Happy Birthday to Rene Descartes, the great French thinker whom I'm currently rereading some of his philosophical (read: not his mathematical, I don't do math) works. (Amazing how the same stuff you hated to read as a freshman in college late becomes 'must read' items later on in life, isn't it?) Messier Descartes was born 412 years ago today, although his remains were distributed throughout France after his death. I have to admit, though, I think it's pretty cool that his brain is kept in a museum after all these years...still shows the reverence his home country has for his genius, I suppose.
Additionally, and far more raucously and showy than that of a Catholic philosopher who invented elements of geometry, is the birthday today of another of my faves: guitarist (and showman) extraordinaire from AC/DC, Mr Angus Young. "Angus!...(clap, clap, clap)...Angus!...(clap, clap, clap)...Angus!...(clap, clap, clap)" turns a whopping 53 today. Still one of the very best guitarists on stage ever...frequently wearing school boy uniform short pants, shirtless, and with more restless energy than a bevy of ADD kids hopped upon on sugar...Angus is arguably the main attraction for fans who still come in droves to concerts.
And, with that, a tribute to both with one of my fave songs from AC/DC: "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)", from YouTube, as usual.
AC/DC performing "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)", 1991
For those about to rock, for those about to think...whatever floats your boat...hopefully you can combine the two and be really happy somehow. Enjoy tonight and make it a good tomorrow, people.
I'm heartsick today...I probably should be in Martinsville freezing my ass off watching the NASCAR® race there, as tickets were still available and I only can make it to a few races each year anyway, but I couldn't force myself to go...because two of my fave teams still in the hunt for the NCAA Mens' Basketball Championship face off against each other today at about 5pm EST (you can watch on a CBS TV affiliate, or on CBS online if you click on "NCAA® March Madness® on Demand" from their main page). My beloved the University of Kansas Jayhawks, a former home of my college days and the proud hallowed ground of so many basketball-loving generations, go against the sentimental 'Cinderella' and 'David versus Goliath' warriors, the Davidson College Wildcats.
Kansas Jayhawks logo, ® University of Kansas, image from Sportslogos
versus...
Davidson Wildcats logo, ® Davidson College, image from Sportslogos
The winner goes on to compete in the Final Four semi-final in San Antonio, and the loser goes home and thinks forevermore at 'what might have been'. Both Davidson and Kansas won pretty handily on Friday, so both should be relatively rested and ready to go. At the end of the day, though, somebody is going home...and somebody else will be facing the local heroes of my other college home, the University of North Carolina Tar Heels.
Bloody hell, this is horrible for the diehard sports fan in me today...I can't not watch, but I can't imagine I'll be happy after watching, either. There's gonna be tears either way, but all I can hope for is a good, exciting, and hard-fought game. (A preview write-up can be found by going here.)
I just had to be a college basketball fanatic...
UPDATE: Kansas defeated Davidson 59-57 on the last shot of the game. A really thrilling game throughout, and a tremendous showing by the Wildcats. While their season is over now, the Tourney will definitely miss this great team. They proved they belonged 'in the big leagues' and how...and damn near pulled out a win that would have kept 'Cinderella' alive. Next Saturday, Kansas plays against UNC in San Antonio for the semi-final...and I'm already having loyalty issues once again.
I'm not an alumni, but I feel as proud of the Davidson College Wildcats (from Davidson, NC) as if I was one! (Technically I feel like I 'belong' a bit more than the casual fan because my ancestors...back when we could afford all the letters in our surname, i.e., before we some of us went West...helped start this fine college and town in which it shines.) Going to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA March Madness Mens' Basketball Championship Tourney!
As I discovered first hand when I traveled to Davidson back in October of last year, the school, the alumni, and the community itself takes athletics...and the support of the Wildcat teams...very seriously. Davidson College, after all, only has about 1700 students. Take a gander of what just covered one small wall of the local sandwich and ice cream shop, aptly named The Soda Shop, which is adjacent to campus:
Love the place, love the College, love the energy of the people...and did so even before all of this hubbub and even ignoring my family's distant history with the place. I'm going there again in about 3 weeks (Loch Norman Highland Games, held on the old family homestead near Rural Hill), and I can't wait to go back.
Tonight, though, I hope to scream myself hoarse as I cheer the 'Cats to victory! GO WILDCATS!!
I must be getting sentimental for my high school years, or at least what I want to remember of those years. I don't know if it's the recent email invite back to my 20th high school graduation, or my utter disdain for everything sounding so damn rap-based on the radio these days (and I'm not totally against rap, but c'mon, everyone's doing it so much now the original goodness of the medium is diluted), or the fact that last week a friend noticed I have a few gray hairs peeking out from my temple area. (Of course, they were not really gray hairs, but rather the result of bad lighting coming down from the sun on a partly cloudy day. Never trust the sun.)
Dear God, I even am culling together a '80s mix CD of some of my favourite songs from the period...which is supremely difficult for me to pull off, as I so desperately need the wisdom of long-lost friend Amanda to do this correctly. Amanda was then, and in my eyes now still, the Great Decider of Taste and Cool. Sorta like Simon Cowell with a conscience and heart and a disarmingly quirky laugh, if you can imagine such a thing. So I've been giving old faves a new listen, with a more refined urgency in my ears: is "Night Moves" by Bob Seger still the best rock ballad ever? Whose howl is more likely to awaken the inner beast in us all...Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, Robert Plant in his prime? Some, even, along the lines of what the fuck was I thinking listening to this???
It's odd how far you can travel and grow, yet the very basic moments of a certain time of your life always stay with you. As much as we all need and (dare I say it?) even want change, the more things trigger inside us to make us want certain elements in our lives to remain static, frozen in a warm memory where the world is skewed just how we want to remember it. The similarity between myself and that of John Cusack's musically and nostalgically obsessed 'Rob' character in "High Fidelity" has been highlighted countless times by my friends and foe alike...for we replay these trespasses of our history without participating in the present, let alone the future. And just like 'Rob' was in that classic (but unheralded) film, each song and album I own practically has an entire relationship with me, a crutch, if you will, that takes me back to my bolder and more hopeful days. If I loved a song or album or artist enough, I bought their music (back when the music was tangible, mind you) and was transported to another place, another world, another life. It hit me the other day, as I dusted my CD towers stacked in the office room, that I really have not found any music that has generated that kind of inspiration for me in a very, very long time.
But I've decided to give it another try...mainstream radio and listening to the 'new' around me in all forms, that is. Perhaps in my railing against what a corporate whore most large radio broadcasters here in the US has become, maybe I have missed what made it all worthwhile. Becoming jaded to an old love is almost, if not more, as dangerous than never knowing the love at all. Soon resentment, regret, and disappointment builds as all parties realise we can't ever go back to a time and a place where it all began for us...and then it just goes downhill from there. Somehow a line has to be drawn as to how much one is still willing to take before going in another direction, even if that direction means over a cliff of memories that can't be relived again. For better and for worse.
Ladies and gentlemen, Friends of Blog, I give you my first new recent selections. The jury is still making up its mind on both, but at least they engaged the jury, which is a feat in and of itself these days. Both scream something I can identify with: whether it be the sound of the 'heavy' '80s I so half-ashamedly miss, or the new sound of an established band that has kept up the beat since those headier, and perhaps more glory-filled days (or at least it was for them).
Up first, is a band called Atreyu, with a song called "Falling Down". Forgive the video itself...and ignore that it's on an energy drink page for sponsorship, too...as my viewing had a lot of scenery complete with actors cut off the sides. Forget the video (well, at least the Missing People version, anyway), and give the song itself a listen. Interesting lyrics, good beat, and even a throwback Slash-inspired guitar solo. You can see their video here, although some enterprising person should have it at YouTube soon enough. Love the song, but I'm not feeling the video at all. Watch blind if that works for you.
Secondly, I give you indie then mainstream then 'trend-setting' REM. Yes, they're still playing and recording after all of these years. And with a new album to be released next week, and a tour that rolls through here on June 10 to boot. Definitely not "Stand", nor "Everybody Hurts", but I'm not sure that's a wholly bad thing. Relevancy is only a four letter word away these days, anyway, and since 'change' has been co-opted by every surviving Presidential candidate, words can be weapons again. Stipe & et al can still turn a vivid image in this new single, and especially for those of us rereading that 20th High School Reunion email. And for those of us who choose to ignore the gray hairs, in all possible forms.
Damn it, though, we're all showing the signs we're not so naive anymore. And there always has to be a sense of wonder and naivete for music to really take hold, a sense that these chords haven't been played before, that these lyrics were written just for you, and you alone. I want my enthusiasm for music back.
Admittedly, I'm curious if wonder and amazement can be duped to accept change, or instead they just form a thick brick wall that deflects all future intruders. I'm also a bit downbeat about how I'm already looking back, and relatively so soon. But it makes me think if what I really want is the fearless enthusiasm of youth...or rather the release from the panic that mortality will be someday be mine, too, that comes all too often with age. And I wonder if that fear will ever be cool.
First off, apologies to those who occasionally duck in here to check up on me. I realize I've been supremely lazy in checking in here, and so I will simultaneously recap recent events and also beg forgiveness.
Yes, I am over my cold-like symptoms of almost a month ago. Everybody else at work has been sick at least twice this season as well, but I think we've finally won the war...even if we do lose a string of battles there last month.
Yes, I survived this year's St. Patty's Day festivities without getting sick. And I even remained sober at the raucous Tir Na Nog St. Patty's Day Weekend festivities on the 15th, which was highlighted by FOB Hercules Mulligan and then newly discovered faves (from Goldsboro, NC, no less) My Three Kilts. You know you're getting old when it's actually more entertaining seeing your friends get drunk without having to join them. And it was damn entertaining.
Yes, I am joyfully welcoming the entrance of spring, especially out here on the farm. We have some periwinkles and daffodils and countless other green and sprouting things all around the house now, and I've also 'met' a returning owl...which has become my de facto alarm clock these days. (Not that I'm getting around any better in the mornings, but he/she is quite dependable to wake you up at strange hours.)
No, I have not experienced a brewing mishap first-hand (yet), and WR and I are into our third brewing attempt so far. The first two attempts (taken from a Coopers® lager mix from American Brewmasters) were a success, and especially so at a wedding reception held out here. This third attempt, still fermenting away as I speak, seems to a particularly difficult British-born Hefeweisen. It's been so problematic in fact that I will be entirely surprised if we get anything decent from this batch.
And, no, I have not taken to building a shelter of Economic Last Resort, but admittedly I am wondering aloud how we went from a capitalistic money society to a socialistic money society...especially if you're a major bank institution that is supposed to be there in support of capitalism. Some of us working stiffs clearly have missed the memo on this new change in affairs. Just how fucked up is it that we (as a willing tax-paying society) 'cannot allow' a major bank that made poor leveraging decisions and risky gambles to fail, but we can allow the actual taxpayers themselves to tank as a result of this recession??? Somewhere, Willie Nelson and all the small-time farmers he and his kind tried to help with Farm Aid is even less trusting of what we've become. But that's a whole other diatribe I will save for another day...
Primarily, though, I have been in a technological hell. Namely, the dear beloved (and quirky) digital camera has seemingly bit the dust, and right now I'm not in a position to buy another one. To make matters worse, due to its age (and poor design), it has this 'holding gallery' where photos can be 'stored' temporarily before being committed to the digital card...in a pixel limbo between creation and development...and I have a lot 'on display' in said gallery without an immediate solution to break them out to the other side. (Anybody here have experience with this and old HP Digital Cameras? I'm open to practically all suggestions at this point to 'free the pics' to the memory card, short of anything that stands a good chance of most of the pics being lost.) Combine all of this with the continued hit and miss saga with wireless connections here at the house, and by the time I actually should be getting around to blogging, I'm so damn tired of doing anything involving computers and/or memory cards it's just been easier to elicit the 'tomorrow is another day' mantra that continues to serve millions of procrastinators worldwide. And while I know this is blasphemy in the cyber world, I actually have went 48 hours+ recently without even checking email here, let alone surf or blog something...and I survived.
That said...on second thought, maybe I am not feeling well.
This weekend was one such saga continued, although (temporarily) I think I've jerry-rigged a solution for the wireless connection rollercoaster, but which is still in the final testing stages. So instead of engaging in the internet dialogue, I worked on spring cleaning the house and purging unnecessary items. And watching some rather bad (Duke not being able to hit the broad side of a barn nor their free throws this past Saturday versus West Virginia), and occasionally, even excellent on-the-edge-of-your-seat college hoops (Davidson...a college of which has ties to your faithful yet lazy blogger...coming back from a 17-point deficit to defeat the Georgetown Hoyas) during March Madness. Ahh, springtime, when everyone down here on Tobacco Road takes up their annual religious rites. I'm really surprised any of us even manage to hold down a job, let alone concentrate on it. Come March round here, we just all watch basketball...mens, womens, Duke, State, UNC, no matter...you just watch basketball. It's an undeclared holiday season really.
And speaking of concentrating, I need to get back to doing the same for a project I'm auditing for work. But I will be back tomorrow sometime for another post, right after I curse the beer fermenting jug and also praying to the Pixel God to just release my shots back to me, untainted and unharmed. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better, and maybe also a bit more productive than what I've had on here as of late.
Someday in the not too distant future, some very wise wordsmith will fully dissect this three (some could even say four) ring circus that is this year's Presidential election and lay waste to the denial and apathy of the average American voter. This is a very atypical election, in an even more atypical yet very troubling time in our brief history. Yet are we already too weary to get involved again? With some luck, though, said wordsmith will pull back out a chapter and insert a very large asterisk to describe those who tried and tried to kick-start our spirit...and the headline will be something akin to "And Then There Was Keith Olbermann".
Mr Olbermann (of MSNBC and his weeknight news program) may just be one of the few journalists (television or otherwise) who seems to actually give a damn about what he is reporting, and why any of it matters. Furthermore, he may also be a member of a far, far smaller minority that cares so much he elicits (gasp!) the same passion and concern from his viewers. Love him or hate him, Mr Olbermann at least has the cajones to say what he thinks, argue passionately for his principles, and then also stand by those beliefs. And, that, dear friends, is what America is really all about: the freedom of speech and thought, even if others don't agree with you. Especially in times like these.
Tonight, Mr Olbermann did one of his well-known (and an exceptionally well-crafted one, to boot) "Special Comment" segments and it shines a stark light on this week's moral fiasco of Senator Clinton's campaign decision to make the issue of race a campaign platform item. It's stunts (or mismanagement at best) like this 'race debate' (which personally apalls me) with former Senator Ferraro (or for that matter, former President Bill Clinton) that sickens those of us who try, day in and day out, to not 'play the race card' or at least try and be as colour blind as possible. To say that Mr Olbermann calls Senator Clinton out for not only her good, but also for the collective good of the Democratic party, may be one of the understatements of this already bloody political season.
In many ways, this "Comment" of Mr Olbermann's just reinforces what Camille Paglia wrote about Sen. Clinton's actions so far only damaging herself in this campaign. This is the kind of stuff that makes women voters such as myself (whom presumably Senator Clinton was a shoe-in to win the votes of just a few short months ago) reconsider their voting stance, if not withdraw their support of her altogether. This is the kind of 'lowball' tactics that reinforces Senator Clinton's image of distrust and suggests willful manipulation by her to large segments of the population. This is the kind of attack that makes any thinking citizen of this country...who have had to endure 8 years of continuously advancing stupidity in the White House...cringe with trepidation that a new political version of Sherman's March to the Sea is already on our nightly news broadcasts and may be coming our way. Win, lose, or draw, people, clearly blood will be spilled under these conditions.
This is one of Mr Olbermann's most passionate "Comment" segments ever...and the first that has really taken 'direct-hit' aim at anything Democratic Party-affiliated...with words that showcase the contempt growing against the Clinton campaign's tactics, and are uttered hammered home with intense gusto. At points, Mr Olbermann looks visibly upset, as he rightly should be.
A very sad post tonight, as my beloved little hamlet (and University) of Chapel Hill is reeling from the news that UNC at Chapel Hill's own Student Body President, Eve Carson, was identified as the woman found shot dead here early Wednesday morning. To say that the campus and the environs in general are in a stake of shock would only be scratching the surface. Shock, disbelief, sadness, anger...you name it, the gambit of emotion rages on. Violent crimes...let alone murders...are extremely rare here, and that's part of the charm of UNC at Chapel Hill. In many ways, this is not only the oldest public university in the nation, but Chapel Hill is also the quintessential university and college town experience. The locals fall into two distinct groups here usually: those that are students currently, and those that were students or staff once and just stayed around. Each group is the other's family...alumni and freshman and support staff alike, shoulder to shoulder everywhere around town...and Ms Carson was one of us.
Ms Carson was a very talented, very multi-faceted, very driven young woman, only 22 years of age and a senior at UNC. A double major (political science and biology) with an interest in going the pre-med route after graduation. A tireless volunteer with local kids, a study abroad traveler to Cuba even. To boot, she was also a highly-acclaimed Morehead Scholar (and at a school where scholars are somewhat common, she still stood out and was also a North Carolina Fellow). (A full bio from her Student Body President campaign webpage can be found here.) I never met Ms Carson, but to say one reading "The Daily Tar Heel" newspaper would have any idea that she was something less than a dynamic leader would have been underestimating her will and motivation. In a world full of people who want to 'tune out' (which I myself am guilty of more often than I should, and more often as I grow older and more cynical), Ms Carson clearly knew how to 'tune in' and lead others. By all accounts, she was a 'can-do' kind of girl, hellbent and determined not to squander her many gifts and opportunities. The loss of her kind...especially her zeal for meeting up and participating in life...is profound.
Ms Carson doing an intro to UNC Student Government, her office and to the UNC student system in general...from YouTube
(In addition to the links above, WRAL-TV has a series of excellent updates on this story, including today's vigils that were attended by about 10,000 people, at this link.)
Just earlier today Ms Carson's SUV was recovered nearby, but still no real motive has been established by investigators. Nor, at least as far as the media is reporting, are there any suspects being identified yet. To date, there is no answer as to why she was shot several times, why she was found without any identification on her person, and why she was found dead in the middle of an intersection about 4 hours after her roommates had just left her (she stayed behind at home to finish up on her studies). Found, no less, very close to the campus proper but away from her home, in a quiet residential area of relatively affluent homes just off Chapel Hill's main drag of Franklin Street.
Sadly, we have no answers yet, just lots and lots of questions. Why? is the first.
So, tonight, after vigils on the UNC main campus today, the only thing our close community can hold onto is Ms Carson's vast promise and our angry and shocked tears. And that damn repetitive television speech from the local media of this just being 'a senseless act of violence'. It's murder, folks, no matter how 'senseless' it was.
And Ms Eve Carson...and all that she would have become...deserves justice from her killer. May those responsible be found and brought forward quickly for their just punishment. Until a Higher Authority will, anyway.
Those who may have seen and/or know something, and/or possibly have other information about this murder, should call the Chapel Hill Police Department at: 919-968-2760 or Crime Stoppers at 919-942-7515.
God bless her family and friends at this horrible time. My heartfelt prayers and deepest condolences go out to all of them.
