Season's Greetings: The Hidden Implications of Christmas

Christmas is a giant potwash of traditions that has always been celebrated strongly by my family. When your mother is a Stage IV cancer patient and Christmas is her favorite holiday, you're allowed to celebrate how and when you'd like.

Consequently, the following are staples of my holiday season:

• Beginning in mid-October, decorations go up. That's right, mid-October.
• Christmas music begins playing...well, it never stops, so I guess it doesn't really begin either. Incidentally, hearing the same 10 Christmas songs over and over again has failed to bother me. Now I just sing along.
• Regularly scheduled programming from the holidays (ie. Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (THE ORIGINAL, NOT THAT JIM CARREY SCHMUCK), Rudolph, etc.) becomes non-stop from October through February.
• A Christmas wreath dangles from my mother's rear view mirror. Again, non-stop, this never goes away. (And makes it easy to single out her car in parking lots)
• Decorations go down around the end of February.

This means that roughly 1/3 of my year is devoted to the Christmas season, along with all of it's trappings. Well, to be more accurate, this is more dedicated to my mother, but as a result of upbringing, I'm used to being around Christmas to a point that I subconsciously go through the motions as a result of making it feel like home. (My small Christmas tree in my apartment might indeed stay up until March. Unless reclaimed by its original owners, but given that it's a small obstruction in the corner of my apartment, and is among the only decorations I have, I put my motivation at taking it down at about a 1.2. On a free day.)

To a certain point, Christmas is such a collective ensemblage of traditions that most of us blindly follow along, noticing the details only when they are absent from their usual placement. This familiarity with holiday tradition ranges from visiting your in-laws and family, having dinner on Christmas Eve, opening presents in the morning, caroling with your church, playing with wrapping paper and box forts (if you're five), spending six hours in the emergency room because you cut your thumb open MASSIVELY while opening your Jurassic Park Command Compound with a very sharp pair of scissors. (Again, if you're five. And me. Neither are exclusive from each other, BTW.) This extends to the media that we ingest repeatedly each year, program after program. Let's be fair, everyone watches at least one classic holiday Christmas special at one point during the holiday. (If you don't, you probably don't have a soul. Or, you know, follow one of the dozens of other religious traditions that don't necessarily celebrate Christmas. Although I have a deep feeling that "8 Crazy Nights" isn't mandatory Haunakah screening if you're Jewish.

Because of our familiarity with these traditions, we don't really pay attention to them as we would to normal films, TV shows, songs, etc. because there's no point to. We've all seen "It's a Wonderful Life" 15,000 times by now, and there's not really any point in examining the details. What's more important to us is that it's on TV, and that means gathering round with the family, cheering on George Bailey, and crying at the appropriate moments when the entire town of Bedford Falls bands together to save their loan officer.

(For those of you who have not seen "It's a Wonderful Life", here's an adequate summary that oughta bring you up to speed. You're welcome.)

We all understand. It's a feel good story, it's a holiday tradition, the ending is iconic, and the overall movie (which doesn't deal entirely with Christmas, just the last third) is a nostalgic tribute to small town America and the ability to overcome any problems. (The movie even sums up its message for you onscreen in Clarence the Angel's message to George in his copy of Tom Sawyer. Look it up.)

But have we noted the ethnic and racial stereotyping?

Aha, I didn't think so.

Consider the following when going back through this family staple of Christmas: (Yes, I'm keeping in mind that this was made back in 1945, before, you know, civil rights and political correctness, but bear with me while I make my point.)

1.     Bedford Falls has apparently one/two black people living in the entire town. The one who we see the most is Annie, who is the maid for George's family. (Yes, that's right, the family servant. This is a family that to all expressed knowledge has little money. The family business is struggling to stay afloat. Only one of the Bailey brothers is able to afford to go to college. Any money in the town is in the hands of Mr. Potter, the bank owner. So how does this poor family afford a servant in the first place?) Throughout the entire two hour movie, she is featured in approximately two scenes. The first is serving dinner to the family, where she gets some jokes in and kids with the brothers George and Harry. The second is in the climax, where she shows up with the rest of town to give money to George to get him out of dutch. And that's it. She doesn't feature otherwise, or have anything meaningful to add to the plot.

The only other black citizen of BedfordBedford Falls in the real world) is to show the wrongness of this world. How does that sound? The only way that we know that there is something wrong with the world is because a black man is playing piano in the corner of the bar. He doesn't even have any lines and we as viewers are predisposed to hate this gentleman.

"Psst, Clarence? I think there's a Negro in the corner."
"Oh, that's alright George. He's not really there."

2.  The Martini family that George helps out seems to be a giant mass of Italian kids lorded over by Mr. and Mrs. Martini, otherwise known as the two Italian stereotypes who might have lived down the street from you in the 30's. (Before people knew what "The Godfather" was.) You probably know them from any time there is an Italian character in a movie from before 1946: the obese, feisty Italian woman with a kid in each arm, and the skinny man with a large nose holding a baguette and a bottle of wine talking like Chico Marx. Every time that he is featured for anything, it is either to receive wine as a gift or to serve it at the bar or at a party. While he is credited as an established home owner who has paid off his debts to the Bailey Building and Loan, he is still talking with a fast Italian accent during the party, making a crack about storing money in his "a-sugah box-a!" that he is giving to George. Mary Bailey promptly asks him to return to his original purpose for being summoned to the party and to serve out wine to the rest of the party.

Wine, obese woman with a child, bread...they must be Italian!

I realize that these are decisive implications of early American stereotypes in film and are not surprising when a larger body of work from this time period is shown. In fact, compared with other works from the period, these are relatively harmless; Annie is clearly a respected, independent woman, and the Martini's are homeowners, successful and respected by their community. Yes, racism and ethnic stereotypes are a part of Hollywood culture. However, that was in 1945. This is 2011, and when we watch the movie, we either don't notice these instances of historical stereotyping or we gloss over them as relics from a nostalgic age. We then go right on celebrating the film's messages and cry when they sing Auld Lang Syne at the end. Again, I'm not saying that this is terrible, I just want to call attention to it.

Nor is this movie the exclusive owner of holiday political incorrectness. One of the main traditions of my family is that when we wake up on the 25th, we all come downstairs, turn the TV on to TBS, and watch their non-stop marathon of "A Christmas Story" all day long, particularly while we open presents. This is one of my favorite traditions, and a good example of a movie that never gets old. In fact, quoting along with the movie is celebrated, and one of those traditions that is carried out all year long. Let's be straight: the jokes in this movie are iconic. Anytime anyone I know is wearing anything that is both pink and garish, I call them "a Pink Nightmare." Whenever I see the word fragile. I rattle off that "it must be Italian!" And so on.

In terms of racial stereotypes, there's the famous scene at the end where they are served Chinese turkey. ( You know, "Fa ra ra ra ra") However, we all know that. It has to be explained why it's funny. People get it. Does that make it ok? No, it makes it a topic already discussed. (And thus, as far as I'm concerned, BORING.) My personal thoughts run a little deeper to some instances of 1940's culture that get a little more glossed over.

Take a look at the 0:05 second mark of this particular clip (and enjoy the rest of the moment too). The established context is that Flick has just been beated up by that notorious bully Scut Farkus, the humongous bully who torments Ralphie and Friends all throughout the movie. His teacher, Miss Shields, does something interesting here. Rather than rush over to him and offer assistance, as she did when Flick had his tongue frozen to a flag pole, she makes a distinctive glance at him and goes right back to teaching.

Given that this is a small school, she has to be aware that bullying is going on right outside of the door. However, she simply casts a blind eye to it, allowing this psychological torment to continue. Let me restate that: SHE KNOWS THAT HER STUDENTS ARE BEING BULLIED AND THAT SOMETHING IS GOING ON, BUT FAILS TO ACT ON THAT KNOWLEDGE. She doesn't contact her principal, she doesn't notify the parents, she doesn't confront Scut Farkus (in Miss Shield's defense, HE HAS YELLOW EYES.). Instead, she turns a blind eye to it.

In the 1940's, this is accepted behavior. When Penn State turns a blind eye to abuse, careers go down. (In a related subject, this shows exactly how out of touch Joe Paterno and, to a lesser extent Penn State officials, are with modern culture and the way things are done. But that's been talked to death EVERYWHERE ELSE.) But when we watch this movie, it's such a casual moment that we almost look the other way either. We know that Scut Farkus gets his comeuppance at the hands of Ralphie later in the movie. Therefore, we don't really have to notice that Miss Shields is letting her students be savagely beaten by schoolyard bullies.

(As a caveat to this, much of the movie is based around the idea of Jean Shepherd's memories of growing up in Northern Indiana. His personal editing of his memories include censoring his own swearing ("OOOHHHH FUDDDDGGGEEEEE") and eternally visualizing his kid brother as four years old (something made even more clear in the criminally underseen follow up "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss"). Therefore, this moment might in fact be Shepherd wishing to believe that Miss Shields was just turning a blind eye to obvious cases of bullying. In real life, there's a chance that she knew nothing. For the sake of this, however, let us assume that she is turning a blind eye to abuse, because that's what we're watching on TBS. 12 times a day.)

These moments in the movies that we regard as classics are small, and should in no way detract from their overall messages or family meanings. However, this doesn't mean that they should just be glossed over. Otherwise, we end up watching something with a blind loyalty, not exactly sure of what it is that we're looking at. Much of our traditional Christmas music follows that unfortunate decision. Let's look over some classic secular Christmas music and you'll see what I'm talking about. (I realize most carols are plainly devoted to baby Jesus, as they should be. Those have their own particular sense of timeless quality. I'm talking more about the kinds of things Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby would sing over a 1/5th of Scotch.)

Consider. When was the last time you:

• went dashing through the snow in a one horse open sleigh?
• put bells on a bob-tailed horse while singing a sleighing song?
• roasted Chesnuts on an open fire?
• sung Yuletide carols by an open fire?
• built a snowman in the meadow and pretended it was a parson so you could get married?
• decked the halls with actual boughs of holly?
• watched chesnuts pop by the fire while at the home of a nearby farmer?
• went over the river and through the woods to grandma's house? (Thanksgiving, yes, but really, when was the last time you did that?)

The list goes on and on.

Some of our best and most loved Christmas songs also come from the oddest of places. Consider "White Christmas" (the song, not the movie). Whenever we think of Christmas, we always want that our Christmases should "be white", as it is heard in this song. It's a radio staple, sung by many voices over the years. (And again, part of a great movie, but not the point here.

Now consider the composer, Irving Berlin. Mr. Berlin, one of the greatest of the Tin Pan Alley songwriters, might be writing about Christmas from a spot of childhood memory. However, given that he is actually the son of a poor Jewish family from the country of Belarus, grew up in a New York City tenemant slum, and continued to live there the rest of his life, I doubt that Mr. Berling was dreaming of any Christmas "just like the ones I used to know". (That's actually the best way that I can describe the song-writing factory that mass produced early 40's hits that was Tin Pan Alley: One of our most beloved Christmas songs was written by someone who never celebrated Christmas at all. He might have bene a fan of "8 Crazy Nights" though.)

So as we're wrapping up our Christmas season, let's look back on our holiday season with love and affection, be thankful if we have the chance to spend it with our loved ones, appreciate what we have in this world, and remember to think about the things that come out of our mouths and out of our TV screens, rather than just turning on the old familiars. I mean, if we just did that, we'd never really appreciate the message of acceptance and joy in differences that is being told through "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" or the idea to reject commercialism and take joy in the small moments of Christmas that is so central to "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."

After all, Christmas is not the sum of all of these moments. It is neither the good, nor the bad scenes from "It's a Wonderful Life" and "A Christmas Story", or 100 year old songs that we sing without giving any thought to.

Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.

Merry Christmas everyone.

(Postscript #1: for my Jewish, atheist, agnostic, Muslim, Hindi, or secular friends, don't worry, I've thought of you too. That's why we have this. Happy holidays to you all!)

(Postscript #2: for my faithful readers, let it be known that I do appreciate you. Whoever is reading this from Russia, good on you as well! So far, I judge this blog to be a success, and have heard positive feedback from several different parties. It's also refreshing to know that if I need to, I can crank out 2,000 to 3,000 words in about one to two hours. This has also helped me to finally get a head start on some new projects, which I will be keeping everyone up on throughout. At the moment, the first is a fantasy novel that I've been meaning to get around to since I was in the eighth grade (I just found my notes and partial first draft cleaning out my room. A) Wow, I actually got 200 pages in. B) Wow, it was terrible.). The other project is a full length play based on Theodore Roosevelt's journey on the River of Doubt in Brazil, a project so pretentious I had to ask my friend Alex to partner with me in it's writing and development. Thus, I will keep progress notes in here from time to time regarding those projects, in addition to regularly scheduled blog entries every Tuesday. You're welcome, Earth.)

For the rest of us.

The Nature of Argument: Why I'm Right and You're Wrong

Nothing can reduce a roomful of grown, educated adults in the midst of enlightened conversation into a bubbling, incoherent gathering of simians incapable of language than a spirited debate over the correct pronunciation of the word "Worcestershire Sauce". Everyone believes that they pronounce it in the correct way, and might ask as to the correct pronunciation, but will secretly disbelieve the other person and continue to follow their own guide for pronouncing the name of that tasty, tasty sauce.

In this case, the "orcest", "shire", and "sauce" are silent. It will boost your burgers however.

Seriously.

There are certain truths that we all believe upon which we believe that only we know the truth and the Ultimate Answer to. For some of us, this is valid. I fully expect the heart surgeon to be able to tell me that my arteries are clogged with the Ghosts of Bacon-ater's Past. I personally would not know such things because I'm not a heart surgeon. That's why I'm paying this guy to tell me that I should have gone for a light jog twice a week for the last ten years before having to pay for expensive open heart surgery. Then again, I love my Bacon-ater, and am unwilling to give that up to just anyone because only I know of it's delicious flavors and sustenance.

(Side-note - why in the world does anyone need a 1,200 calorie sandwich? Knowing what I know now about personal nutrition and physical fitness, it doesn't ultimately matter what you put into your body so long as it's in limited portions that don't overload your body all at once with the cries of 1,000 racks of bacon sizzling in the oven. Also, I know that people who exert a lot of energy in workouts (i.e. runners) need somewhere between four and six thousand calories a day just to maintain weight and energy. That being said, the Bacon-ater violates that very creed, and none of the people that I've seen clutching one in their greasy grasps are, shall we say, out for a light jog and just stopping by Wendy's on the way back. The only way they're running anywhere is if they're running a LAN party that night for Call of Duty 37: PostModern Warfare. And if you by some chance are actually a runner, and claim you need the Bacon-ater to give a sudden jolt of calories, well...I don't believe you. What are you prepping for, running to Kenya?)

If this were an actual mountain, the calories might be justified.

An example of where the "I know this better than you ever will" starts to rankle people a little comes from Tim Tebow, football star extraordinaire. (This could have been a follow-up to the article about Tim Tebow last week, but I personally feel that he has been discussed over such a broad spectrum of opinions and talk shows and columns that I feel I don't have much more to offer to the discourse. With that said, this paragraph will be my last mention of Tim Tebow, I promise. Sorry, the Ginger.) A recent episode of ESPN's "Outside the Lines" examined how many people are upset about Tebow's preaching of his Christian beliefs. Strike that, his strongly Baptist Missionary beliefs that when boiled down, assure you that you are going to Hell if you don't acknowledge Christ the Savior in your heart, mind, and soul. This is understandable. I'd get upset if I were told that I'm going to hell because I don't believe in the same version of Christ that someone else does. Especially if that someone was a man who is paid millions of dollars to execute the Triple-Option. I don't want to be optioned to hell. I want to drink my beer and eat my wings in peace while cheering the Triple-Option on to victory. But that's just my feelings on the subject. (Go Broncos?)

Religion as a topic of conversation is something that always veers dangerously close to the "I'm right and you can suck it" feeling, mostly because it is founded upon belief. If you believe that you are right about something, solely as an article of faith, it is entirely likely that you will belligerently defend yourself. It is also likely that when confronted with someone who is able to back up their belief with a series of facts (St. Augustine comes to mind here, as does a varying set of Bible verses), that your belief will shrink further and further into the corner of a room, like a caged animal cornered by big game hunters that knows that it's toast, but is still gonna disembowel the first guy with a spear to get too close before it's time to face the music. (Otherwise known as Holiday with the In-Laws) Because religion is a belief, it is also that much more personal, and consequently, someone telling you that you are wrong about it offends your very nature and persona. No one likes being wrong, especially about something that is for many of us part of how we self-identify. (Because I can't really back up my beliefs about religion, god/goddess/Jesus/flyingSpaghettiMonsters, I shy away from religious conversations with the claim of agnosticism, with the intent that "yes, you literally have no idea of what you're talking about, so you are not worthy of my time" coming across strongly. In my own personal system of belief, avoiding these conversations made for a dull freshman year, but should also extend my lifespan by five years. Ooh-rah.)

That a sense of personal identification with what we believe to be right and wrong and everyone else can (suck it) look to us for guidance is somewhat of a foundation of the Western world. That discourse on what is right and wrong have shaped the Western world is somewhat of a fact. The problem, however, is a loss of the means to discourse intelligently and not belligerently on any given subject. More and more, those who have been given power tend to shy towards the means of keeping that power, which is turning into a variation of that cornered big game animal fighting against all odds. However, the problem is debate, not that we're going to be speared by game hunters.

Take a look at any recent political debate. What should in theory give candidates an open forum to discuss plans for how they would function in office, showing off their leadership abilities, and highlighting what makes them most apt for whatever political leadership they are running for. Nowadays, it's not about highlighting plans and qualities so much as who believes in what the strongest, and who can point out the most flaws in another person. What troubles me the most in this arrangement is not that it is what it is, for the nature of running for political leadership has been to rake your opponent over the coals since the early 1800's. That's almost accepted in politics, and no one really seems eager to put a foot forward to stop it. (Case in point: any candidate that says they want to change the way business is done in Washington. The very nature of that business is to join the business. Once you're in, you're effectively compromised, but you'd rather not lose that sense of power, so you continue to function in the same way as the person you last defeated until someone else comes in wanting to change the way that YOU did business, so that they can take over and realize the same thing, etc. I'd cite this as a reason Obama continues smoking.) What bothers me is that people accept that the idea of a modern political debate is almost a farce that will be full of talking head points, but with no substance to it. Once they've accepted this, however, everyone still falls right into the same game of blindly supporting whatever candidate is favored by their own political belief system. Everyone realizes the game is silly, but we continue to play it out of a fear of the alternative to playing the game. We realize cake is bad for you, but gosh is butter cream frosting delicious!

In politik terms, this cake represents why you'll need socialized health care.

National debate, in recent years, has become even more drawn out of the disagreement over how to pronounce Worcestershire Sauce, or our obstinate refusal to let go of our own personal beliefs for so long as to compromise what we believe in. It is against our very nature to admit to ourselves that what we believe not only might not necessarily be true for ourselves, but is even less likely to be what would be best for the other person. In one example, (and I'm being very general here, so please forgive me) liberals believed in 2010 that Americans had a right to quality, affordable health care, and shouldn't have to pay an arm and a leg (literally) to keep their health insurance. This might be seen as an accepted viewpoint by everyone, unless you're secretly a social Darwinist, in which case, the sick should suffer and the healthy should have a giant picnic right out of Triumph of the Will. (Oh dear) However, conservatives, while agreeing in principle to the idea that people should be able to afford to take care of themselves, don't want to have to pay for other people. This is understandable. A person who has worked hard for their money shouldn't be forced to give a great portion of it away to take care of those who haven't earned what you've earned through hard work. You know, unless you're Jesus, but even then, he's an exception. (Avoid religion, avoid religion, avoid religion....) What results is a giant deadlock, or inability for either side to compromise around what they see is right.

Extend this for two years and you can see why Washington doesn't get things done. Even worse, the development of the fringe movements of the Tea Party and the Occupy protestors have further given people cause to back up their beliefs with strict, dogmatic obsessions.

We have been taught since children to believe in things, and to stand up for what we believe in. However, that system of beliefs is starting to backfire, as people believe too strongly in the simplest things and the greatest things so fervently so as to remove any chance for mingling our system of beliefs.

This is not to say that we should compromise all the time. The opposite of belief is nihilism, and a belief in nothing ultimately provides no consequence to any action that might be taken. A belief in compromising our ideals takes away from who we are to such a point that there is no moral ground for any of us to stand on in terms of completing the things that we desire.

The only solution?

None. It's pronounced Worstersher Sauce. Jesus, get it right.

(Postscript #1: Shorter blog entry today, mostly because I wanted to try writing a theme from one idea/observation I had during the week. This turned into a little bit of something I hadn't fully expected here, and only vaguely felt preachy to write. There should be a holiday wrap-up coming up next week, but for this week, it was either write about this or write about job interviews. The opening line for this seemed sillier, so you'll just have to wait until 2012 probably for Job Interview 2011: The Year of Seven Jobs (Minus Steve).

Dr. Comeback, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Tim Tebow

DISCLAIMER: This entry is about sports. While this might be a turn-off to some, or essential reading to others, please don't go. There's plenty to be gained from these 3,000 words or so, both in regards to sports and with a great deal to comment upon the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. (Which is still 42, but did you know that 42 is the number worn by Jackie Robinson, the man credited with breaking the color barrier in major league baseball? I mean, the suffering he went through was something terrible, it ended his career prematurely because no one is really built to deal with straight hatred and direct, unveiled racism for any lengthy period of time, and even his teammates took a good deal of time to come around to him. On the other side, he played terrifically for most of his career, the Rookie of the Year Award is named after him, and his contributions are not only to baseball, but to civil rights in America and to modern popular culture. Yeah, if Jackie Robinson is the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, I feel that Douglas Adams was on to something when 42 became the meaning to life. Ya know?)

With that said, let's begin.

On the most recent Any Given Sunday, where anything can happen within the great, glorious world of the National Football League (Or the No Fun League if you're a cynic), I had the pleasure of watching a line-up of football games from my laptop. Which, if you're really bored, is the internet equivalent of watching grass grow. To paint an accurate picture, let me describe how the NFL keeps updates on its games on its website. first, you have a computer representation of a football field. As the game progresses, the same counters and graphics that you see on televised games are played out above this field, but actual plays are represented by lines pointing in the direction that the play is moving. Big plays have big lines. Plays for loss have lines going in the opposite direction. Text pop ups describe what these lines mean. When a touchdown is scored, the screen freezes for about two minutes while the graphics are updated, and after that delay, the screen reads out touchdown. This is followed by about five minutes of frozen screen, broken only by the extra point being made (or missed, if you're terrible. Or Shane Graham (Bengals joke here)). Repeat until end of game.

As one might think, this sucks. I agree. It sucks. A lot. With that being said, cable is expensive. This is free. I will take this, if only because the occasional highlight footage of the big plays is uploaded rather quickly, so I can be my own personal Sportscenter Top 10 in the making. (What is Sportscenter, you might ask? It's a show based around the idea that stay-at-home dads are so emasculated that they must continually watch sports news all day long. The main drawback to this concept is that much of the news is based around the games themselves, which happen in small clusters of time, making for very interesting Monday editions of Sportscenter, and very dull Thursdays, where HGTV actually sounds more interesting. And people wonder why I don't want cable.)

To get to my point a little big quicker, on this particular Sunday, I ended up "watching" the last 20 minutes of the Broncos-Bears game played in Denver. For those of you who have been living under a rock (or in Green Bay), the current story du jour of the NFL is how Tim Tebow, that swell youngster from the University of Florida, has risen out of nowhere to lead the Broncos to a (before Sunday) 6-1 record in games that he is starting. This after the Broncos had resembled the NFL equivalent of evolutionary pond moss in terms of their excitement level, and their ability to move the ball down-field to score.

Tim Tebow - Man, Christian, Gator. Or Bronco.

Tebow is a controversial figure because he is very outspoken about his Christian beliefs, he doesn't seem to have the underlying rage/hypocrisy/selfish motivations that drive most professional athletes playing in the NFL today, and he appears to be winning football games even though (at this moment in life), he seems to have absolutely no idea of how to throw a football to an open receiver for the majority of the game. He has an unorthodox throwing motion, which translates to instead of looking like he is throwing a football in the classical sense, he rather looks like he is trying to hurl away the rabid wolverine that is gnawing on his left hand. At times, it's as though his mother hated the potted plant that he gifted her for Mother's Day, and he is trying to hurl it away in anger/sadness/a one handed attempt at setting the potted germanium long toss record. Much of this hatred comes from playing under the on-high leadership of John Elway, the Broncos president and ex-Broncos quarterback. Mr. Elway, a Hall of Famer, is not only possibly the greatest Broncos player ever, but is regularly mentioned among discussions of Top 10 quarterbacks of all time, and is a living legend in Denver. That's hard to follow up. Three consecutive quarterbacks in Denver have been destroyed because they weren't John Elway, and Messers. Griese, Plummer, and Orton all probably have emotional scars dating back to their Bronco days and their inability to overcome their lack of Elway-ness. Tebow theoretically should continue the string, especially when he seems to have the talent of a gecko.

"I'm sorry mom, next time I'll send roses."

All of this is thrown out the window in the last few minutes of the games that Tebow has played in however. In this strange "Twilight Zone" of football, Tebow has led the Broncos back from several deficits to stun teams that had previously thought they were well on their way to an easy victory. He does it by running the football. He does it by throwing. He does it by letting the Broncos #1 ranked rushing attack batter opposition defenses into smithereens, exhausting them by the last 5 minutes of the game, and thus making a comeback easier to come by. (There's multiple sources to credit for the Broncos recent success, including their head coach John Fox scripting game plans so as to better suit the abilities of Tebow, their defense tenaciously keeping their opposition from blowing the game out of the water, rookie Von Miller apparently believing EVERY quarterback in the league said something about his mother/desiring to eat the heart of every quarterback in the league, John Elway's handling of the franchise as their president, rebuilding the Broncos into a powerhouse for years to come, but really, it's more fun to talk about Tim Tebow. I mean, look at Von Miller.)

"Nobody talks like that about Mrs. Miller. NOBODY."

Anyways, this Sunday, I was enjoying my lines on my laptop telling me a little more about the Broncos-Bears game. At the same time, I was conversing with one of my friends who happens to be a rabid Broncos fan, and who has been enjoying the recent run of Broncos good fortune. I would like to typify my friend as an intelligent person, not given to overt hyperbole regarding his teams, who is not a homer (overly praising his team in the face of all logic/aka Browns fans), and who is able to appreciate when another team has won a moral victory/actual victory/hypothetical victory. As a fan, though, given the very definition of the word 'fanatic', he is often given to mood swings given the play of the team. With all of that said, when I joined him in conversation on Sunday, the Broncos were losing 10-0 with 5 minutes left to play.

It is important to note here that of the Broncos recent 6-1 record, many of their wins were come from behind affairs. (ex. Broncos wins over Miami, San Diego, New York Jets, and Minnesota) While exciting, such wins are not always common, unless you're a fan of the TV show "Friday Night Lights", or really any movie about football. (Hey, the best drama comes from last minute wins. Nobody goes to see a movie where the lovable losers are blowing out their competition 45-3 by halftime. This is why your Madden football team is boring to watch. No drama if there's no chance of losing.) Tebow and the Broncos, however, almost seem to be playing from the same script week in and week out, winning close in the last minutes of every game. Part of this is due to Tebow's aforementioned struggles, as well as the overall game plan: wear them down for 50 minutes, then go bananas on their exhausted 300 pound linemen. (That's B-A-N-A-N-A-S for those with spelling problems.) What also seems to help here is that Tebow excels in clutch situations, where every decision has to be correct and he must lead his team methodically down the field.

(Two potential conclusions to draw from that. One: Tebow is so used to winning that he knows exactly what it must require to win football games. Therefore, he's clutch. He's like Derek Jeter, one of the more clutch baseball players ever to play the game, and chronically used to winning. Also like Derek Jeter, he's good for a .300 batting average every year, although in Tebow's case, it's a .300 completion percentage. This just in: missing 7 out of 10 throws to people who are ACTIVELY TRYING TO CATCH THE FOOTBALL is worse than missing 7 out of 10 pitches made by someone who is ACTIVELY TRYING TO NOT LET YOU HIT THE SMALL BASEBALL TRAVELING AT 95 MILES PER HOUR. Two: Tebow is a giant procrastinator, who puts off showing up to football games until the last possible minute, at which point he must cram in everything that he failed to do during the rest of the football game, i.e. his job. Case in point: Tebow's stats in the first three quarters of the game: 3 of 16, 45 yards, 1 interception; 4th Quarter and Overtime: 18 of 24, 191 yards, 1 touchdown. I used to get in trouble for procrastinating. Tebow gets interviews on national TV. FML.)

Much is also made of Tebow praying for a win, or Tebowing to God, praying that a field goal will go in, or they will have the chance to win, etc. While it's not my place to suggest when appropriate times to pray are, and since most of the NFL acknowledges praying before/after games/big moments, this is fine. More attention is focused on Tebow in these moments because of his high profile as a Christian athlete, and for the nature of the Broncos current winning streak. I will say, however, in a quote from Gregg Easterbrook, that "God does not care who wins football games. If he/she/it does, then we're in a lot more trouble than we think."

Back to my friend, who I will refer to throughout here as "the Ginger." Our conversation began with him down in the dumps, certain of the Broncos inevitable defeat despite the fact that the Bears had the offensive consistency of Jell-O and Tebow, much like James Bond, performs best when under pressure at the climax of the main event. Consequently, the ensuing events of the game seemed to take him by surprise, leading to joyful cries and stressed-out moments of sheer frustration. (Ex: The Ginger - "PUNTING?!?!?!?!?!?!?!" "OK, I am full of stupid, stupid hope" "fuck" "Holy balls. Holy, holy balls" (Probably not good to call Tebow out, but ya know, you do what you gotta.) "HOLYMUTHAFUCKINBALLZ" (OK, well that's just not true.) "I don't know what's going on") As the game progressed, it seems that the Bears did just as much to give the game away as to let Tebow win, and thus, this win might speak more to the futility of the Bears than to the successes of the Broncos, but that's a story for another time. (Or Sportscenter, which last I checked STILL had Tebow as it's main feature on Tuesday.)

Ultimately, the game ended in overtime with a long Broncos field goal for the win. Tebow's record pushed to 7-1, Broncos probably making the playoffs after everybody ruling them out for the year, the Ginger happy as a clam. Let the Tebow love shine throughout. Let Two quotes specifically sum up both our conversation and the entire phenomenon of Tebow winning games as a quarterback; this, coming at the 4:45 mark before Tebow began playing competently: "Fuck being a fan, man. Why do we watch this shit?", which was answered at the end of the game with "Oh yeah, this is why I watch sports. Thank you, universe, for answering that question so quickly."

God to the Ginger: "YOU'RE WELCOME."

As Tebow coasts to yet another win, another incident in sports reminds us of the frailty of life, and reminds us of the eternal lesson that it doesn't really matter what others say about you so long as you're paid millions of dollars. (Well, in this case, that actually doesn't apply, although I'm sure millions of dollars is very nice.)

Ron Santo was a third baseman for the Cubs from 1960 to 1973, playing alongside such Hall of Fame players as Ernie Banks and Billy Williams. Retiring after 1974, his final numbers included over 300 home runs, 1100 runs scored, 1300 runs batted in, 9 All Star selections, 5 Gold Glove awards for fielding excellence, and 35 stolen bases (OK, not the greatest, but hey, he didn't just sit there on the base paths, did he? How many stolen bases does Tebow have? NONE, BECAUSE STEALING IS WRONG.) He became a beloved icon in Chicago in the years after, working as a broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs. All of this despite being diagnosed early in his career with diabetes, which in the 2000's would eventually claim both of his legs and ultimately his life. All in all, he was one of the 10 greatest 3rd basemen of all time, and was a baseball icon.

Despite all of this, he was always regarded as a "marginal candidate", and in 15 years of elections by the Baseball Writers Association of America, he was continually turned down in Hall of Fame voting.

With regards to sporting Hall of Fame's, baseball has the pickiest, the most hallowed, and the hardest to get in if you're a "marginal candidate." At least, on the writer's ballot, where you can be listed for 15 years before being removed. After that, there was a group called the Veteran's Committee that would elect older players, or players who had been passed over by the writers in initial voting. This group was reformed after voting Bill Mazeroski, on the basis of hitting one of the greatest home runs in World Series history, and for being a "snazzy snazzy gloveman". (Justifiable? Maybe. We'll get to that. This is the exposition.) Subsequent committees continued to turn down Ron Santo for the Hall of Fame, although the percentages dwindled each year. Throughout the 2000's, there would come a vote every two to three years, and continually, Santo would miss election by the slimmest of margins.

Let's break that down. Santo was eligible for election to the Hall of Fame for 30 years. During that time, he missed election EVERY SINGLE TIME. (Imagine you're a high school student applying for Harvard every year. You have a 3.8 GPA. You've done plenty of community service. Hell, you were in National Honor Society. You were 5th in your class. You'd think you'd done a good job right? Wrong. Not good enough for Hah-vahd. Now imagine applying for the next 30 years, because it's the college you've been dreaming of, and there's nothing else to do. Sure, other colleges might elect to accept you, local colleges, your home town colleges, but there's still the dream of the Crimson, joining Skull and Bones, going to Harvard. Continued rejection. Sucks, don't it?)

Ron Santo died on December 3rd, 2010.

367 days later, he was elected to the Hall of Fame, something he'd dreamed of and wanted more than most other things in life.

The question that arises to me is simple: how is a person not a Hall of Famer for 30 years, only to become one overnight?

Let me be clear: I believe Ron Santo is a Hall of Famer. I believe he always has been. I don't think there's any doubting that statement. He is a Hall of Famer.

But how is it that he can only be recognized as a Hall of Famer after 31 years? What changed? What were the differences? In this particular case, the Veterans Committee was reformed to consist of players who were playing during Ron Santo's era, as well as past executives and baseball alumni who were around during what is called "The Golden Age". (Billy Williams is on the committee, by the way. It might seem that this committee was formed to actually elect Ron Santo, but I honestly believe that's not true. Even though he was the only one elected by the committee.)

The news of his acceptance to the Hall of Fame was passed along to his widow by Billy Williams. Filled with class, she expressed only happiness for her deceased husband rather than bitterness that Santo had not been elected while he was still alive, and the honor would have meant all the more to him. In the 30 years that Santo waited for election, nothing changed about his statistics or his playing record. If anything, he became even more of a fixture of Chicago Cubs baseball and Chicago culture, beloved among legions of fans. When news of his election became public, it was a big deal. However, his fans aren't stupid, and they recognize exactly how hollow an honor it is to give someone an honor that would have meant far more to them if they were alive.

This is different from other such awards, such as Heath Ledger posthumously receiving an Oscar for his performance in "The Dark Knight". While it might be viewed as a reward for his entire body of work, he passed away in the prime of his youth, having just contributed a stellar performance as an iconic character in one of the better films of the year. The award was as much for the movie as it was for his past films, and for his films never to be made. As far as we know, Heath Ledger may have wanted to win an Oscar very badly, but awards of that nature are intended to honor specific achievements, and while receiving an Oscar might justify an entire body of work, the honor is more intended to reward one particular moment of your career. (Case in point, Three 6 Mafia have an Academy Award. This award is not in recognition of their entire career. Rather, it honors a song that was indeed far better than the other drivel put up on stage that year.)

Ron Santo's honor should represent the pinnacle of his career, and while it is better late than never, I ask you what is the difference between Santo before this year and after this year. Nothing has changed in his stats. Nothing has changed in what he has contributed to the sport of baseball. The only thing that happened was that he died before he could see himself achieve what would be the highlight of his professional career.

In this regards, maybe we need Tim Tebow to vote on the Veterans Committee, if only to deliver for guys like Ron Santo in the clutch.

(POSTSCRIPT #1: I have discovered how to add images to my blog entries. Granted, this might seem like a simple achievement, but I tend to not notice those things as well as others might. Consequently, more pictures from now on. You're welcome, Earth.)

(POSTSCRIPT #2: There was initially going to be a segment here about Ryan Braun testing positive for steroids and the death of our idols. However, I got overly caught up in blogging about Tebow, which took up more room than I figured it would. In addition, I had been sitting on my thoughts about Santo for a good while, and didn't want to shortchange the guy any more than I already have. So here's Ryan Braun in 20 words or less: Steroids bad. Heroes take steroids in baseball, death sentence. Football, slap on wrist. Justice? I think not. Unfair standards. Boo.)

Blogging Live from Starbucks Cafe at Sheridan and Columbia

One of the joys/destitutions of being a starving artist is that you get to pick and choose which modern conveniences/inconveniences you get to try and survive without. In some cases, these are sometimes not that hard to live without. (Why have a car when everything I need is within walking distance, there is low-cost public transportation 10 minutes from my apartment, and there are low cost, convenient bus routes that will deliver me to wherever I need to be in Ohio whenever I need it?). Others are vaguely important to have, and make their presence known as soon as you go without it for any period of time. (God DAMN, but it gets cold in here. Maybe heat should have been included with my rent. Oh wait, I don't know how to turn on this radiator from 1955. Balls)

In the case of Internet, it's a mixed bag. On the one hand, I don't feel tethered to popular sites such as Facebook as much as I once used to. On the other, I'm not able to get on Facebook. Withdrawal symptoms have already begun to set in. Quickly.

(Ah, good. No updates yet. But that means I'm becoming unpopular. Time to update my status for the fourth time today.)

(Ah, that's the stuff.)

In the case of blogging, that means that my journalistic efforts here will happen more on a weekly basis than I had originally intended them to. I do apologize, as it has been over one week since you last looked at my blog. (Cocked your head to the side and said you were angry over my clogs? Yeah, that was a forced BNL reference, I apologize. I'll try to do better next time.) While I don't want this to seem as though I'm ignoring my writing, (Quite the contrary, I'm using much of my lacking the Internet to focus on writing things like stories, plays, and poetry in my spare time. You know, the things I moved out to Chicago to pursue) I will be forced to manage these entries to about once a week. Ideally, this would be at a regularly scheduled time (Let's say, Tuesdays for example), but given that my two means of gainful employment are restaurants with irregular scheduling and whatever theatre I do end up doing will be irregularly scheduled as well, I make no promises.

Therefore, let's go ahead and shoot for Tuesdays, as a means of keeping that dull day of the week a little more exciting.

Now, where were we?

The coffee shop as the social gathering place.

Last time I wrote was from a coffee shop. This week, it's from a coffee shop. All because of the wonderful introduction of free wireless internet. (or WiFi as it's being called by young uns these days. And old ones. And in-between ones.) This contribution to the social domain is invaluable to those, such as myself, that lack the means to provide internet in their own homes. It is also valuable to those who are seeking to get work done in a location far from their own home, or for those who somehow have the ability to afford both a small laptop AND a $4.00 cup of specialty coffee, but no home.

(Ya know, stranger things have happened. Yesterday on the Red Line, an elderly gentleman sat down next to me as I read my Eric Larsen, sat still for nearly twenty minutes staring straight ahead, and proceeded to calmly ask the train if anyone had a "War ship" that he could drive. When nobody responded to him, he calmly took out a little black book, opened it, and next to the number 75, recorded what looked to be a combination of Arabic, Sanskrit, and a Richter scale recording the seismic vibrations of the train. Not that I looked over his shoulder as a means of spying on him, no. I was rather looking to see if by the #75, he would be recording "twenty-something male, 210 lbs., brown hair, method of death - bombardment by warship, loaned by red line passenger; on a Monday". One can never be too careful on board the Red Line after all.)

It used to be that when I pictured a coffee shop in my head, I imagined it being as something from the TV show "Friends", where the coffee shop served as a gathering point for the six leads of the series. While enjoying their favorite beverages, they would share whatever was going on in their lives, joke with each other, and somehow always manage to occupy the same couch in the center of the shop. Even though it was busy at all times, and they all had different jobs, schedule demands, availability, etc. In short, "Friends" is impossible, but that is besides the point. The coffee shop was the hang out place. You went there for meetings, to see friends, to go on a first date, to hear musicians play, etc. This is something that I remember from my carefree youth. (aka, the late 90’s/early 00’s, in the days when owning a laptop was something of a rarity, as they were still something of a luxury item. Case in point, my first laptop in 2004 cost something in the vicinity of $900. My, how things have changed.) The few times that I went to a coffee shop, it was always with friends, it was always busy, and people were gathered there with other friends talking and chatting the night away. This included both locally owned shops, mass coffee chains like Starbucks or Caribou, and those little coffee spots that one could find inside of a bookstore. Like Borders.

(I used to have a job at Borders. Before they went the way of the dinosaur. Was in line to be a full timer, even an assistant manager with some kind of power. Then I could have transferred to Chicago, gotten a nicer apartment, not had to worry about feeding myself hand to mouth, etc. But no, someone had to declare bankruptcy because of poor financing choices regarding United Kingdom stores, where bookshops have been operating independently since the 1800’s thank-you-very-much and mass American chains are looked down upon with English scorn and disdain, as well as a lack of e-reading devices, kind of like how Netscape Navigator got caught with its pants down once Internet Explorer was created, or how Altavista was rendered irrelevant by Google, or… (etc.etc.) Anyways, I had an ideal fantasy life centered around having a Borders job, but that went right out the window. Now I serve pie for a living. That’s right: pie.)

Anyways, the introduction of Wifi was initially offered sometime around 2005, but it came with a cost. Something around the nature of $.95 a minute or something, if I remember correctly. (Which is saying a lot) According to that fountain of knowledge Wikipedia, this became a free Wifi option in partner with AT&T in 2008 if you were a Starbucks card carrier, as a form of loyalty reward to customers who were abandoning local coffee shops right and left. At this time, those local stores began offering free Wifi to try and draw some attention away from Starbucks and to retain those customers who weren't ready to sell out (their souls) to the corporate (demon) entity that is (Cthulhu/Satan) Starbucks. Rather than get caught behind the movement, Starbucks changed their offering to entirely free Wifi to all customers in 2009, thus completing the transition of coffee-shop America to the Seattle-based corporate swill that is Starbucks.

(When asked what the greatest contributions to American society come from Seattle in the 1980's, many might say grunge music, but more will probably say Starbucks. Eddie Vedder is crying somewhere (for $50 a pop).)

Anyways, the Wifi is now free at Starbucks, and if it could be metaphorically compared to a substance, it flows like honey from the gilded mouth of that weird topless mermaid-thing on the side of the coffee cups. Which actually doesn't sound that bad until you realize that she's actually a She-Demon, she will feed on your essence for all eternity, and is a Twilight fan. (I made that last part up for effect, but the rest is true. I swear!)

But let us look at what has happened now. As I look around the Starbucks I am sitting at, which is not even a thriving metropolis street corner (Already the differences between Rogers Park and, shall we say, Wrigleyville, have made themselves apparent. I live in the equivalent of BFE to Chicago that Waynesville is to Dayton that Dayton is to Cincinnati. More or less.), there is one thing that stands out.

All but two customers in this Starbucks are sitting at a laptop. The exceptions being a little old lady reading the Tribune and some older gentleman just sitting staring into space. The only conversation is coming from the baristas, who are trying to keep the shop from feeling like such an awkward place to work by filling it with friendly banter that no one pays attention to. Not even the older gentleman staring into space.

(Note: this is not the same elderly gentleman who asked about warships on the Red Line as a means of plotting my demise, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were both members of some mutual association. You know, the "Crazy Old Warship Pilot Club with a Vendetta Against Twenty-something Young Males". Or COWPCWAVATYM as they're calling it on their business cards. Which may or may not be the backs of discarded pizza boxes.)

I don't know what this really says about our society that everyone within a coffee shop has come there solely to sit within their own isolated bubble of wireless networking. Maybe everyone here does have a thriving social life, and the coffee shop has become a place where it is preferred to come to work because it is such a relaxed quiet environment. This transition from a bustling place of noise and social interaction to a quiet den of technological solitude has been somewhat seamless, governed by the quickening pace of the evolving cultural changes, as well as what constitutes the social norm. It has also been affected by how fast technology is evolving. (There are three of these iPad contraptions being utilized as I type this, although I'm still not sure what the advantages to having a giant touch screen that offers all the things one could get on a laptop, but that might be a blog for another time.)

All I know is that within five years, the definition of what it means to go to a coffee shop has changed, without anyone saying or doing anything different. The hegemony of Starbucks has shifted so that noise is frowned upon now, rather than being embraced, and if you choose to meet friends, you are looked at as though you have decided antlers and horned helms are making a comeback in fashion and should be embraced. (That's how you identify the Vikings in crowds nowadays. You know, because Vikings have horns.) On the contrary, if you have a laptop, you are entitled to sit in your own social bubble, working on your own terms, isolated from everyone else in the shop, and anyone who interacts from you is violating your personal bubble, and thus, asking for a beatdown. That's the norm now, and one can only imagine that when "Friends" is discovered twenty years from now by our children, they will wonder why everyone in the coffee shop is talking to each other, when speech has been subconsciously banned from Starbucks so as not to distract people from their internet time, and we will wonder what all the fuss was about in the first place.

I can only hope that if I choose to talk at a coffee shop that there are no homeless gentlemen with war ships nearby, for their vengeance will undoubtedly be swift.

(Postscript #1: I realize full well that I am working on my own laptop here, in a corner, isolated from everyone else in the shop, and that I have made no effort to interact with anyone in the shop, except for briefly waiting my turn in line for the bathroom. I include myself in the adaptation of cultural means, rather than proving myself the exception, but I embrace it because of the lack of Internet options in my own apartment. I also acknowledge that I have no friends, but that's something that should just go without saying, right? Right guys?)

(Postscript #2: This originally was intended to be a study of a perceived rivalry between Ronnie Van Zant of Lynard Skynard and Neil Young, as heard within the Neil Young songs "Alabama" and "Southern Man", where Neil Young calls out Southerners for their history of racial discrimination and slavery, and Lynard Skynard's "Sweet Home Alabama", where Van Zant calls out Young for being Canadian. That blog entry took a swift hit from three subsequent points: 1), when it was discovered that Van Zant and Young were actually friendly, that they collaborated several times, and regarded each other quite professionally; 2), that since Lynard Skynard are from Jacksonville, Florida and NOT Alabama, their moral grounding is questionable at best; 3), that Neil Young's response to Lynard Skynard's lyrics seems to have been to slightly shrug, giving it a hearty "Worse has happened, eh?" before going off to groom his sideburns and enjoy a donut while watching "Hockey Night in Canada". (I may have made that last point up, but I can't find anything that seems to point to Neil Young being upset with Lynard Skynard anywhere, so we'll go with my scenario instead, eh?) As a result, examining the feud between the two sets of musicians reached a journalistic dead end, and I was forced to turn elsewhere for my inspiration. Sorry.)

Live from the Root Cafe, it's "Thirtysomething Thirstysomethings!"

Whenever I'm at a local coffee shop/coffee house/industrial coffee outlet/what-have-you, I'm never quite sure if I want there to be live music or not. As a wannabe-musician of dubious talents and claims, I like supporting other people who are trying to prove that "Yes Virginia, you CAN make a living as an artist." Unfortunately, I'm always hesitant when it seems to be that the statement should really be "Yes Virginia, you CAN make a living as a pot-bellied-mullet-haired-forty-year-old-guy with little-to-no-talent/stage-presence/banter and an appearance that you either live in your mom's basement, never left Woodstock, or are in fact your dad, married to your mom, but living in the basement because mom kicked you out of her bed years ago for lacking potential and always harboring dreams of becoming the next big coffee shop sensation. And there will be pie."

(I made that last part up because it got a little too depressing rather quickly. Although the vegan scones look pretty nice.)

As I was saying, I'm not sure if I want to listen to more of what this guy is soon going to be offering. Granted, it feels a little crass to insult someone's life passion when my own pieces of musical offerings (songs) may or may not be scraped from the bottom of Elvis Costello's shoe. And as I had mentioned before, I'd greatly prefer to tell little Virginia that there is in fact hope for traveling coffee-shop folkies everywhere, and that the music they're playing adds to the atmosphere, and is worth coming out for. That there is a reason for this! That this will actually make my Saturday night better as I sit here alone looking for something/anything to do! Please Virginia, let there be hope for musicians!

I should explain.

Recently it was pointed out to me that I have too much free time. Bear with me.

It was also illustrated to me that the greatest writers/artists are people who are always driven to work with their passions. They can do nothing but respond to their bodies' crying need for artwork, and in a cruel form of self-flagellation/masturbation have no choice but to be a slave to producing pieces of aesthetic value as a means of relief. These people alternately seem to me as to be the ideal form of artistic perfection. At the same time, these people also frustrate me because there are only 24 hours in the day and I have a hard enough time getting the daily necessities of life done within this time frame and how-dare-you for doing so much more shit than me etc. (This feeling also applies to anyone more successful than me, and possibly reflects a deep-seated self-loathing within yours truly, but who's keeping track anyway?) Aforementioned people always seem to have different sets of advice to offer on how to advance one's own personage, which may or may not bring fruit to bear depending upon how you respond to various stimuli. (Example: yoga = good idea; yoga at the gym = a little more effort than I'd like to put out, but good idea; yoga in city park = well, it's not my cup of tea, but hell it works for you man; yoga in a coffee shop = dude, get your stinky feet out of my mocha, bee-otch.)

In my own regards, I was looking at the online blogging of one of my favorite modern authors, who shall remain nameless at this time although if you're reading this, you've probably read one or two (or five) books by this person. As a means for advancing your own writing, he/she/it advocates writing a little bit every couple of days in order to get your creative juices flowing. This could take the form of actual legitimate work, or could be something on the order of a personal diary or journal if that is what floats your boat. Thinking to myself "boy that sounds practical, but how do I keep a journal in this modern digital age, where the handwritten page is shunned?" It then occurred to me that the modern equivalent of the journal or diary is the blog. It's also the equivalent of that kid in 5th grade who grabbed your love notes from your desk, screamed out "Travis loves (insert your name here)!", and read out the entire contents of my latest work of poetry to the class, causing my poor artist's lovestruck soul to die a little more. In this instance however, you are the kid grabbing your own note and screaming it aloud in the cafeteria in order to draw attention to yourself, but it's an apt enough metaphor.

(I'm not kidding about that note, by the way. It probably did in fact read (insert your name here). If you knew me in 5th grade, you'd understand that these are desperate times. It's hard enough for a twenty-something with a Jew-fro to get by. Picture a 10 year old with glasses and a Jew-fro. Yeah, even I hate that kid.)

Consequently, this blog has started. Right around the time that the latest musician has started at the coffee shop. This gentleman, a man by the name of Charlie Moppett, (alright, I made the last name up, but it doesn't sound too far off) performs music somewhere along the lines of a Gordon Lightfoot/James Taylor blend, although he unfortunately sounds like Steven Lynch decided to go all serious and perform real music. Either way, it's not flattering, especially since his appearance is somewhere along the lines of Virginia's earlier nightmare scenario for musicians.

(He also just started off his set with "This is a song about coffee." I realize that I shouldn't expect glorious works of art that leave your audience in tears from how moving your lyrics are, but seriously, a song about coffee in a coffee shop is like Raffi singing at your high school graduation party.)

(I'd also like to mention that I love Raffi.)

Anyways, one of the things that struck me is that rather than handing out CD's to the crowd, he is offering "download cards" because CD's are on the way out and he doesn't want to get left behind in this aforementioned digital age.

Now, having been in a band before (twice, in fact), I have to put it out there that one of the things that gave me the greatest joy was listening to the other bands play, swapping out CD's, and then going to my car, putting in their music, and listening to it for the better part of a week before it joined the pile of CD's that I may grab at some point in the future for a road trip, but am more likely to ignore and ultimately deny that I ever owned in the first place. (This pile, should it exist, would also possibly contain any Creed/Limp Bizkit/Linkin Park/Nickelback that I might have/not owned and am wanting to pretend never crossed my dashboard in the first place. It's a fairly dusty/sizeable pile. Ooh look, a seagull!) These CD's are part of the experience of being a young, struggling musician. They are your lifeblood and your connection to a vague form of legitimacy, both in your own eyes ("Hey, look, I recorded a demo! It shows that I am serious about my career as a musician and legitimate in your eyes! I recorded it in my studio, which may or may not be my friend's living room! Awesome!") and in the eyes of your fellow musicians. ("Hey, look, you recorded a demo! It shows that you are serious about your career as a musician and are now legitimate in our eyes! You may have recorded this in a studio, which may also be your friend's living room! Awesome! But why do you smell?") Most importantly, recording a CD and giving it to someone forcibly imprinted your art upon them: they now have a tangible object in hand that proves you exist, and while you might have to force them to listen to it in the future, at the very least they cannot deny that you gave them something that they may or may not have to listen to at least once.

Now, I realize that offering a "download card" of your music is somewhat the same. They have the key to your music in hand, they can go and listen to it for hours and hours (this is what I would choose to believe), and they can that much more easily spread the joy/anguish of your music to others. (Although in Charlie Moppett's case, I might pass. He just played a song about being stuck in his apartment by an ice storm to a riff that sounds suspiciously like Kanye West's "Jesus Walks". In other news, I'm beginning to have my doubts about Charlie Moppett's chance of EVER GETTING LAID AGAIN.) The problem that I foresee is simple: there is nothing to guarantee that once said person has taken your download card home with them that they will ever follow through in the second crucial step and download your music to their Ipod.

Think about it. It's possible that you gave them your card without asking if they wanted it or not in that wonderful coffee shop tradition of panhandling. It's possible that they took your card because they were sincerely interested in your music, but once they got five feet from the coffee shop, they became more interested in finding their car than your song about ice storms. It's entirely possible that they took your card just to make you feel better about playing music for the evening but have no intentions of downloading your songs at all. Or maybe someone just took your card in an attempt to impress their date in some misguided way of saying "I support local independent artists, look how cool/wonderfully-fuckable I am!" (I just watched the last one happen to Charlie Moppett, who is forced to grin and bear it as the couple walk out the door towards their theoretical hook-up. At the very least, he's in on the joke)

What most bothers me about the download card replacing the CD is that any sense of tangible physical art has been thrown out the door. There is no more pile of CD's, no more physical proof that you ever played at the coffee house, and no more means of repelling zombies during the oncoming apocalypse. (Alright, I guess that would be vinyl to you "Shaun of the Dead" purists). Call me old-fashioned, but where is the joy that would come with sitting around for hours burning copies of your demo to pass along to people? What will happen to liner notes? How will people be able to pour over your lyrics, agonizing over their meaning? Who said that any of this was a good idea? Why, the indecency! The indignity! The -

Alright, Charlie Moppett just started a song about his cat. I shit you not, his cat. The jig is up.

Downloads are infinitely better. Once on your MP3 player, it's harder to get rid of them. Chances are, your downloads can be gotten for free. They can be shared easier. They can be streamed life, for free. People can listen to you for free, and if you're any good, they will pass you along, until eventually you play in a place large enough to GET PAID MISTA, and your legitimacy as a good artist can be founded upon a solid base of fan support.

(This also applies to one hit wonders. Granted, you'll miss the sales that would come from people buying your one CD to get to that one song that's always on the radio, but hey, at least they're listening to you. And while this might prevent people from discovering the Blind Melon's of the world (Single - No Rain, CD - Blind Melon, actually a fantastic example of psychedelic grunge), but will also single handily (pun intended) save people from the Better than Ezra's of the world. (Single - Good, CD - Deluxe, not good)

So, with the above in mind, here is my journal, bared for the world to read, free of charge, on a mass-blog site, solely for the purpose of providing an original thought from time to time while I get my laps in for my writing career. There will also be occasional bouts of maudlin enterprise from time to time (I like poetry, what up? Wait, don't go yet) but I promise that those will be brief. And in the long run, I hope to at least provide a chuckle here and there. If that should at the least occur, then maybe this whole thing won't have been so bad after all.

I wish I could say the same thing for Charlie Moppett. He just played the fiftieth version of a song about looking-at-the-stars-from-your-tailgate that I've ever heard, and it's easily a Bottom Five hit. I can actually hear the sounds of people's chances of getting lucky on their dates tonight shattering on the floor. I doubt that they'll take the download card as an excuse to support local arts in their rush to flee the door.

Poor Charlie Moppett.