I’m awakened by a coughing fit at 6:30 am….can’t go back to sleep, so i head for the fridge and pour myself another glass of oj…….step outside to further reduce my lungs’ ability to provide oxygen to my blood and its a strange morning…….the air is slightly chilled…..the sky is completely gray and there is a mist of fog permeating the trees…….i look to my right and there’s a bird i can’t identify…..at first i want to say it’s an owl, but a closer glance i see that it is not, but it is DEFINITELY in the hawk family……stark pointy-tipped beak and an odd noise this thing makes…..i look to my left and the blossoms on the neighbors tree have this strange pink cast to them……back to my right and the bird has disappeared…..i look across the street at the neighbors house and the bird has flown to the patio, picked something up and flown back to its perch on the streetlight…..it has used what i can only guess is keen eyesight to capture a lizard and it devours it quickly….this is an amazing thing to wake up to…..like living in the discovery channel or something…..but one has to marvel at the eyesight this bird must have had, because this lizard was a good 150 feet from the bird’s perch…..this thing didn’t break stride…..flew straight to the lizard and straight back to the streetlight without hesitation…..i took pictures…..i’ll post them later……..
on a whim (and a tip), i made my way down to st. pete last night to see the misfits at state theater. i went into this thing without much in the way of expectations- you know, that whole retirement age, washed up band factor that can really kill a show with a lack of energy and a general “i just need to pay the bills” mentality. this was so not the case last night.
i was highly impressed with these guys. they were high energy and when they seemed to be experiencing technical difficulty, it was seamless, unless you were really paying attention. the stage set was pretty awesome, the venue (which, surprisingly, i had never been to before) was nice and the crowd was alive. if it weren’t for the two kids slobbering all over each other, nudging me out of the way and basically trying to screw each other all over ME, it would have been perfect. that’s my only complaint really and it was minor. of course, i was sitting there laughing at the kid, because he couldn’t figure out that with the lighting in the venue, he needed to disable his flash to get a good picture. if they hadn’t been a couple of raging assholes, i likely would have done the nice thing and fixed it for him. so i’m standing there over his shoulder watching him take washed out picture after washed out picture. i just laughed at him (i guess i am kind of an asshole, huh?).
seriously, though, i was watching the pit area and, even though it was full of young twenty-somethings, they seemed to be doing it the way we used to do it before pits became slugfests……..more about chaos and violence without intent, rather than an excuse to beat someone senseless. i liked that aspect of it too, though grandpa still stays away from those things these days (i’d much rather enjoy the show). besides, you’ll never top the pit we had going for ministry at lollapalooza 2 (1992). that thing was massive and FUN. we were chucking water bottles at each other and sliding around in the mud. for those who don’t know the background, the show in orlando that year happened the same day andrew rolled through south florida, so there was outer banding happening overhead and the place was a mudbath. but that’s a tangent……
i did get a good chuckle at the kid who appeared to be 19 at best wearing the g.g. allin sweatshirt. i’m thinking to myself, this kid was in elementary school when g.g. allin DIED (and, of course, somehow didn’t manage to fulfill his prophetic ideal of blowing himself up).
the one thing the band did that kind of threw me off for a minute……he gets on the mic and starts talking about how this is “for the kids”…….looking around, there were probably 5 or 6 kids in the range of 12-15 in the place. i mean, don’t get me wrong…..it’s kinda cool to see the kids enjoying a band that people were enjoying before i was even their age, but THAT show is NOT for the kids. not implying any morality here. this is merely to say that i, at the age of 35, enjoyed that show. and i, at the age of 35, payed money to see that show. that show was for me as much as for them. but, i know, it’s cool and commendable to make it all about “the kids”. great. they are the future, but WE are the present. my take. but what do i know?
summary: a GREAT show with a couple of minor blemishes that didn’t really distract from it. if you guys are out there in another town and this hasn’t come through yet, go. it was a rather steep price to pay…..$25 at the door……but it was worth it. WELL worth it.
I got into a conversation with a total stranger today and it was somewhat inspiring, albeit quite depressing. what happened to this country? were we not founded on basic principles of limited government and capitalism? it has gotten to a point where corporate greed has intermingled with flawed socialist counter-action and mired us in a desperate situation where the blue-collar workforce and small business have been diminished in favor of a top-heavy economic heierarchy.
i have to believe that thomas jefferson and james madison would be proud of what this country has become to this point, but would look on the past 40-60 years with skepticism. and they would certainly view the past twenty as an outright failure. as housing costs and gas prices are sky-rocketing, corporate figureheads are padding their pockets and stagnating the economy. damn the war. our situation is in a much more precarious position state-side and is in need of a major overhaul. but what can we do?
the lobby in this country is out of control. every law and every bill that is passed in our legislative system adds figures to the cost of doing business. with each figure added, small business is placed in a position to struggle and fail. those that do succeed are forced to nickel and dime their work-force nearly into poverty. the divide between the upper and middle class thus grows wider.
and yet we, the middle class, the majority in this country, continue voting the same crooked, every man for himself politician into office that we can. so is the solution to turn to third-party candidates? it seems that third-party has come to mean the same thing, only slightly modified. they still want to over-legislate and over-regulate. and the one party that has a solid platform for returning the economy to small business has squandered their chances by allowing anarchists to over-run their walls and their image to become tarnished with an anti-drug war sentiment.
i want a voice. i want to champion the cause of entrepreneurship, small business, the working class. but in a way that works FOR the cause, not against it. unions merely agitate and aggravate the issue, with labor costs being passed on to the consumer, thus negating any positive gains for the working class. forced legislation against employers only favors corporate entities, being the only organizations that can afford to meet the steep demands of said legislation. but where do i find this voice if my peers continue down a path of apathy and compliance?
our oil-tycoon president and his pals ignore our pleas for a reprieve from heavily escalated gas prices. and yet this is a complicated issue that reeks of controls and incentives. we have been spoiled up until this point with gas prices that have not escalated in parallel with the rising rate of inflation. but the disparity has been doubled in the past two years, if not tripled. and with talk of prices rising to as much as $4.00 a gallon at the pump, when do we say enough is enough? and this issue affects the average american consumer in multiple ways. we pay for it at the pump. we will eventually pay for it, if we haven’t already, in escalated shipping prices for goods and services.
i have to know: have we all gone mad? is it to a point where the only people who can realistically run for public office are the ones who have the funds to not only back campaigns, but also pay for public relations machines that keep their public images free from tarnish?
and how many people are quick to blame “capitalism” when what we are seeing is a system that has been bled of its energy source and has come to resemble a hodge-podge or a melting pot of every economic system possible?
am i alone in my frustration? am i alone in feeling compelled to accept the social norms of silent acquiescence and a life of perpetual credit hell?
in order to sustain a healthy economic status, the money must continue to flow freely amongst the consumer masses and industry. but in our current state, our pockets have been sewn shut. add to everything above, a technology sector that saw a significant drop-off in the early part of this decade and you have a multi-headed monster bearing down on us.
i’d like to see a light at the end of the tunnel. i’d like to have a voice. i’d like to share that voice with others of the same voice. but we must be empowered and inspired to believe that all that we see in front of us will only change if we will it to change. else the monetary divide will continue to grow and the many will be owned by the few. the only thing worse would be pure democracy- mob rule- but that’s a conversation for another day.
tell me: am i wrong?