Building A Better Politics

Apparently the dear Dr. Laura had a fit of stupidity while taking an on-air call during her radio show. Some might say she's a racist for repeatedly and intentionally saying the word 'nigger' whilst talking to a black woman about the racist comments of her white husband's friends. I'm taking a TNC approach to this one. Dr. Laura isn't a racist. She's just ignorant.
What we have here is another instance of someone mistaking authorial intent as the beginning and end of how a word is understood. I'm waving my Wittgenstein stick here as I subscribe to his 'meaning as use' theory of language. Since language is a public act words gain meaning through the interaction of at least two people. Dr. Laura could have meant whatever she liked when saying 'nigger'. Doesn't mean a damn thing because that's not how that language game is played. Had she premised her usage of the word on it's regularity in the speech of black men she might have a defensible position. Actually, no not really. All Dr. Laura did was attempt to excuse her usage by citing its usage in a completely different language game.
Stupidity and ignorance reign once again with Dr. Laura. Because she didn't know, or refused to acknowledge, that authorial intent only plays a small role in defining a word she stumbled right into a classic ignorant white person trap. It doesn't matter much that she apologized. The words were spoken. No matter what she intended, the meaning of the word 'nigger' doesn't suddenly change to suit her needs. The word has a meaning that invokes a whole different language game than the one she was playing. With a different game come different rules. Dr. Laura was ignorant of this and ignorance isn't much of a defense.
Thus Dr. Laura was wrong and remains ignorant of exactly why she was wrong. Thus she needs a beating with the Wittgenstein stick.

Building A Better Politics

I'm a little bemused at this post from FrumForum writer John Vecchione arguing for the arrest of WikiLeaks principal Julian Assange. It's not so much the argument itself as it's the strange phrase Vecchione uses in reference to the soldier who gave WikiLeaks some 90,000 pages of classified information on the Afghan war. Vecchione uses the phrase "disgruntled homosexual soldier", the only reference at all to the source of the leak. Now it's fairly obvious that the soldier was indeed disgruntled. When one thinks of 'massive leak of classified information' the idea of a non-disgruntled soldier doesn't readily come to mind. Oh, and the soldier is in fact a soldier. So the phrase 'disgruntled soldier' shouldn't come as a surprise (unless, of course, you're simply stupid). Thus the striking part of Vecchione's phrasing is the word 'homosexual'.
I don't get it. So the disgruntled soldier is homosexual. So what? You would do just as well as saying 'disgruntled blonde soldier'. That the soldier is homosexual shouldn't need pointing out. Such a piece of information adds nothing to the larger purpose of Vecchione's post--namely arguing for the actions the U.S. is and should take with regards to Assange. From Vecchione's perspective I can understand his distaste for Assange and desire to prevent or at least curtail Assange's freedom of movement. I don't share it, but I get it.
So the soldier is gay. Why mention that at all? If Vecchione's intent were to argue for tighter security in handling classified documents then talking about the soldier is only natural. But Vecchione's focus is on Assange. All I can really conclude from Vecchione describing the soldier as gay is Vecchione doesn't like gays. Additional supposition leads me to think Vecchione not only dislikes gays but believes gays are potential security risks in the military.
The obvious, Vecchione's dislike of gays, doesn't necessarily lead to my supposition. But still, why use that phrasing at all? If your argument were against gays serving openly in the military then the orientation of the source leak makes for an easy point of entry. That's not Vecchione's argument here. What it indicates, I believe, is Vecchione's bias against gays. Such a bias appearing so randomly colors the rest of his post. Worse yet, it weakens his argument by injecting an unreasonable position within his wider argument. If something so innocuous as the source leak being homosexual bothers Vecchione then how reasonable is the rest of his argument? It puts Vecchione's objectivity into question when such objectivity is necessary to firmly establish his argument's viability.
What that leaves the reader with is an argument that, whatever its merits, lacks the needed perspective to make it truly persuasive.

The Get Back Sessions

For some reason I've been waking up somewhere between half-an-hour to an hour before my alarm goes off at 6. This despite falling asleep around 2. Not sure why. I haven't changed anything about my habits. I open my eyes and look at the clock then roll onto my back. Instead of drifting back off my consciousness goes knocking about the room next door until it comes crashing into my bed. All the jumbled pieces of dream assemble and fade. I don't remember the dreams other than I know I did dream.
Sit up on the edge of the bed for a bit, find my glasses, coffee and cigarettes. My head is already giving me instructions, reminders and such. Switch on the desktop, music is needed. Couple of games of Sudoku to get the neurons oiled and turning. News and blog posts to read. Already have blog ideas drifting in and out. Put together some more images to print off for my design notebook. An hour later my tongue is coffee-stained. Still need more caffeine.
Writing occasionally grabs me while I plot out the day. My head runs through the work I need to do today. Haven't dressed yet and the ashtray is already getting full. The cats are roaming, on the desk and off. One occasionally curls up in my lap just as I'm finishing my third (fourth?) cup of coffee. Volume goes up incrementally. The blinds go open at once. Still not dressed. Someone has emptied the coffeepot.
There are pills to start taking. Timing is everything. Weather reports, traffic reports, people walking on the street, people walking in the house. God, I'm running out of cigarettes. The mild melodic drone shifts into faster tempos, higher volumes. Hand claps and hi-hats. Muscles call for strain and stress then settle into a relaxed state. I start to lose the thread. More pills. On goes the shiny new album. On goes the fresh post of coffee.
Clothing becomes a necessity rather than an option. Damn wrinkled shirt needs a hot iron. Wrinkled hair just needs a beating. Choices: razor burn or a bit of stubble? The fog that fell in my mind an hour ago lifts. Pills start to kick in. More volume. I'm chewing on my lip again. Need to stop that. More smoke in my lungs. Don't want to stop that. Sort out my bag. Someone reset the clock, it's later than I thought. Sunglasses, keys, cat. Switch out the cat for my wallet. Then the door.
That's my morning, longer now with extra lack of sleep. Very confused about that.

The Get Back Sessions

I'm a terrible kisser. It's all lips and tongue and knocking of teeth. I breathe in the person almost like I was trying to suck their soul into me. True, I kiss like I mean it. That doesn't excuse sloppiness though. See, passion needs a sense of control. Not self-restraint per se, but direction and intention. I kiss with uncontrolled intensity. I like the feel of a woman's tongue, of tongue entwined. When I'm breathing in I'm also soaking my nose in her oder. It's as if I want each kiss to take a little part of her with me. I want her touch and taste and smell to form a permanent impression in my mind. Perhaps this is due to my ever-present fear that each kiss is the last one. I kiss like I mean it because I kiss as someone with everything to lose. For when that last kiss comes I want to remember it. That, I think, is the problem. Holding back would mean I thought future kisses were to come. But maybe that's what I should do. A kiss should not result in the abandonment of all reason. And still I kiss with such abandonment because I fear abandonment.

The Get Back Sessions

My family is coming up on the one year anniversary of my father and then grandfather's death this month (a father should never have to see his youngest son die first and I suppose my grandfather felt the same). The month of May has traditionally been the hardest month for my family. Can't say why, but that's how it goes. While my father and grandfather are not going to die again we have entered this month with a grave sense of life and its burdens. Yet my heart feels light right now. I think my father and grandfather have a hand in that. Their strength has become our strength. And while they now live in the light and glory they also have chosen to do what they can to ease our burdens. It's just something I feel and have no other explanation for it.
My thinking on death has slowly formed to the belief that whatever happens after our bodies stop doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter because you only get this life once. Even if you buy into Nietzsche's eternal recurrence you still only get one shot at this life. So my father and grandfather are dead. That's part of my life now. In the face of death and suffering I can either cry or laugh and carry on. I'll laugh even if there are tears in my eyes. And knowing I have a trio of loving fathers--God, my father and grandfather--looking out for me makes that laughter all the more joyful. I stopped fearing death when I realized I'll only have this life once. That's the freedom I believe Christ showed to us. That's the freedom I believe my dad and granddad are guiding me toward.
This life I have now will one day stop and even if that's the end of it I will still live this life as well as I can. Honestly, is there a better way to live? I may end up in misery, I may get swept up accidentally and sent to Gitmo, I may find myself in a real Holocaust style concentration camp. There are so many ways life can all go wrong. But it's still life, still my life, still this life. So what I fear isn't death but failing to live this life I have right now. Salvation may lie only through the grace of God but I don't have time to seek salvation. God gave me something better. God gave me life. So rather than insult God I'm going to damn well live this life. And the loss of my father and grandfather a year ago only strengthens my resolve to live as well as I can. Anything less is simply an insult to God and those who have died before us.

The Get Back Sessions

I'm facing the horrible sin of turning 30 in less than six months. Blasphemous! you say? Life dies at 30? I should have a full-on freak out, or at least that's expected of me. "You're turning 30! Oh god that's old!" Pop culture has it that once out of your 20s you're life is pretty much over. Yes, that's exactly what's going to happen.
Don't buy into it. Maybe I'm well and truly fucked up in the head. Maybe I'm deluding myself. Or maybe I'm seeing 30 as liberation. I'm tired of being in my 20s, expected to live life as hard as I can. It's gotten so boring firing up the jet-packs on my way to the next big show. Getting in with the cool cool kids on the after hours disco dance or stumbling into the hothouse party. Never was my style in the first place. Sure I like a posh club, but I listen to better dance music, euro scene with the city-breathing dub step sounds. I like a good pub just as well when I'm with my friends. Seeing the shows but standing aloof. That's what I've done all along. The pose is tiresome. The clothes are not mine. The scenesters are not me.
Turning 30 means I'm now exempt. I don't have to take the pose, wear the clothes or pretend I'm another one of "those." I don't have to stand aloof in the back of the club. I can do it in the fucking middle now. It's not so much that I've faked myself for the last decade but that I've had to actually show interest where none exists. Not only can I not care I'm not even expected to. I become that old dude. I'm comfortable being the old dude.
Living on the other side of 30 opens up a whole new world of possibilities. For some reason I thought 28 would allow that, but it just meant I was in my waning days in the eyes of others. When you spend a lot of time observing you can feel other's eyes on you. But 30 gives me full rights to say "fuck off." Sure I've had that attitude for a good while. Even so, that was part of the expected pose. Now I can say it with pure honesty, not with a slab of irony.
It's liberation through invisibility. When no one pays attention you can do as you like. If I'm tired I can look it. If I'm annoyed I can run with it. If I'm interested I don't have to feign disinterest. Since I'm not obviously old I don't stand out. I can hold onto my arrogance without the absolution of some faux apology.
I think a wonderful ride awaits my 30s. I'm looking forward to it.

The Get Back Sessions

I love fucking with language. I love good puns and lateral usage of words. It's the confusion it strikes in others, which they hate. I suppose that's what I get for reading too much about language.

The Political Consciousness

"So much of human genius is unintentional, is stumbled upon, and found amidst the ruins of dead traditions and full-proof plans." -TNC

That's a line from one of TNC's latest posts. He's focusing on President Obama's critique of new technological devices like iPads and Xboxes as being distractions. Coates takes the angle that what Obama is doing is over-emphasizing past culture at the cost of recognizing the innovative spirit of new technologies and mediums. And there's a real truth to what Coates says. As a self-professed geek Coates doesn't hesitate to say that without these alternative mediums (in his case comics, hip-hop and computer programing) he would have ended up as another college-degree holding menial worker. Moreover, he explains how having a parent not only aware of the cultural products their kid is absorbing but actively participating ties past culture to the culture of now. By understanding these mediums, as Obama claims not to, parents can readily connect with their kids while providing a history to these new mediums.
There's the trick. My own father would constantly critique my music but the critique was one part a denial of the present and one part revealing past music that informed what I was listening to. Without him I wouldn't have the appreciation for melody, lyrical ability and song structure that I do now. But that took my dad listening to my music first and then pulling on its ties to the past. Yes, he was an old codger at times, but equally he was an appreciator of music. I still find it amazing how he actually liked Fujiya Miyagi because of the bass lines. Thus his attempts to understand my music led me to do the same for his and I'm better for it.
It's all well and good to say that you're open to new things, new experiences and such. Modern life though requires understanding the past through the present. Without that knowledge of the past the present becomes less meaningful, less revealing. It calls for knowing both the old and the new. So for a pragmatic man like Obama to take shots at the new is a touch depressing. I can understand his basic argument that we shouldn't devote excessive time to outright distractions. That doesn't mean we should go without any distractions at all.

The Get Back Sessions

I've gnashed my teeth, cursed the gods, wrestled with demons and angels, screamed, prayed, poured my heart out and fallen into the deepest holes of despair. All for a woman. And I've done so well aware of the futility of it. A sign my dad put up above his bench decades ago says that determination and persistence alone are omnipotent. Makes for a good business saying. But when it comes to matters of the heart such ideas are actually detrimental. When in love with one who is not in love with you determination and persistence are hardly omnipotent. They aren't even sufficient. You can prove yourself in a thousand different ways. You can appear as the greatest person your desire has ever known. And none of that means anything if they are unwilling or simply don't love you.
So it goes. But I've found myself in a situation of trying to explain that to a close friend who, out of fear, pushed away his love. Of course he wants her back now, stupid git. Even the most emotionally mature, most intelligent, most self-aware guy will still do stupid things. Guys are dumb. That's the long and short of it. What makes such stupidity even worse is a guy can know this and know the actions he is about to do are stupid yet still do it. Why? Because guys are dumb.
Which brings me back to my friend. He's placed himself in the position of the jilted lover, the worse place to be emotionally (with the natural caveats such as childhood abuse, molestation and all that stuff that makes me wish aggravated assault wasn't a crime). While I think pursuing the woman of his desire is the wrong thing to do, he is my friend and I fully support him in his choice of paths. He loves her and no argument will ever dissuade such powerful emotions.
The same goes for trying to convince someone they love you. Persistence and determination propelling the most compelling of reasoned and heartfelt arguments will not change the mind of someone who has stopped loving you or never loved you in the first place. You're dealing with matters of the heart that are of immense intensity. So you alone cannot change the heart of your desire, even if you might change their mind. Love, like Life, simply is. It exists and then it doesn't. You can't force it. Stubbornness in love can keep a love together even when you don't necessarily like the person at the time. Conversely, stubbornness once that love has passed is a head-meets-wall situation.
Perhaps that love will return, but it won't come from ill-minded and irrational actions nor reasoned arguments. It will come from your desire still holding love in their heart and letting that love emerge again. Try explaining that to someone hurt by love though. As I've told my friend, if he wishes to pursue this path then he'll need to harden his heart more than he would if he simply let it pass and allowed the wounds to heal. Because he'll have to experience emotions so intense that only the strongest grip on reason and reality will prevent him from going mad. I've gone mad already. I failed at pulling romantic love out of my desire, though she does love me. I learned to accept that and actually am much happier for doing so.
Now this doesn't mean pursuing the one you love is entirely a futile exercise. It is possible, however slim that possibility is, to cause your desire to examine their heart and find that love for you does exist. That's the exception to the rule though. Rarely does it happen. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it isn't fair. And yes, while life isn't fair, it is up to us to make it fair. Yet trying to make life fair when it comes to love borders on the absurd. It's one of the areas where fairness does not apply. It's love for fuck's sake.
I wish it were otherwise as much as I wish I could dissuade my friend from subjecting himself to further injury. That's the existentialism Albert Camus wrote about. The never-ending defeat. But we must live it still. Being hurt by love is only natural. And failing to bring that love back is only natural as well. We must do it because to do otherwise is to run from life, to pretend that by sheer force of will we make ourselves immune from love. We are not. And we must bleed for it. But to think that we won't get bloodied as some point is foolish. And to think that we can prevent being bloodied again by having hearts of stone is equally foolish.
Thus I'm stuck playing the role of Virgil to my friend's Dante. I've been through that hell and now I have to go back to show my friend the way. It sucks on a multitude of levels. And as much as I can force his eyes to look at reality I can't make him see. He has to come to that place himself. I've learned my lessons, even if I occasionally slip up and let my heart run free. That doesn't mean I've forgotten though. Yes, I'm a flawed guide. As are we all who have had similar experiences. That doesn't mean I can't help though.
So I will do what I can as best I can because this is my friend and that's what I do for my friends. He is a man I trust with my money, my life and my secrets. I don't even have to use my entire hand to count the number of people who qualify for all three of those. Thus I certainly can't and won't abandon my friend just because it's a difficult task. Too many people do that to their so-called friends. If you trust someone like that then you have to remain loyal to them. Helping each other out is the only way to redeem ourselves, even if that redemption is only for ourselves. Love does not conquer all, but that's why we have friends to lead us back from that emotional cliff. That's my job.

Notes From A Jeweler's Bench

Appraisals are not as easy as one thinks. Writing a proper appraisal of an item of jewelry is actually a research task--sometimes complicated and in-depth, sometimes as simple as writing down what is observed. Either way it does require a specialized knowledge that can take years to fully grasp. Simple diamond grading is only the first among many steps.
A basic appraisal requires knowing approximately seven things: what kind of piece is it, what stones are in it, what metal is it, how are the stones arranged, what size are the stones and how many are there, what is the raw metal weight? You have to start memorizing conversion charts such as how to convert carat weight to pennyweight, round diamond size to carat weight charts, the daily cost of metals and how to correctly divide that into the units needed. People seems to think that an appraisal is a simple as looking at a piece and just knowing how much it costs. Certainly I can ballpark it, but for the purposes of an estate or insurance appraisal much more is required.
It's also time consuming to write. Translating one's notes into a form legible to the average consumer or insurer is not easy. It requires the ability to accurately describe something in an intelligible way. You take a set of numbers formatted in a sensible way and throw in a description of how all those numbers come together to form a piece of jewelry. This is because the primary goal of an appraisal is to allow someone to either recreate the piece from the description or have another jeweler look at the same numbers and descriptions and arrive at the same conclusions. Appraisals are more science than art in that respect. If a piece were lost and an insurance claim filed then the insurance company will want to know with a high degree of precision what the lost article was and what it cost at the time the appraisal was written.
So the next time you want to have your jewelry appraised be sure to find an appraiser who actually cares about getting it right versus one who just churns out a set of notes loosely tied together. I've seen appraisals from high-end jewelry stores that look like a high school student wrote them. You can barely tell what kind of piece was being appraised let alone what the piece might have looked like. I never look at a previous appraisal until after I've done the basic work both because I don't want any bias entering into my assessment and I usually find the appraisal relatively useless. It really is amazing the kind of shoddy work jewelers can get away with when writing appraisals, even those who have done it for decades.

Music Of The Spheres

Found out a little bit ago that the first song a friend's newborn boy ever heard was Bill Evan's "Peace Piece" off the April mix I made specifically for the little one. I had slightly edited the song to include a fade in/out of Julien's heartbeat as the last note of the piano decayed. That is incredibly special to me. I think I'm going to smile for the rest of the day/week. I knew I liked the April mix, but this makes it even better than the best reviews. I feel like some of the joy both the new father and mother feel has been spread to me.
May, you can suck it so hard now. It's my dad's birthday today, the first after his passing. Now music has brought such ecstatic joy that I'm in tears. Thank you Life for such blessings.

The Get Back Sessions

Oh, since this came up in conversation before the show last night I figure I should put this down in writing before I forget about it again. My sister and I had to explain our rules of dating to an 18 year old girl who is living with us (long story). Of course there are exceptions but that's just how it goes. So, here are the basic rules of dating:
1) If the primary parental figure adores you on first sight (not love, but wants you to start having babies as soon as possible) then run because you're by far the best thing brought home so far.
2) Never date an aspiring anything (artist, musician, writer, whatever). Either you're doing it or you're not.
3) Never let your friends set you up. They'll have a vested interest at that point. Makes for too many people at that party.
4) Never date anyone more fucked up than you are. That's a fine line to walk as you have to find someone no more, but no less fucked up as you are.
5) Never date anyone with an "Oh Shit" aspect of themselves. Like finding out they're an ex-con. That's an "Oh Shit" moment. It's different from an "Aw Fuck" aspect. The "Aw Fuck" comes from finding out something like they lied to their parents about the job they had, then when said parents come to visit, they do everything they can to keep up the lie. Not necessarily a kill shot but certainly a flesh wound. The "Oh Shit" moment, yeah, that's a double tap to the back of the skull.
As stated, there are exceptions, but the rules wouldn't work without them. A close friend of mine has an "Oh Shit" aspect, but she was a different person by the time she started dating the man she would eventually marry. Still, keep these rules in mind when dating someone. They do help filter the people you decide to invest your time in versus dating wasters.

Music Of The Spheres

God it was good to see Centro-Matic last night. Yeah, they played a lot of newer stuff that I've never taken a liking to, but they also threw in some real gems. I've heard the achingly beautiful slow version of "Rock'n'Roll Eyes" but never the album version live. That was followed with "Part Of This Accident" then later "Infernoesque Grande" and "Flashes & Cables" in tandem. And the encore was pure 2000 Centro-Matic: "All The Lightning Rods", "Tied To The Trailer" complete with Matt Pence's madness on the drums and finally "Am I The Manager Or Am I Not?" Only the second time I've heard that song live, the first time was the closer for the best show I've seen by any band. I say that was the best show ever because The Greenhornes opened and it was the only show where the audience actually shushed people during the quiet parts. Didn't hurt that the band was throwin' electricity all over a great set-list on a cool June Sunday night.
Centro-Matic once was a consistent cathartic experience. They lost that for most of the decade but showed little sparks of that again last night. I left content. Also realized I need to see more shows.

Notes From A Jeweler's Bench

Soldering is as much a matter of science as it is of art. All temperature refers to really is how excited molecules and particles are. The use of the appropriate flame is critical but not something a bench jeweler has the time or need to calibrate exactly. Instead it's done more by context and feel. A light brushing flame will produce different results than a tight, sharp flame. Even then, the fuel to oxygen ratio is a matter of feel as similar flame shapes can have vastly different temperatures. Additionally, the aperture of a torch tip affects flame temperature. What works for silver soldering won't work for 14k or platinum soldering.
The lesson here is to realize that a jeweler about to put heat to a piece has put all of this into account before even picking up their torch. The more experienced the jeweler, the more the jeweler knows what they can get away with and what they can't.

The Get Back Sessions

One of the many ways I'm not normal even amongst the abnormal: I still make mix tapes (well, CDs, but you get the idea). Sent off four mixes to a few friends early in April. Had another mailed out to a mix CD club I'm in (yeah, I'm that nerdtastic when it comes to music). Liked making that one as a friend and his wife let me use a recording of their baby's heartbeat in utero on the mix. Little Julien should be here by now since they went to the hospital last night. Brief tangent aside, I'm in the midst of two new mixes. One is themed around songs that make me instantly and almost unconsciously smile. Suppose you could call that a happy mix, but in my timey-wimey sidewalk slant. The second is themed on parkour, the art of movement. I like taking one kind of cultural product and building a new structure atop the founding idea(s).
That first mix though...it makes my heart and soul ache with joy. Who knew you could experience almost divine euphoria and still feel heartache? Or maybe that's the reason. The experience of awe leaving you with a desire to constantly bathe in that light. Imagine those first few moments of feeling true love. How your heart strains your ribs and chest. The lightness you feel--emotionally, spiritually, mentally. Clarity of thought, precision of movement. As if Rodin's statues leapt off their pedestals and began explaining the meaning of everything. That's what I'm capturing aurally. Nietzsche always did see music as the ultimate expression of the Dionysian. Sublime joy is what I'm after.

The Get Back Sessions

Can't say this is a start. No middle, beginning or end. Just sort of is. These are my personal observations, part philosophical, part nonsense. I'm sorting these pages out a bit. My hope is by doing so I can provide a more constant stream of posts. No promises on consistency though. It's my brain plugged directly into these digital magics and my brain is a very varied thing. That's all for the moment. Ain't a start, ain't an end. Just all in it.