When It Was Just A Game

I don't know why this year's Winter Olympics weren't more popular than they were. To tell the truth, except for the curling and a little bit of the hockey I didn't watch 'em. But that doesn't mean I don't have a theory. After all, I'm a blogger. That's what I do.

So, here goes.

Actually, I think the Olympic's problem is all related to something I call the "Curt Gowdy" effect. What's that, you ask. Who's Curt Gowdy, you wonder. Well, thank goodness there are still a few toothless old-timers like me who can remember back in the '60's and '70's when Curt Gowdy was simply the voice of sports of America. Yes, that's right children, even though there was no ESPN back then they still had sports on TV. In those days there were really only two sports in America - baseball and football - and as the top dog at NBC Gowdy used to call all the nationally televised baseball games (including the playoffs and World Series) and most of the important AFL/AFC football games.

And what a voice he had too. Just as easy and relaxed as aThanksgiving dinner at grandma's house.

He was the king of the sports airwaves back then, and only CBS' Pat Summerall and Tom Brookshier even approached his national standing. But Gowdy wasn't a sportscaster in the modern sense of the word. He was of a different era. There was no razzmatazz. He was neither coying nor clever, but sensible and well-rounded, and I always got the feeling that as far as Gowdy was concerned, once the game was over it was over. The contest had been decided and now it was time to go fishing or hunting or whatever else was next on the agenda. Gowdy was a sports fan, but not a fanatic.

Now fast forward to today and think about someone like Al Michaels. I like Al Michaels and he's certainly very good at what he does, but he seems to be a totally different animal than Curt Gowdy. Maybe it's just me, but Al Michaels always gives the impression that even though the game is over he's still talking sports. He's talking sports on the phone, he's talking sports at the dinner table, he's talking sports when he gets up in the morning and he's dreaming sports when he goes to sleep at night. Obviously I don't know the guy and I could be completely wrong about this, but he just seems like the typically modern, post-ESPN 24 hours a day, 7 days a week sports guy. And if he does ever go fishing, I bet he's sitting there in the boat obsessing over stats from last nights Yankees-Red Sox game.

Am I wrong about that? Does anyone else get that same impression?

So what am I getting at here with all this blather? It's just that maybe in this era of wall-to-wall sports tv, this era of sports mania and extreme fans and all that, maybe the Winter Olympics aren't as unique as they once were. Back in the Gowdy days people had a certain perspective about things, but nowdays people are obsessed. They want their sports NOW. They want the scores NOW. They want the stats and video and the bloopers and the rest of that stuff and they don't have much patience with network schedules and primetime and all those other artificial barriers. Where's my SPORTS! Do you realize that the game was over 30 seconds ago and I still don't have the score. What's wrong with you people?

Ahhhhh...... Rest in Peace Curt Gowdy. There'll be plenty of time to catch up on the scores later.

Dead Cat Goes To Washington

"Senator, do you mind if I have a few words with you. Please. It will only take a minute."

"Ok, but I'm late for a meeting."

"Thank you very much Senator. Can I call you Chuck?"

"No."

"Sorry.

(pause)

So, Senator Schumer, I was wondering if you could tell me why you're making all this fuss over the Dubai Ports deal?"

"Are you kidding? Do you want the Arabs running the Port of New York?"

"I don't know. Do I?"

"They're the enemy you idiot. You want the enemy running the Port of Baltimore?"

"I thought the terrorists were the enemy, Senator. Do you mean to tell me that we aren't really at war with just the terrorists? Are you saying we're really at war with the entire Arab world?"

"We're at war with the terrorists."

"Then why are the Arabs our enemies?"

"Because the terrorists are Arabs."

"And all Arabs are terrorists?"

"No, no, no. I didn't say that. Look, it's like this. Birds of a feather, you know what I mean."

"?"

"I mean, I like the Arabs. Really, I do. I've travelled around the world and met many Arabs and most of them are fine people. Good, solid citizens, wouldn't hurt a fly. But that doesn't mean I'd want them to move in next door and marry my sister, you know what I mean. Let's just be careful, that's all I'm saying. Let's just sit down and think about this before we do something we're going to regret later. Believe me, once you let one of 'em in then there goes the whole neighborhood. You know what I mean?"

"Oh, yeah, I got you now."

"Yeah, you see how it is."

"Seems like a bunch of B.S. to me."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, c'mon, we know what this is really about, don't we? You don't care about who owns this or that or who owns the Port of New York or even who marries your sister. What you're really trying to do is distract us. You're trying to take our minds off the fact that we pay you guys up there in Washington to run the country and you don't do diddly squat. I mean, just look at Social Security and Medicare. Everyone knows that we're headed for a train wreck in our entitlement programs. Everyone knows we've got to get this thing straightened out. Everyone knows that if we don't act now then there's going to be the Devil to pay later. We've known all of it for at least the last 20 years and what have you guys in Washington done. Diddly, that's what."

"That's not our fault. We Democrats have..."

"Oh puleeeeeezeeeee. We Democrats...we Republicans....I'm sick of it. That's all we ever get from Washington. Blame, blame, blame, and meanwhile nothing ever gets done. You know why you're spending so much time worrying about Dubai Ports? I know why. You want me to tell you why?"

"I think you're being..."

"It's because Dubai Ports just happens to be the latest scandal, that's why. Every week, every month, it's all about the latest scandal. Some petty little fight breaks out somewhere and a million reporters go shuffling off to cover it. And then the next week comes some petty little misstep and off they go scurrying in the other direction. That's all that happens in Washington anymore. It's just one scandal to the next, and that's just fine by you because as long as public is consumed by the latest controversy then you know you won't be held accountable for all the really big problems you seem so powerless to contain. That's what this whole Dubai Ports thing is really about, isn't it?"

"Look , if you'll just give me a chance to..."

"Do you really think that Dubai Ports, a multinational coporation with business operations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Australia and South America is really coming here to open a bunch of terrorist bases? Is that what you think?"

"If you'll just give me a chance..."

"I know. Maybe you have some secret information. Maybe there's some kind of Zimmerman Note floating around. Some kind of secret alliance between the United Arab Emirates and Mexico. C'mon, Senator. What gives? What's really going on here?"

"No comment. What paper did you say you worked for?"

"I don't work for a paper. I'm a blogger. I work for the people."

"Look, I gotta go. I'm late for my meeting."

"Just answer the question Senator. What did you know and when did you know it?"

"Been nice talking to you."

"Is it true that you have an illegitimate child still living in Dubai? Just answer the question, Senator. "

"That's a total fabrication of the facts."

"Is it true that there is a secret slush fund worth billions of dollars? Where did that money come from Senator?"

"I don't know what you're..."

"Just answer the question, Senator. Senator? Senator...? (Damn. I had him cornered, too. I had his back against the wall and I let him get away. A good journalist would never have done that. Once he get's the smell of blood in the water, a good journalist always moves in for the kill. He moves stealthily, relying on cunning and instinct to stalk his prey, lulling it into a false sense of security and then CHOMP, he bites its head off)."

(sigh)

I had him cornered too.

Life, The Universe, and Curling

"Damn, dude. Where have you been?"

"What? Whatta you mean 'where have I been'? I've been right here, dude."

"No, but I mean it's been like 2 weeks since you posted anything to your blog. I thought maybe you died or went hunting with Dick Cheney or something."

"I've been busy, ok?"

"Busy doing what?"

"Stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Who are you, my mama? Do I have to report back to you about everything I do? I've been doing stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. Excuse me if I didn't write it all down for you."

"Well, excuuuuse me. What are you some kind of spy or something? You got some super-secret thing going on that I'm not supposed to know about? All I asked was a simple question. You don't need to get all defensive about it. Sheeet."

"I'm not getting defensive. You don't see me asking you about your business, do you. So why are you asking me about mine. Sheeeet."

"I just got back from Cabo, man. Me and Jocelyn took a little vacation, you know. Kicking back on the beach, drinking Margueritas, doing a little dancing and a little partying. Oh man, it was..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. You and your old lady went down to Cabo. Sounds great."

(pregnant pause)

"Well what's wrong with you? You got some kind of problem with a man taking his woman down to Mexico for a little R and R?"

"No, sounds great. Really. Sounds like you two had a wonderful time."

"Well don't sound so overjoyed about it. Jesus H. Christ. I'm sorry I brought it up."

"Hey, I said I was happy for you, didn't I? What am I supposed to do? Jump up and down and give you a big hug."

"You are one crabby-ass mother..."

"I ain't crabby. I'm happy for you. See...see me smiling here. Ooooh, I'm just so happy for the two of you."

"Yeah, whatever. You know, you need to lighten up a little, man. You need to get that bug out of your ass and relax a little, that's what you need. Try not to act so constipated all the time."

"Yeah, right."

"Damn right, I'm right. You know what your problem is? You're jealous. You're jealous 'cause I got a fine lady who loves me and takes care of me and all you got is some internet porn and one hairy hand to keep you company at night. That's what your problem is."

"F___ you! I got plenty of women. I got more women than I know what to do with. Man, all I got to do is pick up the phone and I can have as many women as I want. All I got to do is walk down the street and pick out the ones I want and take 'em home. "

"Oh, I see. Now you're James f___ing Bond or something. You just sip your martini and the women fall all over you."

"You don't believe me? Is that what you're saying? You don't believe me? The other night...I ain't lying now, the other night I had three. That's right. One in the bedroom, one on the phone, and one I was gonna stop by and see a little later."

"You're a lying motherf_____. I bet you ain't had three women in your entire life, let alone all in one night. Anyways, who cares. Who cares if it's three or fifty-three. One good woman is all you need. One good woman who'll love you and take care of you is all it takes. Once you have one good woman, it don't matter about all the rest."

"Sheeet, not me. I see a woman and I take her. And if I don't like her I just put her down and try someone else. I mean, how are you going to which is the tastiest dish unless you try everything on the menu."

"Man, you try everything on the menu and you know what's gonna happen. You're gonna end up fat and sick and ugly. That's what's gonna happen. All you need is one good one who can cook it up just right, and you'll be pink and healthy the rest of your days."

"Not me, man. I'm a born lover. I'm lean and mean and I can get any woman I want."

"Yeah, as long as they take mastercard or visa. "

"Heh, heh, heh...that was cold. "

"Anyways, like I was saying, what have you been up to these last couple of weeks. I mean, besides cruising the streets for love."

"Sheeet, I was just kidding man. Actually, I've been watching curling."

"You've been what?"

"I've been watching curling."

"Hurling?"

"No, curling. What are you stupid? You know curling, at the Olympics."

"Curling. At the Olympics? What the hell is curling?"

"It's a sport man. Haven't you been watching?"

"No, I've been down in Cabo and besides, I hate the Olympics. All those stupid little sports they have."

"You mean JF&T?"

"What's that?"

"You know, Jump, Flip and Twirl. All the Olympic sports are like that now. They have JF&T skiing, and JF&T figure skating, and JF&T snowboarding, and everything else they can think of. I hear at the next Olympics they're even gonna add some ramps to the Bobsled run and have the sledders throw in a few flips and twirls too."

"Yeah, that's what I mean. I can't figure any of that stuff out. I mean some guy goes up in the air and does a little twist and they give him 5 points or something, and the next guy comes down and does a little twist and they only give him like 4.9 or something, and I can't tell the difference between what the first guy did and the second guy did. It's weird, man."

"It's the judges. To me, any sport that uses judges ain't a real sport. It's like a beauty contest or something."

"Damn right."

"That's what's great about curling. It's a total skill game. There are no judges or officials or anything like that. It's just the players and maybe five or six rules at the most."

"So how's it played."

"You just have to watch it and figure it out. It's too complicated to explain. But it's like a puzzle or something. What you do is slide a stone down a sheet of ice and try to end up closer to the center of a bullseye than the other team. The problem is that each team gets to throw 8 stones apiece, and so each team has to figure out how to block and knock out the other teams stones so that they end up the closest to the center. I'm telling you, the strategy is intense."

"And that's what you've been doing for the past two weeks. Watching curling. I've been living it up down in Mexico and you've been sitting in front of the TV watching people slide stones down a sheet of ice."

(pause)

"They also serve who only stand and wait."

"Huh?"

"I'm getting old, man, what can I say. You know they had a big bicycle race here in San Jose today. The Tour de California or something like that. They had top riders coming in from all over the world to race in it and they passed by just a block from my house."

"So...um...what's your point. You watched a bicycle race today."

"No, I was at work. They passed a block from my house but I was at work."

"So?"

"I mean that's so San Jose, you know. They finally have this big international event and have all these stars come over and instead of having it on a weekend they have it on a Tuesday. I mean that is just such a half-ass San Jose way of doing things. Get half of it right and then still manage to screw it all up."

"Man, you lost me. What the hell you're talking about."

"I'm getting old, man, and it's like I'm spending all this time waiting for one last chance, and then when opportunity finally arrives, it arrives on a Tuesday. And I've got to work on Tuesdays, you know what I mean."

"That's pathetic, man. You need to get a grip on yourself. It was only a bicycle race."

"It was a metaphor, dude. A symbol. Somewhere out there a higher being is trying to tell me something."

"Yeah, he's telling you to lay off the crack pipe, that's what he's telling you."

"No...well, that too. But he's trying to tell me something else. It's like the puzzle is in front of me and all I have to do is find the right strategy. Put up a couple of corner guards and then draw behind them to the eight foot. Put it just in front of the T Line, then freeze to other teams rock and go for a big end."

"A big end?"

"Yeah, a big end!"

"Ok. Hey, it was nice talking to you but I gotta go...uh...wash my nikes now. See you around, ok. Maybe when the men in the white coats say it's alright for you to come home."

"Go for the big end, man. That's what I gotta do. Go for the big end."

"Later..."

Ladies and Gents, Dead Cat Looks at the News


National News: The AP reported today that NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) has entered into a new program with the U.S. Department of Defense to bring live opera to 39 military bases around the nation. At recent performances at Fort Carson, CO and Picatinny Arsenal in Wharton, NJ, the performances proved so popular that opera goers actually had to be turned away at the door.

So for all of you cynics and rock and roll snobs out there all I have to say is

Phhhhhhhhttttttt!!!!

Let me rephrase that. As you can see it isn't just fops and dandies or ivy-league intellectuals who are enjoying opera these days. These performances were for soldiers - grizzled, battle-hardened soldiers. People like John Wayne or Lee Marvin or Demi Moore (?) who've looked death in the eye and spit in it's face, and yet still break down and bawl like babies when Si, Mi chiamano Mimi is sung. Ah, this was the best news I've heard all year. You see you don't have to be a nerd to love opera. Manly men and hearty women like it too.

But then that's not the only opera news that was made recently. I'm sure you heard about the Drew Barrymore-Fabrizio Moretti incident at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. According to Fabrizio, the couple got bored at a performance of "La Boheme" and decided to sneak off to the ladies room for an intimate and romantic moment. Knowing the kind of passions that Italian opera can ignite I was not suprised by the whole affair, but others, reading about it in US Magazine, were shocked. Of course longtime Letterman fans know that Drew has never been what you would call a shrinking violet, so I say, considering Ms. Barrymore's high spirits, all of you opera goers should just forget the whole thing and be happy the couple decided to do it in the ladies room and not up there on the stage.

Anyways, when I heard the news I immediately got curious and logged onto Rhapsody to listen to a few tracks by Moretti's band The Strokes. All I can say Fabrizio is, well, I'm sorry you were bored, but you know people have been coming to hear Puccini's music for over a hundred years now and they'll still be listening long after bland, middle-of-the-road, post punk pop bands like The Strokes are no more than little italicized footnotes in peoples distant teenybopper pasts.

Besides, I was listening to Father Roderick today and even he, it turns out, is a big opera fan. And Father Roderick is very cool, probably the hippest catholic since JFK. So if it's good enough for the Marines, if it's good enough for The Catholic Insider, then it's certainly good enough for me. And I could care less if nerds like Fabrizo Moretti can't catch on.

State News: Last week the California Air Resources Board classified second hand smoke as a toxic pollutant. This is seen as the first step towards further regulation of smoking in California. Although some environmental activists have declared that the door is now open for an outright smoking ban in the state, the CARB is likely to take a more cautious approach. No one knows exactly what they will do, but most agree that eventually smoking will be banned in all public areas (both indoors and outdoors), in and around public buildings (no more groups of smokers taking their breaks in front of the office), inside automobiles, and in all apartments and condominiums.

The only reason I bring this up is because, as you know, in California it is legal to sell and possess marijuana for medicinal purposes. If these new smoking regulations are passed (as is widely expected), then in a few years California may be the only place in the world where smoking pot is legal and smoking cigarettes isn't.

I tell ya', things don't get anymore "California" than that.

Economic News: The national savings rate just dropped to it's lowest level since the Great Depression at -0.5%. For those of you like me who were never very good at math, that means that Americans are now spending more than they earn and are doing so at the highest rate since the 1930's, which were not very good economic times. Conversely, household net worth in the U.S. stands at a record $51 trillion. Which means what, exactly.

Apparently, we're spending more, savings less, and getting richer doing it. That's one of them there paradox things, you see. The more we spend, the more money we have. Still, you gotta think that things can't go on like that forever. And let me add this to the mix. We're the richest nation on earth and yet each year we are exporting more and more of our wealth overseas, particulary to Asia. So how does any of this make any sense? How long can we continue to spend what we don't have and export what we do have overseas? Doesn't it seem like sooner or later you gotta balance the books?

Well, I'm no economist.

In further economic news, Exxon today reported profits in the 4th quarter of 2005 of $10.71 billion and total profits for the year of $36.13 billion. Look for members of Congress to start screaming bloody murder later this week with new hearings and studies to follow. Ho-hum. As Louis Rukeyser, the great and former host of PBS' Wall Street Week used to remark, why is it that when the price of oil goes up the Congress always wants to hold hearings on the oil companies obscene profits, but when the price of oil goes down they never want hold hearings on the oil companies obscene losses.

Like I said, I'm no economist but I do think I understand this supply and demand thing a little. You see if I have something - say a shoebox full of Pete Domenici bumper stickers, for example - and no one wants 'em. That means no one wants to buy them and they have very little monetary value. However, if all of a sudden Pete Domenici bumper stickers start getting popular and everybody wants 'em, then everybody wants to buy them and their monetary value goes up. In the former case, I end up with a box full of useless political paraphanalia, and in the latter case I get filthy rich. Isn't oil a little like that? They got a hot commodity, people are willing to pay big bucks for it, and they're getting rich. Sheesh, if you don't like it then buy a Prius.

If Walter Cronkite was doing this blog that's what he'd tell you.

The Crayola Effect

What I don't get about this whole Google thing with the subpoena's and the privacy concerns and all that is this: If the government wants to know what Google has in their database why don't they just ask the NSA. Sheesh, little things like warrants and subpoenas never stopped them before.

Anyways, turning to the mailbag, Brent from Canby MN writes:

"What exactly is podcasting?"

Well Brent, imagine a professional and profitable media business with a staff of highly trained marketers, producers, engineers and on-air talent. Then imagine that business using sophisticated polling data and audience sampling to figure out what type of music and on-air entertainment most appeals to their listeners. And then, having polled their audience and analyzed their listening preferences, imagine that business creating a playlist of songs that their audience has indicated they like. And then imagine that business playing that same list of songs, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, over and over and over and over again until their listeners are sick of hearing them and threatening to burn down the station if they ever play them again. And then imagine those listeners disgustedly scanning through the other stations in their area for anybody playing anything different from that same list of songs they keep hearing over and over and over again. And then imagine those listeners not being able to find any other stations because, it turns out, all the stations are copying that same highly successful station that you've been listening to and playing from the same narrow list of songs. And imagine this goes on month after month, year after year, over and over and over again.

Well Brent, that is what we call terrestrial radio.

Now, instead of that, imagine some guy sitting around the house in his underwear and talking into a microphone about what was on TV last night or what he had for breakfast, and imagine that every now and then he plays a song he heard and liked and plays it for no other reason than he heard it and liked it. Or maybe it's not some guy but a couple talking about their sex lives or a parent talking about his kids or a bunch of geeks rambling on about 802.11 pre N routers, or maybe it's just someone foaming and ranting about nothing at all.

That Brent, is podcasting.

So now that you know what podcasting is I guess the real question becomes "does podcasting have a future?" That's a good question and let me try to address it as best I can.

I should begin with a short history lesson. Podcasting has only really been in the public's eye for about a year and half now, and in that time it has gone through some major changes. When it first started out it was like kind of an underground movement of mostly anti-establishment types who wanted to turn the media business upside down and create a sort of "peoples" radio (Viva La Raza!). That was the honeymoon period of podcasting and it lasted about 9 months or so until podcasters started gaining real audiences and finding that they were just as fascinated by numbers as their terrestrial brothers were.

This led to Phase II podcasting wherein podcasters started looking around and asking themselves "how can I make money off of these numbers." A fair question to ask and I'm certainly not here to libel them as counter-revolutionaries or anything like that. Their shows had become popular and there are people who pay other people for their audiences and, well, the stuff doesn't grow on trees you know. But as podcasters became more and more concerned with growing their audience their podcasts began to sound more and more like, you know, radio. That guy wasn't sitting around in his underwear anymore. He was shaving and showering and putting on a nice suit and checking his breath before he went a-courtin'. At the same time, a lot of those people over in traditional radio who'd been sitting around picking their toes while this whole podcasting thing started to take off suddenly sat up and took notice. They too, it seems, wanted to get into podcasting and did so in a big way, using their clout and influence to cut in front of those early revolutionaries and muscle their way to the top of the podcasting heap.

That pissed off a lot of old time podcasters and lead to the current state of affairs which I guess could be called Phase III. Now we have podcasters forming podcasting networks and hoping that by banding together they can withstand the onslaught from traditional media. "New media empires to replace the old" has become their rallying cry, I guess, and all the while the old empires continue to move in and occupy space. The young turks try to pretend they don't care, but believe me, they care.

So, how is all this going to play out? Does podcasting have a future? Well, sure it does. Podcasting is just portable media and that just means more convenience for the user. The audience is never going to go back to a world of less choice and less convenience. What about podcasters? Do they have a future? Sure they do, provided they're willing to adapt, and that's what I believe you are going to see.

Old media is never going to change. Why should they when they dominate the market. Even a successful podcast with say 4 or 5 hundred thousand listeners is nothing compared to the 200,000,000 or so listeners that terrestrial radio has. There is no reason for old media to come into the podcasting space and change their way of doing things, especially when it's a proven model. It's just a marketing problem for them, not a fundamental business problem.

What's going to have to happen instead is that podcasters are going to have to change their way of doing things, i.e. become more and more like old media. If they want to change the world then they're going to have to learn from old media and follow their lead. That's my prediction, anyways, and I think that's exactly what's happening. You just wait and see. In a few years you won't be able to tell an independent podcast from a Clear Channel podcast. They'll both sound exactly the same, and don't be suprised if one day you hear former revolutionaries like Adam Curry getting in front of his mike and loudly singing the praises of Sony BMG and the RIAA and all the other enemies of the past.

It's gonna happen.

I should probably mention that I'm an occasional podcaster myself. My podcast is called Old Man Radio and it comes out every couple of weeks, or couple of months, or whenever I have the time to do one. I'm strictly an amateur, though, and all you have to do is listen to one of my podcasts if you don't believe me. So now, you may wonder, is there any future for dabblers like me? Well, as long as I keep paying my hosting bills then I'll be around, but I have a whole different set of problems. That's what I really want to talk about. The problem with the music.

You see my podcast is all about so-called "podsafe" music - music which is freely distributed by the artists for download and play. There's a lot of it around and some of it is pretty good, but I'm finding the musical experience more and more disappointing each day. It's just getting harder and harder to find good podsafe music and I think the blame has to rest squarely on the shoulders of all this new technology.

Yes, that's right. Technology. The bane and boon of modern existence. It's wonderful stuff really. With just a computer, some sound equipment and some software anyone can produce, record and distribute professional sounding music. And that's the problem. The way it works is you take this equipment and lay down tracks. One track may be the percussion, another the base line, another the keyboards, and so on. You record these tracks and layer them one on top of the other until you get a collection of sounds that play together as complete song. It's really amazing what persistence and a little of bit of creativity can produce.

So what's the problem? Well, how many times have you heard someone complain that "all the music nowdays sucks." I've heard the complaint made many times and everyone wants to blame the record companies or the radio stations or the just the music business in general and I tell you none of those are to blame. The real problem, and believe me I listen to a lot of music, is this formulaic approach to music making, this layering, that is so prevalent. These days making music is a lot like making a sandwich, and even though there are some good tasting sandwiches out there, no one wants to eat corned beef on rye for the rest of their life.

Which brings me to my main complaint. Whatever happened to bands? Whatever happened to musicians? Whatever happened to the dynamic interplay of the guitars and the keyboards, or the vocals and the rhythm section. Remember that? Remember when musicians used to sit down together and listen to each other and toss out ideas and play with them and explore. After a few hours spent in the podsafe music world I'm beginning to wonder if musicians do that anymore. Believe me, it's a real problem. When you just layer one sound on top of another, when you introduce a theme and don't develop it, when you just add sound to it and don't play with it and explore it, then you lose the energy of a working band and the whole thing becomes static and lifeless. It's like the difference between Titian nude and a 4 year old with a coloring book and crayons. Will she color the hair orange or brown? Who cares.

Ok, maybe there are still bands around. But good bands? Talented bands? That's what's missing from the podsafe music scene. Where are all the good musicians? You know, the ones who are stuck in a studio somewhere backing up the latest teenage no-talent fashion model pop sensation and wondering if maybe they shouldn't have gotten into the insurance business instead. Is that just a stereotype? The musician who does what he has to during the week, and then goes out on the weekends and plays the stuff he really loves, the stuff no teenage no-talent fashion model pop sensation record company would ever want. Wouldn't it be great if some of those frustrated musicians decided to put some of their music on the internet?

Fat chance, I guess. The problem is that if a musician is good, really good, then he or she is probably still thinking that someday that A & R guy is going to walk into a club one night and make them a star. They're never gonna just give it away for free.

Which leaves the layered stuff. I play a lot of it on my podcast and I reallly do like the stuff I play, but a lot of times I find myself gnashing my teeth and saying "that part was good, now do something with it. Work on it, develop it some more. Don't just layer a bunch of crap on top. Make something new out of it for Christ's sake!". Somehow, though, I don't think today's musicians know any other way. That's why there's so much crap out there.

Yeah, podcasting has a future, but it's gonna be frustrating.

Just a Couple of Musical Oddities and Endities

I tried so hard to be a rock star back when I was growing up. It's kind of sad to think back on it now. How many guitar lessons did I take, how much time did I spend hanging around the music room, how many nights of practice, practice, practice, and for what? Nothing, that's what. And I tried so hard to learn everything, and I tried so hard to unlock all this great musical talent I had inside. I knew if I just perservered and taught my fingers the right things to do then I could do it.

But for some reason, all I got for my efforts was a lot of calloused fingers and broken dreams (sigh). I just couldn't figure it out. I played all the same notes that Eric and Jimi and Carlos did, I bent and hammered and twisted those strings just like they did, but for some reason the results were never the same. It was strange, they sounded so crisp, so clean, they had so much sting, and I always sounded so...

out of tune.

Well, time passed and eventually I abandoned my rock star dreams, deciding, as this blog has so plainly evidenced, to become a great thinker instead. But still, I often wonder how far I could have gone if only I had been able to keep that guitar of mine in tune.

I'm bringing this up now not because I want to wallow in self-pity or anguish over what could have been, but because of a new product that some fellow named Neil Skinn has come up with. I read about it at News.com and you can read the article here if you'd like. If you don't feel like reading the entire article then let me just hit on the high points.

Skinn's device is something he calls The Performer and what it does is automatically tune electric guitars. As the article explains, for around $3,500.00 and about 8 oz. of extra weight, Skinn will equip your Strat or Les Paul with magnetic sensors and electric motors that will automatically keep that axe of yours in perfect pitch. You simply strum the open strings, press a button, let the sensors listen to the strings while the motors make the necessary adjustments, and in about 5 seconds your tuned and ready to wail.

Oh man, where was this thing 30 years ago.

I'm not kidding, if I had one of these back then I coulda' gone straight to the top. I mean it. Forget about all these synthesizers and drum machines and mixers and fancy electronic doodads that are supposed to be revolutionizing music making these days. This here is the high tech device that would have made me a star. Oh, if only, if only...

Well, anyways, I thought it was an interesting bit of news. No help to me now, of course, but I'm not going to be bitter. I had the talent, I had the desire, but I didn't have the high tech. That's just the way it goes.

And while I'm on the topic of high tech in music, did you hear about the HP Scanner that plays Beethoven? Yeah, no kidding. If you've ever used a scanner before then you probably know that sort of squeaky rubber sound the stepper motor makes as it moves the scan head back and forth. It's sort of a "eeeee eeeeee eeeeee" sound, and it's most noticable as the scanner is first starting up.

Well, some guy apparently found a hidden feature in his HP Scanjet 3c/4c scanner that, when activated, uses the squeak of the motor to play Beethoven's Fur Elise. He even shot a video of it and posted it to the net. It's pretty funny but, unfortunately, the video was so popular and his site was getting so many hits that he had to take it down. I dug around and managed to find another copy of it, but the site that's hosting the file is kind of X-Rated so I'm a little reluctant to link to it.

Oh, what the hell, if you want to see Beethoven played on an HP Scanjet then you can find it here, but don't say I didn't warn you about some of the other content you're gonna find.

And that's all for me folks. I'm afraid that tonight it's just one of those short, pointless blogs that I seem to be so good at.

You Can Never Be Too Rich Or Have Too Many Gadgets

Geez. Do I look like a geek!? I look normal enough, don't I? I think I do. So what is it? Do I act like a geek!? Ok, maybe a little, but you know a real geek is someone who goes down to the store to pick up a gallon of milk and comes back with a brand new 82" Liquid Plasma Display (it looked so cool I just had to have it). C'mon, I'm not like that. My house isn't packed from floor to ceiling with all the latest fancy-dancy electronics gear. So how come at christmas time everyone is always getting me these gift certificates for one of the local geek megastores. It's crazy. I'm just a normal guy and I don't know why I keep getting these gift certficates every year. Not that I'm not grateful, mind you, but, honestly, if you're thinking about giving me free money to spend at the local electronics superstore then all I have to say is...

WOW!!! Thanks man, and hey I'm sorry that all I got you was that lame fondu set. I kept the receipt if you want to return it.

Anyways, I got the gift certificates and this year instead of waiting till June to spend them on something I really need, I just decided to head down to the store and spend them on something cool. Like an IPod. 30 Gigs. With video. Yeah, and even though I've already got 2 MP3 players as it is, who cares. I'll take one of those.

So off I went to Fry's with gift certificates in hand and visions of IPods dancing in my head and wouldn't you know it...they were all sold out. Damn things are popular I guess. But as luck would have it something else happened to catch my eye.
























Ain't she a beauty. That, folks, is the brand new Creative Zen Vision M, a supposed IPod killer that has just came out here in the U.S. You know there is an old saying that goes "In love, there is always one who does the kissing and one who offers the cheek", and all I can say is that when I saw that little beauty sitting in the display case it made my lips pucker. So tonight I thought I'd share a few first impressions.

I guess I should start with the features. Like the IPod the 'M' is a 30 GB combination music and video player retailing for around $300.00. Actually, the 'M' sells for $30.00 more than the IPod but the extra money buys you a few additional features like a FM radio, voice recorder, and AC power adaptor. Both have 2.5" LCD screens, although the IPod's screen resolution is only 320 x 240, or half the 640 x 480 resolution of the 'M', which is also capable of displaying a whopping 262,144 colors. The IPod can play protected music and video purchased from the ITunes Music Store, the 'M' cannot play those files. It can, however, play unprotected IPod files (more on that later). Instead, the 'M' plays just about every other common file format out there including WMV, Divx, Xvid, and Microsoft's own WMA music files, including protected music sold through subscription sites such as Napster, Rhapsody and Yahoo Music. Both the IPod and 'M' can play MP3 files, of course, but at this time the 'M' does not support audiobooks sold through the Audible service. The IPod's battery is good for around 2 hours of video playback and 20 hours of audio playback, the 'M' gives you about 4 hours of video playback and about 15 hours of audio playback.

So much for the stats.

My experience with the 'M' so far has been a mixed one. Before I begin I should probably give you the perfunctory razor blade warning. Although the manual makes no mention of it it's been my experience that razor blades should not be kept closer that 50 feet to the Creative Zen Vision 'M' because, believe me, spending an hour or two working with the various video formats out there will make you want to bang your head against the wall and slash your wrists. Firearms and high balconies should probably be avoided too.

That said, the 'M' will play most types of video. However, unlike the IPod, it is not a simple Plug 'N Play experience. For the most part you don't just plug in your 'M', transfer the video, and go skipping merrily on your way. Usually there is a conversion process involved, and if you've ever spent time converting video you know what kind of process that can be. If, on the other hand, you've never spent time converting video then imagine a sleepy barge lumbering slowly up the Mississippi River and you'll have some idea what I'm talking about.

Fortunately, Creative realized that differing video formats (or codecs, as the geeks would say) would present a problem and they had the forsight to include a video converter with their software bundle. The process is pretty transparent. You just sync your files over using the included sync manager and the conversion is done automatically. It's not a brisk process, mind you, but it does work and I've had no problem transferring over XVid, WMV and even M4v files (unprotected) to my 'M'. In fact, the XVid transfer was completely painless and the transfer took place with no conversion necessary.

And once you get the files on your 'M' and play them back the experience is unbelievable. The video is just plain beautiful, much better than I ever could have expected from a 2.5" LCD and superior to the IPods, at least according to some of the reviews I've read on the Internet. Whether one is better than the other is really beside the point, though, because the real question is "Can you really watch TV on a little itty-bitty screen like that"? Well, all I can say is that I downloaded a full season of a TV show called Firefly off of the net and so far I haven't had any problems watching it on my little screen. Of course it would look better on a big 42" HDTV, but the answer is "yes, you can watch TV on a little itty-bitty screen". Provided, of course, that it's a high quality screen.

The big problem with the 'M' is that it won't work with those $1.99 downloads you get from the ITunes Music Store. And that's a big problem. If you plan on watching those then you're gonna have to get an IPod because that's the only player that's gonna work. That wasn't a big issue for me. I'm much more interested in watching these video podcasts that are starting to become available and the 'M' works just fine for those. Further down the road there may be TV shows available in the Windows format, but right now if you want to watch Lost on your 'M' then you're going to have to use BitTorrent.

As for some of the other features, the 'M' is an excellent music player, it does fine with photos, the FM radio is very good (much better than my IRiver), the voice recorder works ok but I don't know if you'll be able to record lectures or anything like that with it (there is no line-in jack), and the somewhat limited organizer function does what it's supposed to do. One thing I should mention is a program called Zencast that should have been included with the software bundle but wasn't. Zencast is a podcatcher that is specifically made for the Zen Vision and Zen Vision M and provides automatic synchronization of your podcasts, a la ITunes. It's no better or worse than the other podcatchers out there as far as I can tell, but it does integrate nicely with the player. If you want it don't expect Creative to tell you about it though. I had to dig around the forums to find it at www.zencast.com.

Well, that's it for now. I'm sure I'll have more to say about my 'M' in the future but I'm just going to enjoy it for now. It needs to get a lot easier to use before I can call it an "IPod killer", but it's still a helluva player. Of course, as soon as I bought it Toshiba announced another "IPod killer" at the Consumer Electronics Show, and, from I've seen and read, it looks like a helluva machine too. And 30 bucks cheaper than the 'M' to boot. Oh well, when's the last time anyone bought a new gadget and the next day someone announces something newer and cooler. That's just part of being a geek.

Water Music

So I was thinking wouldn't it be great if this was one of those real blogs where people could come and read the tragic, first-person accounts the great New Year's floods of aught 5 happening in Northern California right now. You know, the stories the newspapers missed, the stories that only the people who've suffered the blows and lived through the hardships can know. The kind of first-person accounts that have made the whole blogging revolution happen.

God, that would be great but, unfortunately, this isn't one of those blogs. Truth is, I've been watching the floods on TV just like everybody else. Not that we haven't had any rain down here in San Jose, mind you, but other than some slickness on the roadways and some wind blowing through the trees it's been pretty uneventful. Of course you'd never know that from the news reports, but what did you expect? In the news business I think they call it "man bites dog" . You know, people don't want to know what's really happening, they just want the drama. They want to see the handful of people trapped behind the floodwaters or the mudslides and washed-out roads. They want misery and the pain and that sort of thing and don't really care about the other 99.99% of the population that's watching it on TV just like everybody else.

Which is the driving force behind the phenomenon that scientists call the Media Distortion Field, or MDF. If you live long enough you're almost certain to go through an MDF at least once in your life. I've been through quite a few and it's always so frustrating because you're watching all these dramatic events on TV and you keep waiting for your turn to come around, and it never comes. Like this time, I was watching all these floodwaters on TV and waiting for it to start raining here where I'm at, but when I looked outside it just looked the same. Couple of cars going past, and maybe the neighbor taking out his garbage, but not a mudslide, falling tree or torrential downpour in sight.

Oh well, it's probably better that way.

So anyways, as you probably heard they had some floods up north which produced some alarmingly high MDE's (Media Distortion Effects), and I'd just like to say a few things about that. First of all, most of the pictures I've seen on TV have come from a little town up north called Guerneville, which sits on the banks of the Russian River and has got to be the most flooded out town on the entire North American Continent. And they like it that way. In fact, Guernevillians don't really consider it a winter unless they've spent at least a few days cleaning the mud out their kitchens. Don't ask me why. But just the same, the river has flooded many times in the past, it will flood many times in the future, the people who live there seem to like it that way, and none of it is really news.

But it is dramatic.

Of course the Napa River also flooded and, once again, this is nothing new. Unlike Guerneville, though, the residents of Napa (Napians?) aren't nearly so enthusiastic about mud in their kitchens and so they've been busily spending dollars over the years trying to shore up their river defenses. Unfortunately, this year their efforts weren't quite enough. Still, it's happened before and it always creates an enormous MDE and it's certainly a pain in the butt for people who live and work in downtown Napa.

But most people in Northern California don't live in downtown Napa.

Which me brings me to the point of this blog, which is...?

I don't know.

Just be aware of the MDF, I guess, and don't believe everything you read in the paper or see on TV. The great cataclysms they describe are overdrawn and disproportionate to the actual deeds. Of course it's easy to say that when you're on the outside looking in, but then most of us are on the outside and it's a gross overstatement to say that the entire state is underwater.

Not that there isn't some important news to come out of all of this. Breeches in some of the Sacramento River levees certainly point to a potential disaster somewhere down the road. However, this only adds to the long list of problems that need fixing in this state which our government seems totally incapable of fixing. Perhaps when the floodwaters invade the capitol itself and senators and assemblymen find themselves being washed out to sea (a prospect that many voters would not find entirely disagreeable) they will finally quit their squabbling about who's up and who's down and start working on actual state business.

Ah...it's a nice fantasy anyways.

But that's not what I want to blog about. Actually, I was planning on doing one of those "Best of 2005" kind of blogs, but shucks, it's too late now. That's another drawback of living in a MDF - it just seems to dominate everything else. Oh well, I guess I can work in a couple of items off my list. Sure, why not. Without further adieu let me present my (abbreviated) "Best Things of 2005 that no one cares about" list .

Best Opera DVD: Lulu, by Alban Berg. Ok, this actually came out in 1996 but I didn't see it until this year, so I'm putting it on the list. Great DVD, though, with an excellent cast. I didn't think I'd like a Berg opera much, but this one has great singing, great acting, great (albeit 'modern') score, and most of all, great drama. If you're not familiar with the piece it's a story about a seductive young beauty who rises from the gutter, becomes rich, kills her husband, escapes from jail, falls back into poverty and prostitution, and is finally killed by Jack the Ripper. All in all just great entertainment for the entire family. Not recommended as your first opera, but definitely a keeper. Now I've got to go out and buy Wozzeck.

Best CD: Samuel Barber - Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Essays for Orchestra Nos. 2 and 3 (Karina Gauvin, Thomas Trotter, Marin Alsop, RSNO) Ok, this actually came out in 2004, but it was the best CD I bought this year so it's on the list too. When most people think of Barber they think of the Adagio for Strings or the Violin Concerto. Knoxville: Summer of 1915 based on a poem by James Agee needs to be added to that list. I bought it last summer and I don't think a week has gone by when I haven't listened to it at least once. The poem it is based on was written after the Second World War by a wistful James Agee reflecting back on the days of his youth, and America's youth, in the years before the entire world went crazy and any pretenses of American innocence were shattered forever. A pre-nuclear, pre-superpower age. Barber's score is wistful at first, and then begins to stir anxiously and become unsettled, until finally the past seems forever beyond our grasp. The soprano Karina Gauvin sings it with incredible subtelty and grace, and I've got to believe that this is one of the great overlooked masterpieces of American music. There are also a couple of symphonic essays and a toccata on the CD, but Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is the highlight of the disc and certainly worth the $7.00 I paid for it.

And that is my "Best Things of 2005 that no one cares about" list. Who says that blogging is just a big ego-tripping waste of time.

Debt Not Paid

Ok, so I finally got around to reading The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks, and now I'm so paranoid that I can't even leave the house without gloves and weapons and a bag over my head. Man, I gotta get off the grid. Steal a pickup truck and head out to the middle of the desert, or something.

No, no, no... I'm just kidding. I don't wear gloves and I don't own any weapons. I don't want you thinking this is some kind of right wing paramilitary blog or something. The bag over the head might be a good idea though. Anyways, if you haven't read The Traveler then the next few paragraphs aren't going to make any sense to you at all, but I don't feel like doing a synopsis so tough.

Anyways, I got to thinking about this whole grid thing, and the brethren and the harlequins and the mercs and the citizens and the drones and the travelers and the pathfinders and the splicers and all the rest of it, and it seems to me that some of the stuff in the book just might be true. I mean think about it. Think about some of the people you know or have read about. Could it be...

Bill Gates: Citizen

Steve Jobs: Traveler

Steve Ballmer: Splicer

Dick Cheney: Brethren (Definitely a Brethren - Probably Level 1)

George W. Bush: Citizen, possibly a Drone.

Howard Stern: Traveler (Travelers, remember, are people who disrupt the social order and cause drastic change)

Adam Curry: Hmmm, this one's tough. I'm tempted to say Traveler, but he's probably just a Pathfinder. You know, the one's who don't have the Traveler's powers but train them and get them on their way.

Hilary Hahn: Harlequin (Exotic, gifted, and deadly)

Arnold Schwarzenegger: Untrained Traveler - needs a pathfinder to unlock his powers.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin: Cold Travelers (they started out on the side of good, but have since gone over to the Brethren)

Tony Myers (That's me!): Drone, but with Traveler delusions.

Oh well. Like I said, if you haven't read the book then none of that will make any sense. And I'm not recommending the book either. When you get past all the paranoia it's really just standard page-turner fare. But is it really fiction?

On to other things. I've been neglecting my blog lately so let me just catch up on a few things. I know that millions count on me for the latest news from here at home and around the world so let's see what's happening.

In international news it looks like the Saddam Hussein trial is finally getting under way, and it's been pretty ugly. Witnesses testifying about torture and murder and human meat grinders and Saddam just sitting there with a "if I had an army I'd crush you" look on his face. No hint of remorse anywhere, just his own naked hunger for power. Quite a spectacle and a good lesson for the rest of us, I suppose. That is, if anyone is paying attention. I mean, are the youth of America watching this? I wonder. Are they able to tear themselves away from their XBox 360's and put aside make believe bloodshed and murder (entertaining as it might be) to look at the real thing? Does any of it even register? Probably not, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Take 2 Interactive comes out with their own Saddam Hussein game where players can take on the role of the evil despot, commiting their own acts of torture and genocide (in a free roaming and unrestricted environment, of course).

Look for it on store shelves.

Turning to the national news it looks like it's been a pretty good week for the Republicans. That is, what we used to call Republicans, not the bible-thumping prudes that have been so successfully passing themselves off as the Republican Party these past 5 or 6 years. The good news for Republicans, of course, was Howard Dean. Seems like everytime he opens his mouth another state or two flips over to the "red" side of the ledger. This time he made a remark sure to win the hearts and minds of Americans by saying that American could never win the war in Iraq. Way to go Howard. I'm sure the Dems will thank you for that remark the next time elections come around and the Republicans use it to tie a noose around Democratic necks. Sorry Howard, no matter how a person might feel about the war, no one likes a defeatist.

In other news out of Washington, it looks like Congress is getting ready to debate the extension of lower tax rates for savings and investment (also known as dividends and capital gains). On one side of the aisle you have the Republicans arguing in favor of the extension, and on the other side you have the Dems arguing to abolish it. The Republicans argue that the government should encourage savings and investment, not punish it, and the Dems, as usual, argue that only rich people care about saving and investing for the future.

(sigh)

What this really points out, of course, is the foolishness of the current administration and it's prediliction for spending money like a drunken sailor. If Dubya had managed to show a little fiscal restraint these past 5 years and not squander our surplus or send us hundreds of billions of dollars into the hole, then this whole thing could have been a slam dunk for the Republicans. Unfortunately, that didn't happen and now we have to sit and watch this spectacle of the Dems actually arguing, with a straight face I might add, that the prudent course of action is not to save and invest but rather to surrender our wages to the big federal spending machine, with the assurance that our government keepers will be careful stewards and our dollars will be carefully and wisely spent.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, pension plans are going bust and social security is starting to wobble and medical costs are going through the roof and why in the world would anyone want to save and invest for the future? Beats me. Far better to let the government handle my money while I use what remains to consume cheap foreign goods. Why save and invest when we could be shipping our dollars overseas anyways? Isn't that the American way?

Not really, so why is it that the Democratic party seems to think it's such a sin for me to save my money and invest it back in the economy? Is it one of those kneejerk liberal vs. conservative things? Is that what it is? I understand that we're deep in the hole and have got to get out of it somehow, but there has to be a way to do it without punishing the savers and investors.

Hey, I've got an idea. Since it was Dubya who created this mess, why don't we bill him for some of the costs. His family has money. They ought to be able to pony up a billion or two. And as for the rest, well I still stand behind my idea that we ought to have a lobbyist tax. You know, for every dollar that goes into a Congressman's pocket we should take another 50 cents and put that into reducing the deficit. Geez, with all the money that goes back and forth around the Capitol our 50 cents on the dollar ought to balance the budget and give us plenty of room to spare. Geez, just think of all the Alaskan bridges we could build with that kind of dough.

Well, that's the way I see it anyways, and that's the news for a Wednesday night, and that's all for my blog. Thanks for tuning in and for all of you Travelers out there - see ya' in the second realm.

Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On

Now don't get me wrong. I think new technology is swell - I really do. But every now and then something comes along that you just know is never gonna work. Tonight's tech mistake is something called Pandora, and you can find it at www.pandora.com.

What is it you ask? Well, here's the idea. What if you could tell your computer the name of a song or an artist you like and the computer could come back with other song's it thinks you will also like but may not have heard before. Would that be useful? Not really, but that was the idea the Music Genome Project came up with, and Pandora is the name they gave to their little brainchild. What Pandora does is scrutinize a song or artist you like and then it assembles, through some kind of genius analysis, a customized radio station that contains other songs that it believes you will like as well.

Ok, that was a terrible explanation. Let me just tell you about my experience with Pandora.

The first thing Pandora asked me to do was create a new station by entering a song or an artist I liked. Of course I immediately typed in Hilary Hahn (my favorite musical superstar) and hit enter. This started little dots flashing across the screen while Pandora analyzed my input and then, after giving it some considerable thought, it somewhat confusedly came back to me with this.

"Did you mean Hilary Duff?"

Well no, Pandora, I didn't mean Hilary Duff, although I could see how a sophisticated analytical engine could make such a mistake. I myself get them confused all the time. Hilary Hahn, the concert violinist and Hilary Duff, the teen beat sensation - they're artistic styles are so musically close. Oh well, I shrugged, maybe Pandora was just having a bad day.

It seemed to me the best thing to do was just to start all over again. This time instead of entering an instrumentalist like Hilary Hahn I thought I'd try and internationally renowned soprano like Renee Fleming. Surely, Pandora would have no problem matching her. So I typed in Renee Fleming, hit enter, watched the little dots go back and forth, and got yet another quizzical response.

"Did you mean Tommy Fleming?"

Tommy Fleming? Are you kidding me? I put in the name of a superstar soprano and you come back with an Irish folksinger I've never even heard of. Sheesh...you call that a match? Ok, ok, I won't get upset. Obviously, Pandora is geared towards teen idols and pop stars so I'll try one of those instead. Only problem is I don't really know any pop stars. Not current ones anyways.

I know, I'll try Lori McKenna. She's not really a pop star but she is a great singer-songwriter that I really like, and she was on Oprah last month. If she was good enough for Oprah then she ought to be good enough for Pandora, right? Once again, I typed in Lori McKenna, hit enter, blinking lights, and...presto! This time I got a match. And lo and behold, it's -

Lori McKenna.

Wait a minute. I type in Lori McKenna's name and, after much scrutiny and analysis, Pandora has determined that since I like Lori McKenna so much I might also like to hear other songs by the same person. This program is brilliant. It never would have ocurred to me that if I like one song by an artist that I might also like another one of her songs too. You can't buy that kind of insight. I tell ya', sometimes I just have to gape and wonder and ask what did we poor humans ever do before this new fangled hi-tech stuff came along? Just listened to first track on a CD, I guess, and then sat there too dumb to go on to track 2 . Not anymore. Not now that we have Pandora. It's a new age, my friend.

Oh ok, I thought, maybe I wasn't being fair. After all, Lori McKenna isn't exactly a household name and there probably aren't a lot of artists out there like her anyways, so maybe I should skip the sarcasm and try inputting a song instead. A top forty hit would be good. Something from the days of my youth that Pandora would be able to analyze and match in it's extensive database. I racked my brain and then I remembered an old 70's favorite of mine by The Eagles called "One of These Nights." Ah, how that song brings back the memories. The carefree days and the hot summer nights, the beach parties and the sand in your sleeping bag, the lithe bodies of winsome girls and the parking spots where we would stop and gaze out over the twinkling lights of the city. Yeah, those were the days and it all seems so long ago. "One of These Nights" would be a good one to try.

And so I typed it in, hit enter, got past the blinking lights and this time Pandora finally starts to do it's thing. And the first match is -

"Interesting Drug" by Morrisey.

Huh? I'm thinking of winsome girls and late summer nights and Pandora comes up with a drug song? Fortunately Pandora has a feature that tells you why it thought I might like this particular song, so I clicked it and here's what it said.

"It features basic rock song structure, subtle use of vocal harmony, mild rhythmic syncopation, mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation, and major key tonality."

Is that why I like that old Eagles song? Because of it's sycopated rhythms and major key tonality? Does this mean that I can't like anything legato or in a minor key? Oh brother. Sorry, Pandora, you just don't get it. Music is in the heart and the soul. It's not like chemistry where you can break it down into molecules and atoms and formulate new compounds. To say I like that Picasso over there doesn't mean I will similarly like a lesser painting just because it has 3 eyeballs and a foot sticking out it's ear. Music is ideas and emotions and memories and a thousand other things that speak to our humanity, not our science. Sure, technology is swell, but it has it's limits.

And I'm not playing with Pandora anymore. Geez, it's so depressing. Not even my computer understands me.

I Know, Let's Talk About the Weather


The Woods are Lovely, Dark and Deep

But I Have Promises to Keep


You can tell a New Englander wrote that because a Californian wouldn't have a clue what he was talking about. Not when it's late November and the thermometer is still hovering well above 70 degrees. Good thing too because I was starting to worry about the high energy bills everyone's been warning us about. But, not to worry. Looks like I'll be paying those bills and still managing to have a dollar or two left over for food and shelter after all.

You gotta love California.

And you know I think it's time for all of us Californians to maybe take a minute here and give a little thanks to our local weatherperson. After all, when the weather is lousy we always give them the blame, don't we? So when it's particularly nice it only seems fitting to to give them the credit too. Maybe a national "Weatherperson Appreciation Day" would be in order. Wouldn't that be nice. Just walk up to your local weatherperson and say "hey, thanks buddy for all you've done." And maybe a little tip would be in order as well. Nothing much, minc you - just a double sawbuck or something like that to show your appreciation. That way our consciences would be clean for when the weather turns lousy and we all start raggin' on 'em again.

Yeah, that'd be nice.

Anyways, needless to say, it's been a long summer here in California this year, and I'm sure more than a few Californians have been thinking about packing a cooler and putting on some suncreen and having Christmas at the beach this year. Geez, why not? Let those people back east get all bundled up and sit around the fire singing Christmas carols. We'll just fire up the barbecue, set out some beach chairs, pop open some cold ones and check out the babes. Yeah, that's how we do Christmas in California.

Actually, that's not really true. I'm just making that up. We usually spend our Chrismas' indoors just like everybody else, but this year may be different. I guess it's must be that global warming thing that's causing all the strange weather. Whatever it is, I'm all for it. Keep pumping out that CO2 people cause I'm liking this weather, and, after all, don't you think Ozone is highly overrated anyways? I mean, who needs it. Isn't that why God gave us sunglasses and SPF50?

Think about it.

Well, it should be pretty clear by now that I've got absolutely nothing to blog about tonight. I think it must be all this sunshine that's got me feeling so sanguine and unconcerned because... I mean it's hard to stare ruefully into the middle distance when the birds are singing and the warm rays of the California sun are washing over your face. How can you be contemplative and bleak on a day like this? It's impossible, I tell you. Yeah, we Californians may be shallow, but at least we're warm.

The palms are lovely, green and tall

But I have blog posts yet to scrawl

And nothing on my mind at all

Nothing on my mind at all.

Things We (Saw) Today, And Other Musical Notes

So how was your day? Mine was pretty eventful. I went down to the park this afternoon for my usual lunchtime walk and who do you think I should see leaving the park ahead of me? How about this for a clue.

She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah

She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah

She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.


Yep. Believe it or not there was this skinny old man in a sweatshirt and shorts walking out of the park with two security type people beside him, and there were these people in the parking lot waving and yelling out "We love you". He was waving back and I got a look at his face and thought "Hmmm, you know that guy looks familiar. He kind of looks like...

Paul McCartney!"

Then I thought "Nah, that can't be Paul McCartney. What would Paul McCartney be doing down here at the park. It must be someone else". So I went for my little lunchtime three miler, but all the time I was walking I kept thinking how much that guy looked like Sir Paul. Not the round cheeked little mop top from the movies mind you, but a more wrinkled and grandfatherly version. Still, dang it, it did kind of look like him.

So I got back to the office and I checked the newspaper and guess who is in town giving a concert tonight at San Jose Arena. Huh, need I say more. Then, as if that weren't proof enough, someone told me that there's a quiet, out of the way hotel near the park where a lot of celebrities stay there when they're in town and want to keep things sort of low-key. I don't know about you but that's all facts I need. I saw Paul McCartney today, and that's all there is to it!

And now as the day has wore on into the night it's begun to sink in to me just how famous that guy is. Jesus Christ, there aren't many people more famous than an ex-Beatle are there? And wouldn't you know it, dag nabbit, I didn't bring a camera. Damn. They say you should always bring a camera with you wherever you go in case something happens, and now I know why. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.

Well that's the way it goes, I suppose, and to tell the truth Paul McCartney isn't nearly as big a celebrity to me now as he was, say, forty years ago. I mean it's probably been 30 years since he's written a song I liked, and some of his other projects have been pretty lame, if you ask me. Sure he's famous and I'm as big a sucker for celebrities as the next guy, but he's mostly famous for stuff he did a long time ago, and I think if I could pick the top 10 celebrities I'd like to run into at the park he probably wouldn't be one of them. But then again, I saw Paul McCartney!

Oh well, turning now to more current musical superstars I guess I should talk a little about the latest Hilary Hahn CD. Actually it's not her CD. She only has co-billing on this one along with pianist Natalie Zhu, and it features four Mozart Sonatas for Piano and Violin. Now I know millions turn to this blog for the best Classical CD reviews on the net so I won't beat around the bush. This CD is...

No, wait. Before I talk about the Mozart CD maybe I should talk a little bit about Sibelius instead. That would be Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), of course, and some other CD's I've been listening to lately. First let me explain that I have a bias towards the music of the late 1800's and early 1900's, particulary that type of music know as "Late Romantic" music, and particularly the music of Mahler and Sibelius. I should also explain that I know as much about music as I do about french cooking, which is not much, but I do know the music I like and, likewise, I also know when the soup is cold.

So, where were we?

Oh yeah, Sibelius. I love the music of Sibelius. He and Mahler were contemporaries, you know, but they were also just about as opposite as two composers could be. It's said that Mahler liked the big themes - life, death, resurrection, you know the whole grand cosmological scheme of things, while Sibelius was more pastoral, more natural, and more in tune with the inner world. That's what some people say, anyways, and for the most part I would agree. If you could generalize about the two then you could say that Mahler's music is much more expansive than the introspective and earthbound Sibelius.

Of the two, I prefer Mahler to Sibelius, but then again I prefer either one of them to most other composers I've heard. Anyways, Sibelius wrote this famous violin concerto back around 1904-1905, and it has since gone on to be one of the most recorded concerto's ever written for that instrument. That's according to me, and I can't think of a major violin virtuoso who hasn't recorded it at least once (except for a certain H.H., but we'll get to that later).

Probably the most famous recording is one done by Jascha Heifetz back in the 1960's (?) that many consider to be the definitive version of this particular piece. Hmmmm, well thanks to the miracle of the internet and 21st century technology you can now hear that famous recording and decide for yourself just how definitive it is. Personally, out of the hundreds (thousands? millions?) of Sibelius Violin Concerto recordings that are out there I've heard just four of them, and of the four the Heifetz has got to be the weakest. Instead of the raw emotional power that characterize the best interpretations (in my opinion), Heifetz dances and flits through the piece as though on a merry little jaunt through the countryside.

Somewhat better than the Heifetz is the Anne-Sophie Mutter interepretation dating from around the mid 1990's or so. Listen to Heifetz and then listen to Mutter and you'll wonder if you're listening to same piece. Where Heifetz flits and dances Mutter dramatizes and emotes, almost to the point of emotional cruelty. There are many who say Mutter's is the definitive reading, but it's too much of a soap opera for my tastes.

The only other two renditions of the concerto I've heard are both gems. The first is from Itzhak Perlman and the second from Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, a violinist who usually comes on a little too strong for my liking, but who gives what I think is the definitive reading among the four. The Perlman is a fantastic, virtuoso perfomance with an overpowering Russian feel to the music, much in the tradition of Tchaikovsky, a composer whom Sibelius was often compared to early in his career. However, as exhilirating as it is, it simply doesn't have the sort of raw power of the Salerno-Sonnenberg version. Maybe the musical purists will disagree, but raw power is what the Sibelius needs and Salerno-Sonnenberg provides it willingly and with gusto. Even in the Adagio she manages to soften the tone without losing any of that emotional strength that seems to power the engine of this piece. It's a remarkable CD that definitely belongs in any musical collection, classical or otherwise.

Which brings me back to Hilary Hahn and Natalie Zhu. The new CD is called Mozart Violin Sonatas, it's on the Deutsche Grammophone label (which means no rootkits, I hope), and would it really suprise anyone if I told you that the playing and the players are absolutely flawless. Probably not because, let's face it, anyone at all familiar with H.H.'s past achievements wouldn't doubt for a minute that she would utterly master these four Mozart Sonatas. They are absolutely suited to the brlliance of her style, and the dialog between N.Z. and H.H. is clever and witty in the best Mozart fashion, and everything on this CD from the picture on the front all the way to the barcode on the back is done with impeccable taste and style. And frankly, after a dozen or so listens I think I'm a little Mozart'd out.

I mean, it's not like there aren't any other Mozart CD's out there or any classical music stations playing Mozart day after day, morning, noon and night. In fact, I think at any given time Beethoven and Mozart probably account for 50% of all classical music currently playing on classical music stations across the nation. At least it seems that way, and that's why I love this CD but I wish that H.H. had done something a little different. I know, I know, everyone loves Mozart and certainly no record label is going to scream and holler if you decide to do a Mozart CD, but, geez, I'm just not in the mood.

Which brings me to the main point of this posting. That is I read somewhere that H.H. gave a performance or is going to give a performance somewhere and she played or is going to play a piece I didn't know was in her repertoire. I wish I could remember where I read it but the article said she was going to play...

The Sibelius Violin Concerto.

Hilary Hahn playing the Sibelius? Are you kidding me? Now don't get me wrong. I love H.H.'s playing and I've got every one of her CD's, but a raw, emotional piece like the Sibelius? Somehow, even as gifted as she is, the words "raw" and "emotional" aren't qualities I'd usually associate with her style. She is a strong player, however, and with much better instincts and control than others I've heard, so maybe she could pull off the Sibelius. Redefine it, if you will. Now that would be interesting. That would be something I'd like to hear. She could probably play the Mozart in her sleep but the Sibelius...hmmm.

Of course she has done some similar things in the past. Let me think. She won a well deserved grammy for the Brahms, and of course she recorded the Mendelssohn, although with not nearly the success of others she has recorded. And she did the Beethoven, but the Brahms and the Beethoven are very different from the Sibelius. The Sibelius is a little more out there. I tell you, if she ever decides to record it there will definitely be some interested fans who would be very anxious to hear what she does with it. And since she is the only major violinist I can think of who hasn't recorded it then, well, there you go. I guess that settles it.

Oops, wait a minute, I almost forgot. She's got some sort of Paganini project in the works. Heh, she'll ace that one. She's definitely got the chops to handle Paganini. And in the meantime (sigh), there's always Mozart.

Behold The Wages Of Sin

"Hey Pete, is that you man?"

"Hey T"

"What you doin' down here?"

"Gettin' stoned" he says as he passes the paper bag my way. "You want a hit?"

"What's in the bag?"

"Fifth of Beam. Good stuff, man. Go on, take a swig."

"Naw, no thanks."

"Ok, suit yourself. You don't want to party with me it's no sweat off my ass."

"Why you down here drinking Beam like some wino anyways?"

"Shit. Nothing else to do."

"You break up with Rosalie chick or something?"

"Aw man" he laughed, "where you been? You mean Roberta? Man, I ain't seen her since I moved to Sacramento."

"You moved to Sacramento?"

"Yeah. Don't you remember?"

"Naw. I ain't seen you in a long time. I ain't seen you since you got your house broken into. Damn, that's like ten years ago or something."

"Yeah, I remember that. Son of a bitch, that was a nice stereo too and they fuckin' ripped me off. Mother fuckers!" He paused a second or two and then continued. "So now what? Now you're all straightlaced and shit and don't party no more?"

I didn't answer. "What were you doin' in Sacramento?"

"Working."

"Oh yeah, doin' what?"

"Aw, you know. This and that. Bullshit mostly."

"So you still working up there?"

"Naw, I got fired. They busted me for smoking."

"Busted you for smoking? Smoking what?"

"Cigarettes, man. They fired me for smoking cigarettes."

"Smoking cigarettes? You gotta be shittin' me. Were you smoking in the bathroom or something?"

"Naw, I wasn't even smoking at work. Not in the building or outside or anything."

"And they fired you? What for?"

"The boss was a real asshole, man. He said that their health insurance costs were going up and so he made this rule that you had to be a non-smoker in order to work there and then he made everyone take breathalyzer tests and shit so he could check and make sure no one was sneaking a cigarette in their off hours. You know, shit like that. One day he told me I was gonna have to blow into this machine and so I told him 'Why don't you come over here and blow on this'. That's when they fired me."

"That's bullshit. They can't fire you for smoking cigarettes on your own time."

"Oh yes they can. We even talked to some legal aid guy about it and he said they can fire you anytime they want and they don't even need a reason. "

"They can fire you for smoking cigarettes in your own living room?"

"Man, everyone's doing it nowdays. Don't you watch the news? It's like you agree to work for someone and they get to control your life."

"Shit."

"Shit."

"So that's why you left Sacramento?"

"Naw, that wasn't it. I got another job up there, and even quit smoking too. You know, I figured a man's gotta eat, don't he, so I threw away my cigarettes and got this job. And I was being real good, too. No smoking, no drinking, nothing. And then one day the boss comes in and tells us that due to rising health care costs the company was going to start monitoring everyone's diet. And then he tells us from now on everyone was going to have to buy all their food from the company grocery store and that anyone caught eating food that wasn't sold at the company store was gonna be fired. And then he told us that we were all gonna have to be weighed everyday when we came in to work and that they would be monitoring everyones waistlines and dress sizes and if they noticed any increases that they were gonna be fired. Then he told us we were all gonna have to start on a company exercise program and that anyone not showing up for their company exercises was gonna be fired. "

"You mean you could only eat food that they approved?"

"Yeah, we had to buy it at their store and they used to come to our houses after work and on the weekends to check the garbage just to make sure that we weren't eating anything we weren't supposed to."

"So what happened?"

"Aw man, I couldn't stomach that shit. Tofu burgers and raw onions and soy milk - you could eat 50 pounds of that crap and still be hungry, you know what I mean? So one day I drove into the parking lot and the security guard spots a half-eaten french fry on the passenger seat and boom - slick as shit I was out the door."

"You ate a french fry in the car? Holy shit, Pete, what were you thinking?"

"I couldn't hack it. It was bad enough I had to quit the cigarettes and booze, but the tofu burgers...that was just totally fucked."

"I didn't know they could do shit like that."

"Neither did I, but they can."

"So that's when you left Sacramento."

"I wanted to, but I needed money, man. What was I gonna do? I decided I better lay off the fries and go out and get another job and so I went out and got one. And I was so gonna make it this time. Man my lungs were clear, my mind was sharp, my belly was empty, and I was walking the treadmill everyday too. And then I met this girl. Guadalupe - Mexican girl, you know, and she was fine. Long black hair and big brown eyes and always smelling like rosewater or something, you know. And real down-to-earth, too. Not like those other chicks I used to hang around with."

"So what happened?"

"Aw, I tell you she was beautiful. And here I was cleaning up my act and eating healthy and all of that, and I'd be taking her out to all these fancy places, you know, expensive restaurants and shows and things like that. Shit, I bet you can't picture a slob like me eating breadsticks in some fancy restaurant, but there we were, and I was in love, man. I mean I was really in love with that girl. Even went down to Modesto to meet her parents."

"And..."

"So one day I popped the question. Right there in the middle of this restaurant I asked her to marry me and guess what? She says 'Yes', just like that. Didn't even want to think it over or nothing. And so she started making all these plans and shit and I told all the people at work and I felt like after all the fucking up I'd done in my life I finally managed to get something right. And then..."

"Yeah?"

"One day the boss calls me into his office and tells me that before the company can allow me to get married, Guadalupe and I have got to go down and get our DNA tested. He says that due to rising health costs the company needs to be sure that we are biologically compatible and won't be pressuring their bottom line by bringing any babies with chronic health problems into the world. I told him that I didn't think that was any of the company's business and he said either I could go get the test or I could start looking for another job, so I agreed that we'd take the test."

"What happened?"

"The test came back and it said that I had some kind of gene that wasn't a good match for one of Guadalupe's genes and that there was a 1 in 350,000 chance that our children could develop some kind of disease because of it. The boss told me he was sorry but if I chose to marry Guadalupe then he would have to terminate me right then or there. It was my choice, it was either marry her or keep my job, but I couldn't do both. So I told him to go fuck himself. There were other jobs, but there was only one Guadalupe, and I told him that and then I walked right out the door."

"Right on, Pete. What a fucking asshole."

"Only when I went back to my place to tell Guadalupe what happened, she was gone. She left me a note and told me she loved me and she was sorry to leave me like that, but she couldn't marry me. She told me the company had called and explained what had happened and she couldn't take the chance of having a freak baby. That's what my boss had told her - that we would have a freak baby, and now that the results of our DNA tests were known neither one of us would ever be able to get a job again. Not if we got married anyways."

"He told her that?"

"I never found out what happened to Guadalupe. It was like she just disappeared of the face of the earth. I'll admit I was bitter for a while, but then...well, you can't survive on bitterness. I had to go find another job."

"Damn, Pete. This is like some kind of nightmare or something."

"The next job was just the same old shit. You know, due to rising health costs blah, blah, blah. But you know, even with everything that happened I still did alright for a while. I was getting lonely though. Ever since Guadalupe left I didn't have no woman or nothing, and, well, you know how it gets. A man gets lonely for the company of a woman. You know what they say, a woman may give a man many pains, but celibacy gives him no pleasures."

"Hey, that's pretty good. Did you come up with that?"

"No, I read in a book somewhere. Anyway, so one night I picked up this girl downtown and took her back to my place. It wasn't nothing. I was only looking for a little companionship and I never thought that there might be any problem. But then, you guessed it, the next day I go into work and the boss calls me into his office and asks me if I'd had any sexual relations lately. I told him yeah, though I didn't see how it was any of his business one way or the other. Then he reminds me that due to rising health costs the company had a policy about employees engaging in sexual relations outside of sanctity of marriage, and then he tells me he'll need to know the names of all my sexual partners. I ask him why and he says that the company will need to run sexual histories on all my partners to be sure that I hadn't taken any undue health risks. Naturally, I told him what he could do with his company health policy and that was that."

"Shit, why didn't the company just tie a camera to your dick and keep you under 24 hour surveillance."

"Don't be giving 'em any ideas, partner. So that was that job. My last job was the real kicker though. This time I really played it straight. No smokes, no booze, no burgers, no broads, nothing. I came into work each day and I didn't do nothing I wasn't supposed to do except kiss their asses just like any good 'ol American company man would. I thought there wasn't nothing that was gonna get me fired from this job this time."

"Uh-oh, what happened?"

"I finally got a little money together and so one day I decided to go down to the record store and buy a new CD. I looked around a while and bought this new one by a group I heard on the radio and I took it home to play on my stereo."

"So?"

"So, before I played it I decided I'd put it into my computer first to make a backup, you know, so in case anything happened I'd still have another copy I could use."

"Yeah. So what?"

"So I made the backup and then I played the CD and didn't think anything of it until I went into work the next day. I get into work and the boss calls me into his office and tells me that he just got a call from Sony BMG saying that a rootkit that they had installed on my computer reported back to them that I had made an illegal copy of one of their CD's. I said 'What?' and he said that Sony had installed a program on my computer that lets them know what I'm doing with my computer, and that last night their logs showed that I had made an illegal copy of one of their CD's. I said you must be shittin' me and the boss says no. Then he tells me that the company cannot condone this kind of unethical behavior and..."

"They fired you?"

"Yeah, and I was being so good. Shit. I tell you, you just can't win with these people. That's when I left Sacramento and came back down here."

"You mean you got busted by your computer?"

"Man, they got all the bases covered. Face it, T, they own us. Those big corporations out there, they own you, me, the government...everything."

"They don't own me. Not as long as I've got my blog and ten fingers to type with."

"Sheeeet...your blog. Man, what do you think would happen if your company ever read your blog."

"No one reads my blog, and I aim to keep it that way."

"Yeah, but just supposin'"

"Fuck it. I don't care. It's a free country ain't it."

"Like hell it is" he said, and then grew dark and silent.

"So what are you doing now?" I asked.

"What does it look like I'm doing? You want a hit?"

"Naw, man. I don't drink."

"Oh, you don't drink, like that's gonna save you. Believe me man, there's something you're doing that someone don't like and if they catch you at it your ass is grass."

"We're all just pawns on someone else's chessboard. Is that what you think?" Pete didn't answer. "So what you gonna do now, now that you got this all figured out I mean."

"Finish this bottle, have a cigarette, and go get a little poke from one of them whores over at JJ's. I still got some money in my pocket."

"Fuckin' eh, Pete, they really ran you through the ringer, man."

"It's a new world, T. No more vices and no more sins. We're all gonna have pink lungs and healthy livers and we're gonna lead good clean lives and live to be a hundred and ten."

"Bullshit!"

"See ya' T. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"See ya' Pete. There but for the grace of God..."






"

Stuck In The Middle With You

Not that I want to be a gossip or anything, but I've got to talk a little bit about the people next door. Nice people, really, with a Mom and a Dad, two high school aged daughters , a high school aged son, a dog, a boat, and...

five cars parked in the driveway and out in the street.

Yep, you heard me right - five people and five different cars. Let's see, there's the one daughter's Scion TC (I think that's what it is), there's the other daughters little Toyota something or other (can you tell I'm not a car guy), and the son's sporty little Lexus thingy (the one with the mega stereo that he's so keen to show off at 2:00 in the morning), the Mom's fancy-dancy Lexus LS something or other ( I think), and of course Dad's Supersized Lexus SUV which sits so proundly in their driveway and casts long shadows over the sun-starved yards of his neighbors. Yep, 5 cars in all, and that doesn't include the Toyota Avalon which shows up every now and then. I'm not sure who that belongs to - it might be the dog's.

So why do I bring all this up? What do you care what kind of cars my neighbors drive or if they park them all over the street? Hmmm, come to think of it you probably don't care so let me change the subject.

Have you heard about these new tax reform proposals that are making their way towards our nation's capital? You must of heard about them. After many months of hard work, a bipartisan group of former Senators, Congressmen, lawyers, professors, economists and financial professionals known collectively as the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform has issued a report outlining a set of revenue neutral options for reforming the nation's complex tax code. Among it's many recommendations it calls for a general reduction in tax rates, the elimination of certain deductions, and new incentives for savings and investment.

So far, so good, right? What's not to like? Everyone agrees our tax codes need simplification so this should be a slam dunk, right? Of course, and that's why it will sail through Congress with nary a word of dissent, right? Sure, no problem.

Which brings me to that sacredest of all American cows - the mortgage interest write off. For those of you who don't itemize I should probably explain. According to the Panel, about 30% of American taxpayers currently deduct their mortgage interest payments from their taxes, which means the other 70% don't. Now what the Panel is proposing is a cap on the amount of mortgage interest that can be deducted, a cap that the Panel estimates would affect just 5% of taxpayers, which means it would not affect the other 95%. Of course the media, thumbing through 300 or so pages of the report was quick to pick up on this little detail, and to their credit they all listened patiently as the Panel explained that the proposals were meant to be revenue neutral and that taxpayers would see tax reductions in other areas, including the elimination of the Alternative Minium Tax. And so the media, with great thoroughness and careful weighing of the facts, not wanting to appear reactionary or alarmist, reported these proposals in their usual fair and balanced fashion.

PRESIDENT WANTS TO SLASH INTEREST RATE DEDUCTION FOR MIDDLE CLASS HOMEOWNERS!!!



(Washington D.C) In a move designed to leave millions of middle class Americans destitute and homeless, the President's Advisory Panel submitted drastic recommendations today that would add new burdens to families already suffering under the weight of record high energy prices. "This is a cruel, heartless proposal that will pull the crutches out from under people already crippled by debt and high prices" said Congressman...

(and so on, and so on, blah, blah, blah)

So I'm bringing this all up is because of a story that ran in the local paper today. Now remember, I live in Northern California and I know things are a little bit different out here, but still when I read this even I had to do a doubletake. It was a story about tax reform and how the mortgage intererst will affect homeowners here in the Santa Clara Valley. The reporter, wanting to get the reaction from the man in the street, went out to interview a typical Santa Clara Valley homeowner and document his suffering and pain. Nothing unusual in that, so let me just quote the article for you (it's from the November 2, 2005 edition of the San Jose Murky News)

"We may have to downsize,'' said Anthony Dominguez, 35, a program coordinator with the Santa Clara County Probation Department, who bought a $1.2 million house with a $960,000 mortgage in June in Gilroy. ``I don't think it's fair.''

Geez, times are tough, aren't they? Especially for us middle class Americans. Do you think the panel considered this guy's pain when they drew up the proposal? Nah, of course not. Do you think they considered the plight of we Northern Californians, living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to make the payments on our $960,000.00 mortgages. Hah, they don't care about the working man.

Yes, I was deeply saddened by this news, but if I one word of advice to offer Mr. Dominguez, one word of solace and comfort, it would be this: Don't worry, Mr. Dominguez, we Americans are a just and proud people, and believe me, this mortgage interest rate cap hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of making it through Congress. Because you see, Mr. Dominguez, Americans, and by that I mean real Americans, would rather see innocent babies thrown from planes than lose their tax deductions. Trust me on this - there will be a happy ending.

In fact I can almost see it in my mind. Let's see...yes, that's it...slowly the picture comes into focus ... It's my neighbors, standing out in front of their house. There's mom and dad and the three kids all gathered around and dad's holding a newspaper with a headline that reads "TAX REFORM PROPOSALS REJECTED BY SENTATE". Dad is smiling, mom has a look of heartfelt relief on her face, and the son, with a tear of joy running down his cheek turns and asks

"Dad, does this mean I can keep the Lexus?"

"Yes, son, we can all keep our Lexus' ."

And then everyone starts to laugh and the camera zooms out and we see the sun shining and the birds singing, we see lawns being watered and a paperboy on his route, and all is right in Northern California. It's a new day and no one can take away our tax deductions ever again.