I haven’t attempted to reply to the comments via my site as I am never sure if they will appear on the page never to be read by the person they are intended for.  I don’t know if the person who comments is notified when I hit the “reply” button or if “reply” isn’t the right word at all for that particular button.  If a reply falls on blind eyes or deaf ears, is it really a reply?

So, again, my apologies for not being able to answer your questions.  I am grateful to you out there who is reading.

David

H.C. Bukowski

In a matter of minutes a number of small things can go wrong in life that, if you are unable to leave them behind, will have you tearing your hair out when in the final moments of this quick build of unimportant but annoying occurrences mounts you are unable to remove a piece of broccoli stuck between your molars.  Everybody turns their heads at the dinner table to witness the unanticipated spectacle of their own family member rolling wildly across the floor in a fit of tears and rage blaming a vegetable for the chaos it has wreaked upon their life. But it is never the broccoli.  It is all the events leading up to the broccoli wedged discomfortingly between your molars that can cause us to ‘lose our shit’.

Life often moves at such a dizzying pace that it becomes difficult to reset ourselves – to brush off the little frustrations or upsets that don’t particularly matter in the grand scheme of things.  Attempting to reset yourself can be like trying to press the reset button on a plastic, electronic toy clock that you find tucked at the bottom of your new box of Frosted Flakes.  The reset button is usually the size of a sharpened pencil tip and is deeply inset into the plastic body of the toy out of a designers fear that you may reset your Tony the Tiger clock accidentally.  The awkward manoeuvring and force it takes to press the reset button with the tip of your sharpened pencil often lodges the flimsy rubber button under the plastic cover housing it, rendering it completely useless.  Being able to reset ourselves after a slur of minute disturbances in our day can be just as difficult, frustrating and elusive as trying to reset a Tony the Tiger watch.  Sometimes it is difficult to find the tiny rubber reset button within ourselves and sometimes it is difficult to recognize the reaction itself as harmful.  But once that reaction builds upon the last three, believe you me, it is harmful.

We’ve all been on either end of the stick – the one who has had it up to here and is dishing it all out, or the one who is receiving what is being dished.  It’s not fun to be the last link on the chain that has unexpectedly lead the driver in the car next to you to call you dirty names for driving too slow, brandish his middle finger and speed up in an effort to hit the next red light faster than you.

We all want to be good people.  Sometimes we get too caught up in schedules and speed that we forget to check-in with ourselves.  The latter couldn’t be a more flowery, theatrical sentiment but it is true.  Checking in and looking for our reset button is a good preventative measure for the soul.

David

Of course, he is referring to Slum Village as the “foreign” voice within the hip hop community that paid the price – a group now revered for the style they pioneered by taking a heavier, nastier lyrical bent and pairing it with smart, DEEP-pocket-groove, soulful, ecelectic, experimental, funky-ass production the likes of which no one had ever heard.

It was difficult for me to find the experimental, thoughtful, revolutionary, voice-of-the-people, production-heavy material that mingles in the underground through the top-heavy  sheen of cash mon-eh, bling, rims and big breasted women in nightclubs, 5 at a time, fighting over their superstar.  During the “golden age” of hip hop, when diversity, quality, innovation and influence was rampant and every single seemd to re-invent the genre, I was listening to other things.  Even when I traveled to Ghana, that top- heavy sheen of superficiality, excess and abuse had crossed the borders into their culture giving young people a deranged set of values and a false notion of what hip hop is.

One of the many things I am enjoying as I sift through this rich genre is reading the liner notes for the albums.  In fact, liner notes are a big part of what has helped me to gain insight and an appreciation of hip hop.  The quote below is something I read from Talib Kweli’s album Quality regarding his song “Waitin’ For the DJ” and its title.  A good way to end a blog on the subject of music – a quote that sums up the inextricability of music from life.

“‘Waitin’ for the DJ’ could become a new catch phrase.  You know when someone ask you what’s up, or, watcha doin’, instead of just chillin’, you could say ‘Waitin’ for the DJ’.  Cuz truthfully party people, if you are just chillin’ all you really doing is waitin’ for the DJ to let your body rock!  What else is life about?”

Jimmy Cobb – American Jazz drummer who played on the biggest selling jazz album of all time, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.

“I believe that the BP oil spill could have even bigger ramifications on our country than we already realize.”

 ”If this disaster exits the public consciousess without there being a 1:1 ratio of fault to accountability, then we as a nation will have demonstrated to our government (and the corporations whose interests they protect) that there is nothing we won’t tolerate – that under any circumstances of wrongdoing, even one without moral or religious debate, we can be manipulated and made to forget. And if we allow that precedent to be set, there will be no turning back. They will know something no democratic government ever should: that no matter the circumstances, they can always fall back on the people losing interest if they can be distracted long enough.”

A few things you can do courtesy of www.350.org

1) If you use Facebook, and haven’t already joined the group “1 Million Strong Against Offshore Drilling” you can join in now: http://www.facebook.com/dontdrill

2) If you have any extra money this week, communities affected by the oil disaster could use your help: http://www.350.org/gulf-donations

3)

Write a Letter to the Editor

Letters to the editor are an effective way to raise awareness within your community about the need to end our oil addiction. 

Help get the message out in your community that our Senators need to support the real solution to oil spills: ending our addiction to fossil fuels.

* Make sure to include a paragraph about why the oil spill and clean energy are important to you personally in your letter.

* Don’t live in the US? Click here to send a letter to the editor in your own country >>

Thanks for reading everybody and for your continued comments.  Always appreciated.  In the wake of such grim news, it gives me hope to see people banding together to raise their voices.  Please help this movement grow  into an unstoppable force. 

David

Michael Chabon from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

David

He asked me if I knew what the new trend was.  I said no.  He let the scissors go limp around his forefinger and thumb, cocked his head to the side and gave me that parental look of, “it’s time I taught you a lesson”.

“The new trend is

… (dramatic pause)

confidence”.

And he is absolutely right.  You are likely to bring back any outdated style, get away with any kind of extremist look simply by carrying it with a touch of confidence.

Useful advice for me, and, instead of paying for the haircut and philosophy lesson I thought I would save you the trip and money and share it with you here.

David

I continue to think of her daily, as I know many others do, and I was reminded of her and the above story when I watched this video my mom sent me via email.  While forwarded videos usually go straight to the trash can this one I was tempted to watch – and I’m glad I did.  Take a look at this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4OD8dxIry8

Eva Markvoort
Eva’s blog, under the moniker 65 Red Roses, inspired an award-winning documentary of the same name, which aired on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).  Documenting her daily struggles and also her endless supply of hope and joy, her blog has attracted an international following, inspiring people all over the world.  You can read her blog here.

Blog: 65 Red Roses

The family asks that in lieu of flowers, people make a donation in Markvoort’s name to the Vancouver chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation at www.cfvancouver.ca

I am improvising.  (action)  Improvised.  But am I really?  I mean, how much am I getting to improvise here?  My actions are dictated by so many of You, and many of the people that came before me.  They’re dictated by rules, by my friends who get that look of embarrassed shock on their face that says “You’re an idiot and what you just did there is something I don’t accept”. 
They are dictated by societal constructs, personal and societal timelines (you’ve got to be married by your late twenties, own your own place shortly thereafter, have your babies in your early thirties, and if you haven’t secured a respectable, steady paying job before you marry and start pumping out babies, well then, Jesus, good luck). 
They are dictated by family who have their own ideas of how a life should be led and those ideas are dictated by their insecurities about how their own lives have unfolded and how they want to see the future of their offspring unfold. 
My actions are dictated by this script that I am currently following. 

I am improvising with the full knowledge of what I can and cannot do.  So, if I just say, forget it.  Forget what you think, I am going to do my thing.  I am going to rip it up.  I am going to do it my way because there is no way.  Well, that’s scary.  That scary as hell. 
How do I create?  How do I make the most of this?  How do I become successful at this?  How do I measure success?
Am I headed toward an end – a goal that I should be able to see – and should it happen by a certain time – say, Monday at noon on November 5^th, 2025 over lunch with an old friend in a café in Paris, France? 
Most of the time I can’t see anything.  It’s pretty cloudy.
Will I arrive?  Arrive at a moment of perfection that will never threaten to leave? 

I am improvising.     

Thanks for reading.  I will likely switch gears for the next post.

David