Occupy 1

We schedule our meetings. They hold the line. We bicker. They act.

That band of rag-tag, dirty idealists have been sitting there in a park adjacent to the seat of global financial power for three weeks now, determined to change the world--and they have. They don't seem to know how they are going to do it, but the mere thought of them there, sitting, talking, fighting off the autumn cold, is enough to keep the rest of us hopeful and dedicated.

They want a voice. They want to be heard. They want to believe in democracy, like back when America was great, before the arrogance set in, before the guys who fought in Europe faded into senility and we took their courage and turned it into a sense of entitlement.

There is a lot of fear, both inside and outside of this movement. The outsiders, the 1% and the political elite are scared because, yes, this is indeed their worst nightmare. Much of the un-supportive or skeptical 99% are scared because the thought of restructuring the social constructs, the economic architecture, and the political system currently dominating our world is scary. However, it is inevitable and the folks at Occupy Wall Street and their supporters in nearly 1000 cities worldwide are probably going to get a lot more than they bargained for.

Every major step in human history has been preceded by a significant advancement in the way in which we communicate.

35,000 years ago, homo sapiens evolved their modern-day vocal chords, allowing them to communicate using complex sounds that represented symbols, both concrete and abstract. This resulted in order out of the chaos, the ability to teach others methods and techniques, the beginning of an oral history where something someone learned was not lost with that person. Man separated himself from the animals. This new development even caused the extinction of human's faster, stronger cousins, the neanderthals.

Somewhere around 6 or 7,000 years ago, language became written. Some visionary Sumerian decided to create a series of symbols to represent the words coming out of people's mouths and literacy was born, and with it, civilization. Ideas were saved for future generations. Advancements, improvements, plans, messages, belief systems, political power, literature, religion, and everything else that is civilization did not have to be lost in translation. Next were the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Christian revolution when Europe became connected by a common belief system, but the message was limited to the few who were trained by the church to read and the fewer controlled by the church to write their propaganda.

Enter Gutenberg, a German inventor in a small town on the Rhine called Meinz. His printing press opened up the possibility of mass messaging. Books besides the bible were printed, not hand-written by scribes in the church's pocket. Pamphlets illustrating new ideas began to circulate as the general population learned to read. The protestant reformation occurred, then the Enlightenment with its scientific leanings, it's humanism and the idea that not everything was God's doing and that maybe, just maybe, humans should take responsibility for themselves.

Now we are experiencing the growing pains of the information age. All of human knowledge stands ready at anyone's fingertips. Communication across oceans is instant. Groups of thousands, perhaps someday even millions, can simultaneously share and experience each others' messages. The truth about everything from working conditions for sub-Saharan African diamond miners to the exorbitant luxury of America's 1% can be sent and received to and from nearly every individual in the world. In short, the blinders are off! Governments and institutions can no longer realistically control the flow of information. Their self-serving policies will no longer go unnoticed.

Combine this ability to gather knowledge with a society weary of its inequality and primed for change and it is reasonable to assume that we, as a species, stand on the precipice of the next great social revolution.

We can not even begin to predict the ramifications.

It is possible, taking the optimist's view, that this smaller world could render irrelevant many of the fundamental social, Geo-political, and economic structures that we have come to accept as unchangeable and axiomatic, even to the point that we would never consider the possibility that there might be other options. What good are borders when economies and peoples are so co-dependent that the economic failing of one nation ruins all the rest? Why fight for resources when their eventual depletion will be instantly catastrophic for every individual on the planet regardless of nationality or ethnicity and these same resources are necessary for the smooth operation of the global economy? If that's the case, why not share them?

Because this is how economics is now viewed, as one complete system where the only boundaries are the outer edges of the atmosphere.

It seems completely within reason that capitalism, communism, free-markets, welfare states, currency value discrepancies, corporations and every other "real-world" institution that props up our sense of order and gives us the feeling that one ideology is better than another or that there are even choices will be soon rendered moot. Perhaps, optimistically, some kind of global cooperativism will emerge.

However, the power structures currently in place are deeply rooted and will not give up their power so easily. What's more is that they have massive arsenals of killing tools at their disposal.

This is all merely speculation. However, it seems apparent that this is no longer just about Wall Street or campaign finance or the Federal Reserve or lobbyists or the democratic ideal. It's about change on a scope that we have not seen in nearly 600 years. 

Such prospects, thoughts, musings, or even the rants of a psychopath if you view them as such, are scary and I think it is safe to say that that the process that will eventually tear down those structures has commenced. But while the lives of all humans will no doubt be forever changed, be encouraged that all that is in the hands of the people will be well.

Thoughts on Touring, Thoughts

There are so many of us,
and so many are lost.
The world is bursting at the seams with us,
covering her like a pox

We are all Job's and Jezabel's
looking for some peace.
Looking for a leg up,
or vengeance for some unremembered transgression.

Every time I travel, the sheer amount of people I see who I will never know, will never meet, will never affect my life in any perceivable way is staggering. The bums, the businessmen, the musicians, the waitresses, sailors, the small-town moms and dads, their kids, their future girlfriends/boyfriends, the hotel maids, convenience store shoppers, restaurant patrons, groupies, the power lunch crowd, taco truck owners, park visitors, tourists, bicyclists, freeway drivers--all coming from somewhere, heading somewhere else, and wanting more.

I don't care about them in any individual, mother Theresa, humanitarian, the-poor-lot-of-the-world-huddled-masses manner. It may be callous, but meh... I think about how all of them combined are a tiny fraction of the real, unfathomable population of the world (7 billion). I think about heroin addicts in Amsterdam and Prague and how no one cares for them in an individual, mother Theresa, humanitarian, the-poor-lot-of-the-world-huddled-masses manner. They are left in those dirty streets to fend for themselves. Not everyone can be president, you know. Not even me with my relatively comfortable lifestyle, full set of teeth, relative self-awareness, and education. I am just another writer in a sea of writers competing with Pakistanis who can pay their rent with what it costs me to drive to the coffee shop and back six times. I am just another musician swimming in a soup of musicians, competing with 21-year old's with no kids and nothing to lose.

The predictable response to this kind of post is....you're a cynic, a pessimist. I think these two adjectives are often confused with...an unwavering sense of what is actually realistic. I often wish I lived in Yugoslavia where it was ok to be a bicycle courier, where being a bicycle courier is a pretty good job and not every Tom, Dick, and Harry, every Buddy, Guy, and Harold, every Jane, Sue, and Patty felt the overwhelming, crushing, don't-get-the-bends pressure to make more, More, MORE!! money, buy more stuff, spend your talents, time, and energy on attaining that (let's face it) impossible, reality-tv life. "Hey son... you can be (president, a millionaire, a CEO, rock-star, Oscar-winner, pro football player, etc.)  someday." Well....nope.

You can be happy though. That one is possible. It's not wanting all that crap that's going to do it.

Breaking 30 Years Worth of Eating Habits

So for the last week or so, Dominique and I have been scaring ourselves silly watching documentary after documentary on how totally MISGUIDED our eating habits, food industry, government regulation, and overall ethics regarding food are.
At this point, I don't want to watch these things anymore. But I can't unlearn what I've been bombarding myself with. Suffice it to say, we are making a few changes around the household. It's amazing what knowledge will do. It creates ideas which leads to action which may quite possibly alter forever the course of your life.
We've been sufficiently educated concerning what is wrong with the system--and we've decided to remove ourselves from it as much as possible. What we don't know is exactly how to deal with this.
The shift has already occurred. We've been eating organic for the last 3 days or so with various unpleasant physiological side affects--wicked gas (theoretically from the addition of vitamins), headaches (presumably from the lack of sugar), and irritability (likely a result of uncertainty and stress related to making major life changes).
We really don't know what we should eat, only a vague idea of what we shouldn't eat. Furthermore, this stuff is expensive. An organic chicken is $17 a pound, weighing around 3 pounds-you're looking at a $51 dinner. That's not acceptable. We need help. We need to know how to keep costs down and eat what we need to eat. If somebody out there has some advice, please post. We've been going to farmer's markets and balking at the prices. We spent about $80 at the co-op on probably four meals, we've been to the other organic grocery store in town and interviewed the cashier. But it's frustrating because we're blind. We don't really even know what to look for. We've been a cog in this machine all of our lives and have escaped, only to find that we don't know how to survive on the outside.
If you're in the dark about this stuff, watch "Food, Inc.", "Food Matters", "The Future of Food." You'll soon realize, something needs to change.

Nation-States

Hey folks. I want to talk about some ideas that interest me and I really want to start a dialogue, get some opinions and some back and forth going here. Please feel free to interact and give me your opinions.

I’ve had this ongoing fascination with European micro states. You know, Andorra, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein. I guess I always wondered why a country so small wouldn’t want to be a part of something bigger.

Let’s weigh the pros and cons. Being a citizen of such a small country might give one a feeling of being a part of a very exclusive club. I doubt that people actually think about that when they decide they want their own country. They think that their ethnic identity or shared history deserves its own land. These sorts of countries are called nation-states because they are set up around a common culture, language, history and ethnicity. Plus, perhaps, a small economy and population makes quality of life easier to maintain.

Cons: a small country with limited resources, a small military, and a small citizenry makes a country more susceptible to invasion where said country must either take their chances and hope that doesn’t happen or rely heavily on more powerful neighbors, therefore negating their independent status. Also, a small country has only so many natural resources making their dependence on neighbors and trade partners even stronger.

For example, the U.S. has a large landmass and a large population. Its geography is diverse. In some areas of the country, farmers grow citrus fruits, in others, potatoes, corn, wheat. Some parts of the country, like Pittsburgh, New Jersey, and Detroit are industrial, making cars, raw steel, consumer goods, etc. In New York and San Francisco, money from all over the world is filtered through their markets. In essence, it is theoretically possible (though not the case), that the U.S. could be self-sufficient. Most of our food is exported while most of our consumer goods are imported.

Luxembourg, however, could not pull that off. The European Union, which Luxembourg is a member, probably could though their population density vs. land area is much higher than that of the U.S, making feeding their population more difficult without imports.

There’s a country in Africa called Lesotho. It is completely within the borders of South Africa. It has no coastline; it is completely encircled by South Africa. The reason for this is because in the late 1800’s, a tribal chief defeated another tribe in the power vacuum left by the retreating British, Dutch, and French colonists. At this point, mainly exporting water, hydroelectric power, and marijuana to South Africa supports Lesotho’s economy. One third of its population has AIDS and just this year, 30000 people signed a petition and sent it to the South African parliament asking them to annex the country and make it a part of South Africa as most of them are desperately poor and their economy is nearly totally dependent on South Africa anyway.

I read an online survey that asked residents of Lesotho if they should become a part of South Africa and most of the respondents replied that they should not. They are proud of their separate culture and some of them even referenced the tribal chief that fought for Lesotho’s independence, saying things like, “Chief Moshoeshoe fought for our independence and that’s worth keeping.” Clearly, pride plays a large role in the desire for independence even in the face of poverty, death, disease, and civil disorder.

I was talking to a highly educated German woman I know who had traveled to both Luxembourg and Liechtenstein. She said that Liechtenstein might as well be Swiss. It’s rich and snobby, German-speaking and mountainous. She said Luxembourg could easily be a part of any of the four countries surrounding it as it was a modern, industrial European country, though probably closer to Belgium or France than Germany or The Netherlands.

And here's a fun new development. An ethnic group that occupies Belgium, called the Flemish, are clammoring for their own country. It seems unlikely to happen but if it does it would split up an already fairly small country and compromise the efforts of a country that is desperately trying to gain credibility and power in the European Union.

So what do you think. Just as a hypothetical, would you endorse that, say, Utah became its own country. I mean, they are culturally, historically, and religiously different than the rest of the U.S., right? They have different laws than most of the country when it comes to alcohol and other sinful pleasures. Most of the state is closed on Sunday, etc. A large portion of them think that the way American society and government is handled and the direction it is going is problematic. Does that warrant independence? Or what about Texas? They were their own country for a while and Texans are incredibly proud of their state and their way of life. California could be said to be it’s own nation-state. As could New England, the Dakota’s, and the South. But splitting up the country would leave a power vacuum in the world that is filled at this point by a economically, culturally, and militarily powerful nation.

What’s your opinion?

When I Knew

I'm not a kid anymore, but I have one.

I'd like to say that the moment it happened was when she slid not-so-effortlessly from her cocoon. But it wasn't. I fought it for quite a while after that. For almost a year, I kept on living life with basically the same attitude. My main concerns were trying to eek out as much time as possible to watch TV or sleep in, party with my band-mates, and make enough money to pay the bills and go out to eat as much as possible.


Of course, Dominique aided in my gradual transition. She reminded me on many occasions of my responsibilities and the necessity to think ahead in life. But honestly, I think she was still holding on the her single-life attitude for a while after Amelie was born as well.     

No, the earliest I can remember thinking, "I'm too old for this, I've got considerations," was in Berlin. We were there visiting Dominique's parents and sister. Her sister, Petra, had invited us to a night on the town. I agreed, naturally. We set off that evening around nine, just Dominique and I as Petra was working at a bar at the time. We hopped around from club to bar to cafe for a few hours before meeting Petra at her work.

After spending some time there, we decided to take a cab to east Berlin and go to a club Petra liked. It was dark and had the most disgusting bathroom, literally, that I have ever seen. We drank sweet beer and tried to yell at each other over the techno music. As we left, the cops were arresting someone. We waited for the cab. I looked at the time-5am. Dominique and I looked at each other and I said, "Amelie is going to be up in three hours. We're mom and dad. We're too old for this." She agreed.

Looking back, it was a fun night and obviously we all survived. It makes me think of something my friend Lloyd, a veteran dad, said to me: "When you have the option of sleeping or having fun, take having fun." I still agree though I don't always take his advice..... And the battle continues.

Social Darwinism

The old saying goes, 'adapt or die.' This is me adapting.

I've spent the last, oh, 17 years learning music, mostly popular music of some kind or another. Mostly rock in some form or another. But I've dabbled in jazz, classical, and electronica. I even rapped a little bit. It was horrible, but at least I can admit that and move on.  And I've had a lot of fun. I can tell a lot of stories. Stories of success and failure, stories that would make the paint peel, stories of wholehearted dedication and existential angst.

A couple of times, I've pulled a Joaquin Phoenix and said I was going to quit music and be a writer. Looking back, I don't know why. I can do both right? We'll see I guess.

As I write this, I have just successfully completed my first semester of college as a journalism major. Yes, I would like to write non-fiction. Preferably of the travel variety. And my newest musical project seems headed for something interesting. We packed a downtown club to see our rock opera and we've got a west coast tour in the works for the summer.

So where does Darwin come in?

Both of these industries are both being slaughtered and revived by the internet. I don't think anyone knows for sure where they are headed, or how to make any money for that matter, but one thing is for sure, if you want to play the game, get on the internet.

I'm not fighting against the current. I'm not afraid of jumping through a few hoops. I'm not a kid anymore.