Well…no big topics today…I did have a short Sunday Funday with K and V..watched the Lions lose but they played hard so maybe that’s progress? Talked to my daughter after she got back from Europe and agreed that the next time they go, I’ll go with them…I’ve always wanted to see England so I guess I’ll have to start saving some cash…and find a job…but that’s harder than it looks…and I’m still not that motivated…maybe in a couple of weeks…who knows? That’s about it for now….I promise some topics for tomorrow..but I don’t know what they’ll be yet….
All posts by James DeVol
October 3rd
Well…a really low key day yesterday….as I told you, cooked a chicken in the slow cooker that came out great and then just watched football all day…I am getting concerned that Michigan is always coming form behind (or tied) to win but I guess a win is a win. Looking forward to the Michigan Michigan State game next Sat and I am going to try getting some people together for it…I am so angry at Dish Network for their silly contract squabbles with Fox Sports that is taking away my Red Wings…have to look to see what is available on the cable system here…if I can get the channels I want, I’m going to dump the dish since it doesn’t work when it’s raining, or snowing, or sunny…
Not a lot to do today…I think I’m going to copyright that phrase…have to head over in a minute to let C’s dogs out since he is out of town for the next few days…then back here to watch the Lions lose again…there is also a race on but I am losing interest in Nascar with the cookie cutter cars and the lack of innovation…I guess that extends to all racing…way too many rules…like Clint Bowyer losing 150 points because his car was 10 thousandths of an inch out of spec….didn’t they meet the templates before the race? That kind of silly crap is going to ruin the sport…or it already has…let’s go back to the early days where you could tell a Dodge from a Ford from a Chevy….and if you weren’t cheatin’, you weren’t tryin’….I’m not sure if there will be topics for later but I do have some stuff careening around in my head…yep, that does hurt….more later…
Neil Young’s “Le Noise”
Well…picked up a copy of Neil Young’s new cd a couple of days ago and have been listening to it almost constantly since….I like it quite a bit but if you’re a casual fan or a Neil novice, I’d listen to a few tracks online before I’d buy it. Again, Neil defies convention with the way the album was recorded…most of us are used to artists recording solo with acoustic guitars, but Neil does something different here; using an electric guitar and no other instrument or players. It does start to grow on you after a while and the electric guitar gives Neil and the producer a broader sound palette to work with, and they use it to make a full sound that is somewhat unusual at times.
But one thing that has not changed is that Neil can still write; songs of failure, loss, love, and anger are all part of the world he creates and it makes me really happy that us old guys still have it…or he still has it…I’ve been looking for it and would love to have it at some point….
October 2nd
Well…a kind of nice day yesterday…didn’t do a whole lot but did have HH with K that was fun and then a few cocktails here so I’m a little run down today…but I did get the slow cooker going at about 7 with a whole chicken this time that I browned in the oven first…made some rosemary butter with bacon to put under the skin. Starting to smell pretty good in here. Not a lot to do today but there is the Michigan game later and an 8 hour sports car race that starts at 11 so I’ll have something to do on this low key day. Not sure if there will be any other topics today but maybe…kind of cloudy in the head right now so maybe getting out on the bike in a few will help that…who knows? More later…
Those little monsters….
I’ve been vacillating all morning about writing this one but I just have to say something….part of my humanity and heart died when I read about the suicide of the Rutgers student after his supposed friends streamed his intimacy with another man to the internet using a hidden webcam. Who are those little monsters who would do such a thing? In what world is this kind of behavior acceptable?
I can answer that, I think. the kind of world where gay people are routinely demonized by the right, the kind of world where politicians pander to the lowest of their base, the kind of world where gays are routinely told they are second class citizens with less rights to happiness than the rest of us. I indict all of the haters on the right for making it acceptable and easier to hate these people by their daily screeds but I also indict the selfish parents who raised children like the ones who bullied this young man. I indict the religious leaders that still spew hate for gays from the pulpit every Sunday and hide behind the selective reading of their holy books to justify this inhuman behavior. I also indict all of the rest of us for not standing up to these bigoted idiots….this is what we get when we stand silent in the face of hate…and I shed a tear for the parents of this young man…
October 1st
Well…another month starts and I had a weird thought that I talked to T about the other day and might just as well pass it along. I have started to look at my life differently than most other people I know, in really small increments that are centered on having enough money to get through a month. Kind of like buying months as I come up with the cash to pay the rent…hmmmm…yeah, that’s about what I wanted to say but it sounded much more substantial of an idea in my head. Oh, well….had a pretty good day yesterday with what I thought were a couple of pretty lucid posts and then out for a while with G for a couple of beers. Not much to do today…there it is again..but I am going to make a whole chicken in the slow cooker stuffed with smoked sausage and rosemary butter with bacon under the breast skin…everything is better with bacon!
So that’s about it for now..more later…
The Center Awakes…
Well…going to be working on this one all day so it may be in pieces as the ideas come to me…had it almost figured out on the bike ride but the other post and lunch kind of took the wind out of my sails. What I want to talk about is the early stirrings of the center of the political spectrum, with more and more articles (even from some of the conservative commentators) decrying the win at all costs mentality of the right and the lack of ideas for true governance that is coming from the shouters. As you know, I’ve called for the return to reasonableness in our political discourse…and yet, I’ve also been a little too strident in my attacks on the tea party and the rest of the right. In the last few days, I’ve had an epiphany of sorts and I now kind of understand where they are coming from…and I can’t blame them for believing the well-oiled propaganda machine that is Fox News. I know that some of them can see what America used to be and I get the power of that nostalgia; I find myself wallowing in the thoughts of my old life at times and wishing those days could come back. But, those days are gone, and to rail about their passing and trying to stop the tide of change is just a waste of energy and time that the US can’t afford.
I see the awakening of the political center in the rallies that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are holding in DC at the end of October, I see it in the One Nation March in DC this Saturday, I see it in the realization that we can’t continue to govern this country for the 10 percent on the fringes of the right and left or the top two percent of of wage earners.
But there is another part of this that we also need to have happen…we need to change the mantra of this country from “I’ve got mine” to “how can I help?” And this is not just aimed at the real flesh and blood citizens of this country but at business who have been granted citizenship by the Supreme court. As I’ve said before, with the granting of citizenship, comes the responsibility of a citizen…to look to the common good, to look past what is good for the next quarter, or the CEO, or the shareholder, to what is good for the society you live and make profit in….but that goes for everyone, every citizen has a responsibility to tamp down the anger, to stop excluding people because they are different from you, and to remember we are all in this together…none of us can be successful unless we all are….
I challenge everyone here in the US to do what I’ve done…I qualify for and have paid for food stamps and other aid through my taxes that I gladly pay, but because I can survive without them, I refuse to take them so the money will be there for the truly needy, I challenge the rich to stand up and stop complaining about the extra 3 percent in taxes that they may have to pay…and to recognize they have it pretty damn good as I do, I challenge American business to stop just taking all they can get, to ask themselves the question “how much profit is enough?” and to start acting like responsible citizens. And, I challenge both political parties to stop the slash and burn, win-at-all-costs, politics is war mentality that is ruining our wonderful country….
Art Prize….
Well…we are into the second year of the local art competition here in Grand Rapids, and while I like the idea of doing more for downtown than just opening a new bar, a commentary I read in the GR Press this morning kind of got me thinking about what art is to me and if that judgment is valid. In the article, Ed Riojas, a local artist, states that he is uncomfortable with the path that the competition is taking; with the emphasis becoming more on process than creativity. But I guess that gets to the question that has been asked since the first art appeared in the caves of France 30,000 years ago: What is art? I really can’t answer that question…I know what I like and that includes the old masters I saw when I was in Las Vegas, the stunningly beautiful work of Picasso, Renoir, and Rembrandt took my breath away the first time I saw their paintings in person. I think we can agree that the works of Alexander Calder and his “La Grand Vitesse” that we have been so fortunate to have here in Grand Rapids these many years fit the conventional view of art, but does a giant penny made up of pennies?
I think this questioning of process over creativity reflects arguments that we’ve had over the years around the world….and there may be a component of these arguments that is just the old guard trying to protect it’s territory, as we saw in the 50′s with music when rock and roll was shattering the accepted style and form that fit into middle America at the time. But, I think we also have to understand that popular does not always mean quality…Jacqeuline Susanne sold millions of books but no one confused their popularity with being great literature. I think this process emphasis just relates to the general dumbing down of American society….I think we can appreciate the work that goes into some of these pieces, but let’s not confuse work with creativity and bringing something new to the conversation.
September 30th
Well..that was not a bad night of sleep…but up early again with nothing to do until I go out to the coffee shop in a couple of hours…I am doing this, so technically, I do have something to do so I guess I’m wrong. Had a nice lunch with T yesterday but that is about all for the rest of the week…maybe out to have a couple of beers with G tonight or with K not sure who yet. Geez…I’m boring…so I’ll not subject you to any more of this right now…
I’ll have some topics for later….
Playlists…
Well…as you know, I joined the digital music age with the purchase of an 8 gig mp-3 player a couple of years ago…and I still marvel at the fact that I have my entire music collection stored on the thing and still have about 3 gigs of space left…all that for 79 bucks…oh, nope, not an Apple..it’s a Sony. But that’s not the topic that I wanted to deal with here, this hit me while I was out on the bike..the place that these things usually float into my consciousness…and that is the playlists I have on the player and how it appears that the lists reflect the mood I was in when I made them. That’s not the whole story, though, the other part is the name of these lists; I’ll bet mine are weirder than yours….well…some of them are…the others are kind of self-explanatory..
1. 4Way Street album two…had to make this one since WMP decided to break up the album into chunks…
2. 56 Miles….made this one for the 56 mile ride I did on my 56th birthday last year…
3. Led Zeppelin….pretty much what it says…
4. Lee Michaels….and obscure performer from the 60′s that was part of my growing up…
5. Mixed songs…the first one I made that was not one performer or group..
6. More other songs….just another mix but of second tier songs that didn’t make the first list…
7. More songs….this one was really done before the last one….but alphabetically, the machine put it here…
8. Mountain….another one group list by what I consider one of the best bands of the 70′s…
9. Newest one….I did this one after being in Chicago and getting a bunch of music from my daughter…
10. Obscure….started this one with some David Bowie and then went deep into some less known artists..
11. Others…was just bored and getting bored with the other lists so I made this new one…
12. Steely Dan….if you’ve been here before….you know how I feel about the Dan….
Without breaking them down to further the point…I’ll just give one example of the mood thing I talked about earlier…there are some of these lists that most of the songs are played in a minor key, what I call “lonely music” like “Doctor Wu” and “Black” by Pearl Jam, and I know that I favor this type of music when I’m at one of the low points that hit occasionally….
See…I told you I was trying to lower the outrage quotient some….but don’t let this fool you…it’s still there and bubbling and I know it will come out later today or tomorrow…