11th Hour, 11th Day, 11th Month

Today, 11 Nov, is Veteran's Day in the United States.  (Elsewhere in many other countries, it is Armistice Day or Remembrance Day.)  I implore you to immediately drop what you're doing and go thank a veteran in your life.  Hell, go out and find a random veteran to thank.  (Veterans in the DC area, you've been put on alert for my presence.)  Take him or her to Outback for a blooming onion.

The origin of the holiday not only in the United States but the world over is signing of the armistice to end the major hostilities of World War I.  For many other countries, such as the members of the former British Empire, France, Germany, and Belgium (can't forget those plucky Belgians), the day definitely has a large focus on the First World War.  For the United States, due to the somewhat limited engagement it had during the war, it doesn't ring too much with the national conscience.  Nevertheless, it was a major conflict that Americans gave their lives to.

Which brings me to the main driving point: Where is the memorial for the WWI veterans and casualties?  We've got one for WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.  What about the doughboys who went over with General John "Blackjack" Pershing?  What about the US Marines who got trapped in Belleau Wood?  Don't they deserve some sort of memorial among the other veterans?  Such was the concern raised by the last veteran of WWI in the United States.

Technically, there is a memorial to the veterans of WWI on the mall, but it's a bit off the beaten path.

Okay, really off the beaten path.

The DC War Memorial was erected in honor of its 26,000 citizens who served in WWI.  On it are the names of each life the conflict took from DC.  Its seclusion is unfortunate and yet poignant in the same way, a way of signifying the unfortunate status befallen upon many WWI veterans who never really got the legacy they deserved in the national consciousness.  I had never heard of the monument and found it by accident as I was moseying my way around the National Mall between the various other more notable memorials.

There has been a push to rededicate the memorial to honor all veterans and casualties of WWI.  Now while a part of me wishes they would have the same treatment the WWII memorial has been afforded, on the other hand, it would be nice to have more people at least know about the memorial dedicated to the people who served in WWI, if only to make sure no one forgets them.

Run Through the Jungle

Washington DC, being the nation's capital, will every so often attract hordes of people for some sort of event or another.  Sometimes I couldn't care less.  However, this weekend was the weekend of the Rally to Restore Sanity/March Keep Fear Alive, created and devised by Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, respectfully.  I thought to myself, "Okay, that sounds neat.  I can totally roll with that.  Jon Stewart is a funny guy from New Jersey and Steven Colbert is a Dungeons and Dragons enthusiast, two things I can support.  What's there not to like?"  Oh lord, was I in for a surprise...

What I attended was something less than the experience my friends did to watch the Obama inauguration in the cold on a television.  I didn't get to even see the damned thing on a television.  Instead, I got to take pictures of clever signs.

The theme of the rally.

Now, granted, it wasn't that horrible of a time, as I was with friends as we milled around on the mall getting that exercise that cubicle jockeys are deprived.  Nevertheless, I'm sure we would've had a bit more fun sitting around watching it on the television with a few drinks.

The day started off innocently enough.  I woke up a bit rough from the night before, as a few friends had rolled into town and I decided to go out and hang out with them for a bit while they were in town.  So I was a bit weary as my friends gave me a friendly morning text and phone call.

After I straighted myself out and made sure I put on non-stained clothing, I trudged out my door and went to the metro station with my friends.  It was a bit packed, but I was fully expecting the crowd level at the station.  It was an event, and I've seen somewhat similar crowds around when there's some sort of other event in DC. I can deal.

I also found Waldo.  Hell yeah.

However, once we got on the metro, you could sense that things were going to be fairly tight, if you will.  It was pretty packed once we rolled through a couple of metro stops, such that people on the platform figured they'd just wait for the next train instead of getting a deep tissue massage on my abdomen from a stranger's elbow.

First person view of having a deep-tissue massage on the Metro.

So we finally get off at the metro in downtown DC and make our way slowly through the crowds and such to the rally area.

But I did see some helpful signs along the way.

We finally get there and start seeing the crowds pile up a bit.  Okay, perhaps more than a bit.

Picture definition of "crowds piling up a bit."

It got pretty crazy.  The crew of people and I tried valiantly to find some sort of spot in the horde worthwhile enough to camp out in and get a halfway decent view of the event.  We wandered our way up towards what we believed to be the front of the stage.  In reality, however, we had no real idea that was where we were headed.  I was perfectly happy to follow the crowd if it brought me to any combination of coffee, food, and napping cots.

I also would've have settled for a bowl of pho.

Despite our best efforts, we could not wade into a better vantage point.  Every point we tried getting a view of the actions, we were thwarted by a combination of distance and the sheer thickness of the crowds.  Nevertheless, we trekked on through the morass of humanity that flooded the mall.

"Morass of humanity."

We finally decided on a spot that was semi-close enough to the stage and a screen that it was almost tolerable.  (Key word there is "almost," if for some reason the italicized text doesn't show.)  However, we still were fairly far from the stage and thus could barely hear what was going on and could barely see the stage or the screen.

Now what really irked me while I was standing there was seeing the vast swatches of empty space in front of me prime for the taken.  Prime for the taking, that is, if there weren't metal fences in front of me giving me the internal organ deep tissue massage of a lifetime.  So while we were herded on the outside looking in, there was plenty of empty space ripe and ready for the taking...right in freaking front of us.

Empty space waiting to be utilized.

What the heck were they trying to do with that free space?  Now I heard the explanation that it was for just in case something happened that the appropriate authorities could get there in time.  Of course, I heard this explanation as I was trapped in between a crowd of at least eight or nine deep and a metal fence.  I'm sure the authorities would've had a fun time getting to me.  But of course, I was one of the commoners on the outside.  Why would they care?

It got fairly contentious.  One woman decided that the fence was not enough to hold her back and slipped through.  The people working the "concession stand" in front of us caught her and immediately called over the police.  Naturally, the crowd started booing and started voicing their displeasure.  One of the guys next to me started getting into it with the concession stand workers and it got fairly heated.  I do believe that the phrase "Stop snitching" was uttered.  I had to explain to one of the people with me what it meant.

We eventually decided the value of our time standing there and watching what we believe were Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on the stage (it also could have been marionette puppets for all we know) wasn't worth it, so we decided to go around and look at signs.

I guess he gave up too.

Probably could've found the latter a bit easier that day.

The best view of the stage we got...from behind.

We eventually left and made a stop at one of my compatriot's relative's place for luggage.  After a brief respite to rest our tired legs and to wet our parched throats, we decided to hop on the Metro for what would be a fairly easy ride home to rest some more and prep for the Halloween festivities we would be attending that night.

Of course, it was anything but fairly easy.  Apparently it was a record-setting day for the Metro and Comedy Central declined to fork over $29,000 for extra service (while the Marine Corps Marathon organizers gladly paid that amount, mind you).  As such, we were stuck on the platform for an eternity, watching full trains of Metro cars roll by with little to no hope of squeezing ourselves and the luggage with us in there without creating a few broken ribs and earning the ire of a few people.  We also saw a few trains roll in that were not taking passengers as it was somehow their terminal stop.  The collective morale and willpower of the group was whittled down.  After a few of the full trains rolled by, there was a collective chant from our group of "USA! USA! USA!"  The Rally to Restore Sanity at this point became a rally to frustrate and irritate us.

One of the guys with us had the bright idea to go to a station down the line and board there.  After watching a few more full trains roll by, we take him up on his idea.  The plan works and we manage to get on a train four stops south of our original position.  At this point, I've been broken down.  I probably would've agreed to most anything if it got me home.  It got so bad that somewhere along the way, I exclaimed with glee "OH MY GOD IT'S GUMBY!" when I saw someone dressed as Gumby get on the Metro.  It was that sad.

I was ready to make him my lord savior at that point.

We manage to make it back home with enough time to grab some Chik-fil-a (god that was the best chicken sandwich I've ever had in my life), get some residual Halloween stuff, and get ready for the night's festivities.  I was just glad the whole ordeal was over and was ready to just forget the entire ordeal, including the four hours spent on the Metro.

And an hour and a half later, we were dressed in our Halloween costumes...back on the Metro.

While I could gripe on and on about the mishandling of the entire thing by the crack team at Comedy Central and the basic meaninglessness of the entire thing, all in all, it was a good time spent with some fun people and good friends.  I'm sure we all bonded as we herded from place to place while I made snide remarks and witty comments every few yards.

That or my friends are looking to push me on the Metro tracks on the way back from another major DC event.

They look like good sports, right?  Right guys?

Constitution Lesson

A little less than a couple weeks ago was Constitution Day, the anniversary of the signing of the Constitution.  As I was picking up lunch (a two out of three patriotic red Thai curry on white rice, as apparently "blue" is not a dish), they were giving away free pocket versions of the US Constitution.  "Hell yeah," I thought, "this should come in handy should I need to whip out some Constitutional knowledge."  Well, today's the day.

Everyone knows the warm and cuddly figure known as Ann Coulter.  You know, the tall, blonde super-Republican who highlights how not easy on the eyes Rush Limbaugh is in in any kind of lighting.

Cuddly if you're a praying mantis or a Nosferatu.

Recently, Ann Coulter got invited to Homocon (I am not kidding -- click on the link), a convention for homosexual conservatives.  Coulter got touted as "the right wing Judy Garland."  From what I've gathered on Judy Garland as a gay icon, that's pretty high praise.  I'm still waiting on being named a "Bruce Lee keynote speaker" designation.  Hell, I'd settle for the "Judge Ito Appreciation Award."  These guys are still searching for a "Hunter S. Thompson Literary Honor" designation.

Inviting her soon backfired, much like having Marion Barry at a seminar on corruption free government.  She soon decided that instead of saying "go gay GOP-ers!" or something like that she decided to let the crowd know how thankful she was for the invitation...by totally spitting on it and grinding it under her stilettos made out of the charred bones of cute bunnies and shined with the tears of children.

"One of history's liberal diversity lovers" -- Ann Coulter (unsubstantiated)

Besides the other ridiculous points she made (like how kindergarten-level kids would learn about fisting), perhaps the most ridiculous point was that the 14th Amendment only applied to black people.  That's it.  Only  black people.  Not gays, women, other ethnic minorities, other minorities period...just black people.

Well, now that I have my handy-dandy pocket US Constitution and while it's still in its non-coffee-stained edition, I can go look it up.  One second...

[insert rifling through pocket filled with old receipts and gum wrappers]

...okay, here's the actual text for your own perusal (I'll provide a link if you don't believe me)

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

So...um...while it refers to slaves, who were black, it doesn't exactly discriminate in terms of color, race, creed, ethnicity.  Hell, it doesn't even technically discriminate in terms of citizenship.  Note that it refers to "persons" and not "citizens."  So you didn't even have to be a citizen to receive the protections of the clause, a handy phrase in the amendment when being a naturalized citizen of the United States was pretty much damn near impossible.

You can touch my underpants, but you're not getting citizenship.

For the record, the Amendment has helped not only blacks but also Chinese-Americans (Yick Wo v. Hopkins, United States v. Wong Kim Ark), Hispanic-Americans (Hernandez v. Texas), women (United States v. Virginia -- women's admissions to VMI), illegitimate children (Levy v. Louisiana), people of different races who want to get married (Loving v. Virginia), and family people in general (Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs).  Family member rights!  Isn't the Republican Party all about "family values?  (List of some of the cases where the 14th Amendment has been citied...for better and worse.)

Now either the Supreme Court might've applied it incorrectly all these years (Plessy v. Ferguson, pretty much any WWII ruling involving Japanese people), but I'm pretty sure there's not hidden "blacks-only" clause within the 14th Amendment.  And really, that would pretty much defeats the purpose of the 14th Amendment.  It's like claiming the Alien and Sedition Acts enacted by John Adams were backed by the 1st Amendment or the dance your suspect did with "Mr. Billy Club" was totally 8th Amendment approved.

(Note: I know that women got left out, but they got the vote...eventually.  I'll give you that one.  But you got into VMI because of the 14th Amendment, right?)

Plus, I can imagine that it's pretty ludicrous that one would get up in front of a crowd of people and tell them that not only do they have no rights under one of the more important amendments of the US Constitution whey they not only specifically honored you with an invitation but also put you on their damned promo graphic.  Really, Ann Coulter?  Really?  Do you have any sense of modesty?  Or are you some sort of harpy who subsists on any sort of publicity?

Sketch of Ann Coulter.

Holy Crap It's Stuff

Many moons ago (okay, about five or six months ago), I was a graduate student pursuing a degree focusing on Public History.  Eschewing the technical intricacies of what exactly that means, one of the fields brought up time and time again was the issue of material culture and how to look at it as a historian.  In simpler terms, how to look at stuff and make history out of it.

Recently, one of my co-conspirators put up a blog post about how the discovery of some really old scotch transported by Shackelton's expedition in Antarctica really doesn't matter a whole lot.  To quote the poignant part of the article:

The Liquor itself has no historical importance, besides being liquor that isn't made anymore that was the drink of choice for a great explorer. He brought it with him to drink it. What's the point of leaving it? Would there be any difference If we just filled the bottles back up with wild turkey, and split the original liquor between the modern relatives of shackletons team, The modern explorers who uncovered it, and the scotch maker who will try to replicate it? It would be a serene moment for all of them, and the shackletons Scotch Whisky tale would have a great ending.

Mind you, the scotch that's been sitting there hasn't gotten any better (or worse, for that matter) sitting in the Antarctic ice, so it's not like you can taste the nutty texture or whatever scotch pricks like to wax poetic about when they're swirling the single malt in their flute glasses.  It tastes the same as it did back then.  What's so special about it is the association we have with the scotch.  Hell, it doesn't matter if it's scotch.  He could've carried with him a case of Natty Boh and if we found it now, we'd be oohing and aahing over it the same.

Delicious Natty Boh.

What matters really is the meaning we've associated with the item in question.  Sure it's a rare recipe, but in the end, all it is really is just really old scotch.  Nothing more, nothing less.   What adds value are the associations assigned to the scotch.  Attached to it is the name "Shackelton."  If we added the cachet of somewhat less famous people, it would just be really old scotch that wouldn't get the deference of a holy relic.

And this is why sometimes trying to incorporate material history is so difficult.  (See?  I eventually brought this back to academic matters.)  Things are inherently meaningless.  For example, someone might have an heirloom ring that might not be worth more than maybe $100 at best in the open market.  Yet to someone who knows the "inherent" "meaning" of the ring, it's worth can't be expressed with all the zeros in the world.  Or perhaps someone has a ratty old shirt they consider lucky.  Someone else might think the shirt would be better off used as a rag.  Things only have the significance given to them by regular human beings.  Any time a curator sticks something in a display at a museum, he or she is stating, "This is important and significant."  Before then, it was just some old junk sitting around in storage.

So take a look around you.  That crusty old plate that you've been eating your Chef Boyardee meals off of or the half finished bottle of Steel Reserve might one day be historically significant.  At least to someone.

Anthony Bourdain is My Hero

Being from New Jersey is much much different from being from somewhere else.  Outside of the well-entrenched stereotypes exhibited by the "reality" shows Jersey Shore (which I have written about before) and Real Housewives of New Jersey and the dramatic series The Sopranos, not much is known.  And while they have their accuracies, they don't tell the full story of the state.

He comes really super close.

Enter Anthony Bourdain, host of the show No Reservations on the Travel Channel.  Bourdain is himself a Jersey boy (from Leonia, home of a massive Japanese supermarket featured on the show) who achieved something that most everyone from Jersey has aspired to or at least entertained: making it big in New York.  (The exception are those people from the Philly area, but that's another story.)

What those folks near Philly can aspire to.

There exists an unmistakable edge that Bourdain has, however, that really distinguishes him from virtually every other chef or travel guide on a television.  He's not happy go lucky.  Innocence for him probably ceased once could start shaving.  He's rough and doesn't give a damn, and yet still receptive and open to various new and wacky things.  That edge is what makes him popular.  He's a breath of fresh air, tinged with a few drags of a cigarette.

Plus, he's just damned good-looking too.

Part of what I think that edge is the whole "being from Jersey" mentality.  There's always a chip on your shoulder.  You're somehow always viewed as second class, especially from those hoity-toity folks who reside on that island known as Manhattan.  Hell, even people from other states who probably matter as much as the vintage of cornmeal processed in their state have that attitude. (Know your place, Nebraska.)  And even when you make it big, such as being a successful chef, author, travel show host, and speaker like Bourdain, you've still got that edge that's a result of having always to compete.

Look!  He even likes the Ramones!

I can empathize.  I grew up in New Jersey, looking towards the city as the Promised Land.  I went to UMBC in the suburbs of Baltimore, MD, which sat in the shadows of UMCP, located near the power environs of Washington DC.  For most of my life, it hasn't been about where I am but instead looking to the place that casts shadows upon me.  You're continually looking up.

Not to say that's it's a horrible thing, mind you.  It seems to worked out well for Bourdain.  He's parlayed the crick in his neck and grimace in his eyes from looking up at the skyscrapers and big dreams in New York to something that's made him a multi-faceted superstar.  I will wager that someone like Anthony Bourdain would most certainly not have come from anywhere else but New Jersey.  While other patriarchal relationships exist all around the United States and the world, there's a uniqueness of the way it's conducted in New Jersey that makes it distinctive.  And it's that uniqueness that's earned Bourdain the admiration of thousands of fans and other people like me, who really wish they could parlay that sort of experience into a multimedia celebrity instead of really terse quotes that don't earn you invites to parties.

Advocacy on a Full Belly

Sometimes I really wonder about some of the activists out there.  Okay, maybe I wonder all the time.  Things that could contribute greatly to progress (in my opinion), such as nuclear power, are being halted because of activists.

One of the things that's irked me for a while is the whole uproar about so-called "Franken-food" or (more properly known as) genetically modified food.  From what the advocates say, it's something out of a real bad miniseries on the SciFi (sorry, SyFy) network.  You'll eat it and freaky stuff will start happening to you or something.  Although if the comic books are right about that, I wouldn't mind.

If Franken-food means this, gimme my lab-engineered corn now.

BBC columnist Jonathan Jones wrote an interesting piece about the great benefits that "Franken-food" could provide the world -- if only those damned activists would get off it's tail.  To me, it seems highly pretentious of us in the first world lording over the rest of the globe telling them that their people have to starve because it makes us feel icky on the inside to genetically modify crops which could save millions of lives each year and greatly improve the quality of life tenfold.

Sure, there's some argument to be said where once we start dicking around with plant genomes and stuff, eventually we're going to get to the point where we're engineering the optimal human for god knows what sort of immoral purpose we could concoct.  While that is a remote possibility, the fact remains that we're A) dealing with plants and B) speeding up processes that would naturally happen. We're not making hybrid pig-humans here.  We're finding plants that'll survive in hardier conditions and selecting them for reproduction, something that botanists and agriculturalists the world over have been doing through sheer trial and error for a while.  

Man-Bear-Pig: Not cool.

So until scientists have developed some sort of genetic abomination that's a cross between the Yeti and a sunflower, don't sit there with your full belly and tell me that Franken-food is wrong.

Straight No Chaser

Let's face it: we all do a lot of pretending and self-deluding to make the world just that more palpable to ourselves.  We all live our little lies here and there because, quite frankly, to try to take on the full reality of the world probably would debilitate any hardy-minded person.  Lies and delusions help us navigate those rough patches that we'd either not see or could see but would have difficulty navigating.

It's when these lies build up that we get into deep trouble.  Lies that somehow manifest themselves into a singular contained entity that we fully believe in.  Lies that manifest themselves into something interactive that we have exchanges with and believe exist.

I've always felt an empathy with the main character of The Great Gatsby.  Jay Gatsby was more or less chasing the same thing that I was: a fantasy that may or may not have existed at some point in the past which definitely did not existed in the present.  Sure you can criticize him for the choices he made.  But you can't really blame him either.  As I've found out lately, it's only human nature to want to return to the things that make you happy in life and make getting up and breathing so much easier, even though the things that you have to do might not be for the best.

Like Jay Gatsby, I let myself become motivated and driven by something that had never truly existed.  Whole sections of my life were dedicated in remaking myself for a mere illusion that I created in my head.  I had beliefs that I would be a better version of me.  Somehow find a motivator to improve who I was and create a different persona for myself.  It was a concept that I put too much time, thought, and effort into.  Granted, not to the level of getting involved with bootlegging and got knows what with Gatsby, but you get the full idea. And all that work went for naught.

Well, perhaps not fully for naught.  I've learned that it's not worth it to change who you really are for anyone or anything.  No one really has the power to have agency over how your life is lead.  Letting anyone into your life in that fashion is an egregious mistake that should immediately be corrected.  By giving up control of your actions and especially thoughts in that fashion only leads to a disastrous end where at best you find yourself living a life that's not yours or at worst adrift in a sea of confusion grasping for anything that'll float and gasping for any hope left in the air.  Groveling and grasping like that isn't worth a damn.  You don't spring to mirages in the desert.  All you're going to find is hot, dry sand instead of water.

Dear Future Me

There is a running joke between a friend of mine and I about the presence of a "Future Me" in Hartford, CT.  Apparently future me has moved up the chain of command in life and somehow found a job (at some culinary institute, if I'm not mistaken) in the lovely stretches of Connecticut.  How that happened after a stint in graduate school in public history and getting a job in DC, I'll be finding out over the next few years, but hopefully it's exciting and helpful for me.

Apparently in the future I have the superpower to make the world blurry.  Photograph courtesy of Ms. Valerie Werse.

Having discovered that I will indeed make it into the fairly distant future (10 or maybe 20) is a comforting concept.  Furthermore, the description of future me doesn't seem to bad.  He's employed, probably has a place to live, and looks fairly healthy.

I wonder if he'll write me a letter from a blog (maybe this one) as an actual adult to the punk-ass version of me that sits right now in front of the computer typing this away when there are actual other tasks ahead of me.  I wrote one to the 13 year old version of me, so I expect that within ten or so years when I magically turn my life around and hopefully have an internet connection (as opposed to being a hobo destined to ride the rails for life) I will sit down and be able to tell the past version of me some wise advice.

As I don't have a time machine and don't have those ten years of wear and tear on myself, I'll have to wait.  But that doesn't exclude me from writing to the future me.

"Dear Future Me,

What the hell are you doing here during these times?  If you're really from the future, shouldn't you be trying to enjoy that?  Or are you sent back from the future like the Terminator?  If that's the case, that would explain why you're moonlighting as an office drone at some culinary institute as a cover.  No one would expect you to be some agent from the future sent back in time to...do whatever you're doing.

Is life better for you?  It must be, especially if you're a Terminator from the future.  Do you remember ten or how many years ago since the day I wrote this?  I hope you recall that in your mission to hopefully alter the past for the benefit of the future.  (At least that's what I would like to believe you're doing.)

If you have forgotten, refer to the above mentioned letter I wrote to the 13 year old version of myself for some guidance, and some of the other posts littering the blog.  They should give you guidance as to how I was leading my life at this point in my life and jog your memory.  Unless that got replaced with a new set of memories, in which case, this point is mute.  But assuming that you do have those memories tucked away somewhere, remember them in your mission to better the world and provide assistance to those who are like me out there.  I know you need to maintain your cover as some clerk at a culinary institute, but I'm sure you can work it into your busy schedule.

You might be wondering why I'm not asking you to help me out with your powers.  Well, that's up to you.  If I ask you to completely alter your past, things might get complex.  Although I'm sure by that point in the future there'll be policies on that and how that sort of thing works.  I'm sure you've worked it out.  Nonetheless, there are probably others out there more deserving.  I'll figure my way out on this.  Plus, I don't want to mess up my chances of being a Terminator from the future.

Anyway, enjoy your time in Hartford, CT (of all places, you could've picked a more fun place) and let me know what I can do to help.

--
Current Me."

Punk Rock Improves Lives

It was Christmas during my last year of high school, and since my parents had stopped playing "Guess What Our Son Wants for Christmas" by that point, they usually would take me to the bookstore to pick out something I wanted.  And so off we went to the local Barnes and Noble bookstore to get a gift for me.

As I'm perusing the store, I wander over to the section in Barnes and Noble where they have the audio-visual merchandise.  I'm perusing through the selections and I turn up London Calling by the Clash.  But not just any ol' copy of London Calling.  No, this was the 25th Anniversary Legacy Edition, complete with not only the original recording but also the "Vanilla Tapes" (demos recorded in the studio during rehearsals which were apocryphally lost) and a DVD which had a documentary of the making of the album, some promo videos, and also raw footage that had been taken in the studio of the Clash.  All of this for about $20.  I totally ask for this as a Christmas present, and my family and I go to the front counter to pay for it.

For the next few weeks into possibly a couple of months, I listened the hell out of that album.  I'd listen to the original studio cut, I'd listen to the raw demos on the "Vanilla Tapes" CD.  I probably watched the documentary a few times.  But listening to it was such an breath of fresh air for me.  Here's something I can latch onto and understand on an intellectual level and comprehend, something that I didn't think much of the music that the good 95% (and that's a conservative estimate) of the cretins that I shared air space with probably couldn't understand.

Now I didn't go completely off the rails and start pushing safety pins through my cheek or dying my hair green and spiking it because it was stupid to do so, I didn't (and still don't) like the idea of shoving sharp metal objects into my cheek, and quite frankly, it wasn't the point of the music.  The point was just to do what you wanted to do, others be damned.  I learned the lesson of being your own individual, something important for someone who always had difficulty forging through interactions with other people.

It's also given me some sort of determination to forge through life's problems.  The sheer raw energy of the music provides a relieving catharsis for whatever is balled up inside of you.  The irony of having something that sounds more or less like, as Craig Ferguson put it when introducing the Damned on his show, a fight being soothing is quite counter-intuitive.  And yet, listening to The Cramps on full blast with your headphones on sometimes is the best way to sort things out.

And we're talking real punk music here, by the way.  We're not talking about the sissy stuff cranked out by Taking Back Sunday or whatever passes off as "edgy" these days.  I mean, for Chrit's sake, saying that stuff is punk music is like saying Johnny Weir is a professional wrestler.  Listening to that stuff probably won't help much other than make you a terrible human being.

Totally not wrestling, but totally punk rock.

So go out and buy your child a punk rock CD of some sort.  They'll be a better person for it and will brag to their friends about having the coolest parents ever.

Chopin et Moi (Chopin i Ja)

Most of the time, in the grand scheme of things, musicians are not wholly too important.  Music is nice, but sometimes other things take precedence.  There are exceptions, however.  One of them is Fryderyk Chopin (also known by the French version of his name, Frederic Chopin).

While there have been several important musicians, no one musician has possessed such importance to a large number of people in his own day and now.  He represented a people who existed in all practical terms yet were invisible when looking at a map.  The music he wrote spoke to the sense of being Polish when there was no Poland to speak of.

Poland, represent.

It is this importance that Poland wishes to emphasize this year, what Poland has declared to be "The Year of Chopin."  This coming week will mark the celebration of what would be his 200th birthday (debates about his birthday being either 22 Feb 1810 or 1 Mar 1810 provide an convenient excuse for a week long celebration).  Places the world over will be celebrating his birthday, ranging from France (where he spent much of his adult life in exile) and even space (where Endeavor commander George Zimka will represent his Polish heritage by blasting Chopin's music into space).

Having listened to and played his music, I can fully understand why his appeal has spread to people outside of Poland.  There is a distinct voice in his music, something that is hard to discern from other artists prior to his time.  There isn't the rigidity that one finds in a lot of the German and German-influenced music of the time.  Instead, a flow that allows for the voice of Chopin to breathe through the notes allows it to seem much more personal.

This personal touch within his music, however, makes it very difficult to try to catch the essence of Chopin's music.  Part of the trouble is that the use of rubato, a sort of "relaxing" of the tempo, is mishandled by a lot of students.  I personally went buck wild with it when I was younger as a form of rebellion against the oppressive forces of the metronome, a mistake many young pianists make.  My piano teacher and other more experienced musicians advocate for a little more restraint and finesse instead of simply doing what you want because you can.

It is these complexities and more that make Chopin's music so challenging and so intriguing at the same time.  His music is sometimes clouded by fallacies that obscure whatever true meaning he was trying to convey with each note and phrase.  Hopefully by understanding the man and his brief life we can be able to carry on his musical legacy with a degree of accuracy.

Chopin's music gave a voice to a nation for 200 years, a nation which lived under the thumb of others for much of those 200 years.  Few classical musicians have made such a massive impact with their music during their day and after.

Also he left a legacy of really nice vodka.