STATE OF THE UNION THOUGHTS

Ok, I'm going to just write what I feel in response to what this president is about to say. This is just what I'm thinking from my gut. Its not refined or edited. Its not groomed by countless speech writers. I'm looking forward to hearing impossible promises, insulting rhetoric -- after doing five of these State Of The Union addresses, you'd think Bush would get better at them by now.*
Firstly, I don't believe the President's men arrested Cindy Sheehan, what nerve! She was invited to the State of the Union Address by the distinguished congress woman from California Nancy Pelosi. She committed no crime and was denied her honor to sit and watch a State of the Union address. I mean, do you know how much it must have cost to print a banner that size.*He started out his speech by giving praise to MLK2's wife, which took class and guts seeing as MLK2 preached standing up to the government for your rights when the president and his men are stomping all over your rights and you don't even know.

Love the word choice:
"control," "leadership," "continue," "goals," "advance," "boldly in freedom's costs," "submit," Somebody has been running this speech by many focus groups. Notice he's no longer talking about the state of the Union, but the state of the world. He's focusing on the world arena and saying that terrorists aren't interested in freedom and they are fighting against freedom. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
I love to keep freedom. We find security with an open hand, not a closed fist. He says there's no peace in retreat, but that is the only way we'll encourage our friends to help. My war will be fought with love and compassion. That's the MLK way!
Oh, now he just used the key word "evil." Can someone please define this word? Cause if you're not part of one of the recognized religions of the right wing conservatives, then you're evil, right? The President said we would never surrender to evil, but I'm pretty sure he meant foreign evil.*
We're on the "offensive" in Iraq? I thought we were in the rebuilding stage?
Actually, Bush, it started as a sovereign nation that had an election, then everything else happened because we started a war... do you remember why? WMD and corporate greed, right?
Again, Iraq wasn't a terrorist state!
Hindsight alone is not wisdom? What the hell does Bush know about wisdom? Hindsight is a good place to start. You must always assess what's happenend before you start planning, or you wind up with a mess... like IRAQ! You don't want to acknowledge your failure? How do you possibly find success with out acceptance of the way things are?
Of course, when you constantly switch back from militarism to smile and applaud the kids that gave your lives and using them as pawns, we'll never even begin to have a dialogue... but its a nice segway. Into honoring our military and their families.
Poor kids. You know many of the veterans that have come back are actually running AGAINST the adminstration that put them in harms way in the first place!
Why are we threatening Palestine again all of the sudden? They had a democratic election! There people elected Hamas because they would stand up to the oppression and corruption of the West... So, its only a democracy if we agree with them?
And now we're threatening Iran! Beautiful... they're a sovereign nation too.
Don't talk to Iranians, talk to us... this is the state of the Union addres... why are you wasting this time to talk to anyone other than your constituents! Next time save that rap for Al Jazera!
No one suggested isolationism! And Americans are great at helping people against human and environmental tragedies... oh, and you've done very little to help us show the compassion of the US.
Here it comes, people in his secret police, deserve our support? Prove to me they aren't abusing their power! DO NOT REAUTHORIZE THE PATRIOT ACT!!! BOO!
THis is bad logic: You can't violate the constitution of the United States and violate citizens rights and freedoms with out due process. You just got done explaining how important freedom is. Freedom means I can have a conversation with out you listening in!
Who choosese who the economic leadership is? Oh, yeah, the people who invest in your political campaign... so the rich, right? The rich get richer. Does that mean when there's a democratic president we can listen into CEOs of multinational corporations because terrorism is cooking the books, right?
Oh, so here comes the tax cut... we're in a HUGE deficit! And its growing every day! "If we do nothing" is not something anyone has suggested. I don't think we've been a good steward of tax dollars. In fact, if you granted the public access to see where the money for Iraq is going I'll prove it to you. How much are the defense contractors getting? What are we, the American people, getting for it?
DO NOT PASS THE LINE ITEM VETO!!! DO NOT PASS THE LINE ITEM VETO!!!
UNCHECKED POWER AND INABILITY TO PASS LEGISLATION TO CREATE CHECKS AND BALANCES IS A RECIPE FOR AN IRON FISTED EXECUTIVE BRANCH!!! I'm not nearly as concerned with terrorists as I am about the executive branch as it currently stands.
He's talking about electronic health records.
Healthcare... medical liability reform... yeah, I'll go with that.
America is addicted to oil. True. Technology, we all like clean energy, except ETHANOL isn't CLEAN ENERGY!!! It may be renewable, but its anything but clean! Do you have any idea what the biproducts to producing ethanol are? So, uh, what do we do with the sludge?
We're going to create inovation with math and science? Creative minds? What about the arts? Where is that inspiration going to come from? Certainly I think that math and science are the cornerstones of which good technicians are made. I would very much like George Bush to take a math and science competency exam. I believe he would fail!
Crime rates have nothing to do with this administration's work or social programs... it has to do with abortions, which is why teenaged mothers are also at their lowest point. This also has nothing to do with abstinence. In fact, I know for a fact, kids are fuckin' now more than ever.
He just hit like 5 major things and glanced over them... like what about natural disaster? SAY NEW ORLEANS!!! SAY NEW ORLEANS!!!
No, now he's talking about his new supreme court justices.
And now he wants to legislate genetic science?!
One day you'll need stem cells! He's against 'human-animal hybrids', but how do you think Bush was conceived in the first place?
Only 85 billion dollars to New Orleans? How much for the levees? Does that money go to the people of the gulf coast or to greedy contractors? The rich get richer and the middle class gets screwed ain't that the republican way!
George W Bush shouldn't say things about HIV he doesn't understand. Again, lets put out a test that he has to pass before he opens his mouth. He doesn't understand disease. Regardless of the coming plagues of which genetic science is necessary (and limited according to what he's asking for and NOT EVEN REMOTELY THE ISSUE) that should have been the endnote to the state of the union I'm always optimistic about America! I believe there is a better way to handle the executive branch than unethical cronieism set forth by the Republican administration.
Everyday we spend with this president is one less day that we have to spend with this president. God Bless America!

*jokes taken from The Onion: World's Finest News Source crew: Joe Garden, Diane Bullock, Scott Sherman, Peter Koechley, Seth Reiss, Jackie Lalley, Anita Serwacki, Mike Schuster, Dan Guterman and/or Sigmund Stern

Capoeira Basics

Capoeira is Brazilian dance fighting.
Its not about striking, its about missing by small increments with style.
It requires balance, presence of mind and body, strength, flexibility and rhythm to make it look right. If you do it right, you don't get kicked in the neck.

Dan Lebowitz @ 12 Galaxies w/ Steve Adams

On my last evening in San Francisco I got the opportunity to check out Dan Lebowitz at 12 Galaxies. He's the talented guitarist in Animal Liberation Orchestra, but this was an opportunity to check him out solo. Dan's guitar playing has a very natural flow to it, that is, it doesn't seem forced. Its more expressive than most guitarists I see who are just floating through the scales and playing by numbers. I've come to learn that my favorite solo guitarists aren't the ones that play for speed, but manufacture intuitive phrases and contemplate their lyrics a bit.
Its easy to say that you have to play from the heart and hard to do. The crowd at 12 Galaxies was friendly, comfortable and friendly and made it easy for Dan to play his set which was about the same. My three highlights of the show: 1) He played a instrumental piece he wrote in Colorado ala Foggy Mtn Breakdown. 2) He and Steve played the ALO tune Gardener. 3) Dan covered a Holmes Brother's tune.

Afrika Bambaataa @ The Supper Club

I got a chance to check out Afrika Bambaataa at the Supper Club on Saturday. I rallied a few people to join me to see one of the originators of break beat deejayin'. I came to groove out, but my neck is injured and causes quite a bit of pain with every turn of the head. I have an extremely high tollerance to pain, but I've decided I need some professional adjustments. Anyway, after a few minutes at the venue I knew I wouldn't be breakin' on dancefloor.
The Supperclub is pretty neat. Its a restaurant by day and a dance club by night. It felt like a cross between a meathouse and an Ikea with metal rails and white comfy sitting areas. Its like I could hear volumes of echos of pretentious yups dining just hours before, which now sat stagnantly lingering around the venue waiting for the breakbeats to sweep them out.
Anyway, I met up with Sarah, her boyfriend Robert and her good friend Robin. I very much looked forward to seeing them, but I wanted to make a better impression... I wanted to burn bright like a phoenix starfire, but I felt like sunset. I wanted to do this for the others as much as myself. I had to leave early and I felt I barely had a chance to say hello before goodbye. As pretty as the San Francisco Suites is, compared to interacting with these select and precious individuals, it is just a guilded cave no matter how well adourned. Work was just hours away and sleep beckoned if I was going to shine the next day. It was hard for me to "do the right thing" and I'm crushed because I might have to wait longer still to find out if what I think is right really is (I'm being perfectly cryptic for the simplest of reasons which I think you can readily read through if you know me).
Oh... and Afrika Bambaataa is good, though I would turn the mc down a bit in the mix.

San Francisco

I'm so happy to be in San Francisco!!! Its warm and sunny right now and I just checked into the San Francisco Suites... my room rocks!
This weather agrees with me! I went up to the roof and looked out over the city skyline and watched the trolley roll by.

Hoopin' Missy Baron

You meet so many people in the lot or around a show... if I didn't write down who I met and when I might forget that at some point I crossed paths with someone like Missy. She was a dancin' queen in the jam scene with a hug, a heart and a hoola-hoop. Like many chit chat conversations we talked about ticket stubs. Evidently we both like to keep ours. We listened to the same bands and were the same age. Right away, you could tell she was one of those kids that at the same time wanted to ride the rail and give her attention to the artist and be back away from the crowd so she could shake her tail feather.
For some reason these words are scribbled in the margin "for another day by the river"

Earplugs... better than a 401K plan

I love the sound of music. It plays such an integral part of my life that sometimes I don't know if I could go on with out hearing. I spend alot of time at concerts. This weekend I saw The Monsters of Mock, a 80s hair rock cover band and, at my friend Jesse's going away party, a very loud metal band. If I see music more than 2 times a month where the music is over 103 decibels, then I stand a good chance of losing my hearing before I'm sixty years old. Measures must be taken to ensure my listening pleasure for my entire life.
If we don't protect our hearing, then what do we have? I don't want to end up like Beethoven, or the character from the movie It's All Gone Pete Tong (HEAVILY RECOMMENDED). There's an atrociously simple way I can protect myself from losing my hearing, ear plugs! I need something that isn't going to detract from my listening pleasure, be comfortable and preserve my hearing!
Audiologists can design ear plugs specially for your ear canals using molds. Not only are they comforatable, but they actually take out the volume with out changing the EQ. This means you hear the same music in the same way, only a few decibels less and that's the difference between a life full of ringing in your ears and a life of joy and freedom.
I've committed to protect my hearing. I can grow old and retire a multibillionaire, but it won't mean a thing if I can't enjoy music or hear a child's laughter or the sound of rain drops.
Do yourself this favor and pick up a pair... they really are better than a 401K plan... and that's sound advice!