes his job to the point of putting his fellow comrades in harm's way, if it will get him another rush.  At one point in the film we learn that he has disarmed over eight hundred bombs.

As I watched this guy coldly go about his business as if he were immune to death, I wondered what it might be like to have to an addiction like his.  If I remember my history correctly, the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang was originally formed by guys like this who liked the action in World War II, and found life boring when they returned home.  Since they could no longer get their kicks on the battlefield, they started doing it by going fast on motorcycles.

Even as I sit here now, my mind is imagining nothing but torment for a man like that, if he is able to survive the war, and return home to the boring and mundane task of providing for his family in the states.  What could possibly replace the thrill of being only inches, and moments away from death?  He could start sky-diving or some other extreme sport, but I have to believe that disarming a bomb is several orders of magnitude more thrilling than jumping out of an airplane.

If you want to live on the edge of your seat for about two hours, do yourself a favor and see this film.


   The Hurt Locker at the IMDB

   The Hurt Locker's official website

I don't know how this developed so quickly, but I really am at the "shit or get off the pot" stage with my record label idea. I have an artist ready to go now, and I have no infrastructure.  This guy is a super talented guitarist, who is starting his own publishing company to promote his original compositions.  He hopes to get them into commercials, and movies and such.

I contacted him at apparently the exact time that he had been thinking that he needed a label to help distribute his music, as well.  How fortuitous!

The problem is that we will need a real E-Commerce web site, and I have no skills in that arena, and I really don't have the money to pay for it.

How did the Vanderbilts and Guggenheims get their start?!

For many years now I've had the idea of starting my own record label.  Call me crazy.

It would be my kind of label, where I am the A&R guy, and I get to choose what artists appear in our catalog.  The primary focus of the label would be to feature artists who write interesting and original music, that you simply don't get to hear on most radio stations and in most clubs.  I sometimes refer to it as "player's music."

Me?  I prefer the creative end.  I want to find artists and record them and I want nothing to do with the paperwork end.  But, we still would need a paperwork end, and that's what scares me the most.  I want to be sheltered from the paperwork end.  I want nothing to do with it, but in a venture like a new boutique label featuring non-commercial music, I guess that in the beginning I would have to be the only employee, most likely working for free.

Do people really do this kind of thing?  I mean I know I read about stories like this, but is it like winning the lottery?  Does anyone actually succeed at such a crazy thing?

As of this writing, I have actually purchased a domain name, and contacted several people whom I would love to have as artists in my galaxy of stars.  Most have agreed, or at the very least have been very receptive.

I'm bursting with ideas, and my friends are being very helpful and supportive.  Now the only question that remains is: Do I have the Gonadicals to attempt the difficult parts of starting a project like this.

I know that our two-party system, with corporations that legally bribe politicians into passing favorable legislation which coincidentally never seems to favor the every day folk, that we do not have anything even remotely resembling Democracy in this country.  It's at this point that some people attempt to remind me that we live in a Republic, and not a Democracy, but to them I say, "WHATEVER!"

In the good old days, not long ago, our politicians would at least provide the pretense of Democracy.  When all was said and done, they would go behind closed doors, smoke cigars, and do whatever was best for the elites, but prior to that they would give us one hell of a show!  They would hold rallies, shake hands, answer our letters, and sometimes even grace us with their touch, or an actual word.

Fast forward to the present day health-care debate.   I know, I know, it's painful, but it's also good for you to have to see this.  The Republicans are holding meetings, that are closed to the general public.  No, that was not an incredibly long typo... THEY ARE CLOSED TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC.  You and I are not allowed.  The kind of people being allowed in, are people in the health care business.  You know, the kind of people who profit obscenely from perpetuating the current system.

When the Democrats had their town hall meetings, we had to put up with phony protesters being abusive and disruptive, but at least people like you and I were allowed in.  Maybe the Democrats weren't actually going to listen to the people, but at least they put on a show.  The Republicans are once again showing their true colors, and putting them proudly on display.  Only the elites matter.

Oh how I long for the days of being lied to.   :-)