Tape The Tape

The music industry is so blinded by greed that it is turning on those who allow it to exist. Piracy lawsuits and threats against those who are buying their product will only hurt their business in the long run.

As a kid, i couldn't afford to buy music. Even if i could have my mother would not have let me buy the bands that i truly liked anyway. My music collection as a child consisted almost solely of copied tapes. i'd buy a bunch of cheap blank tapes and either give them to friends to copy music onto or borrow friends' tapes and copy them myself. Sometimes i was even copying copied tapes.

To say i was hurting the music industry would be incredibly short sighted. The alternative was not me buying music, that was not a possibility. If i wasn't listening to those taped tapes i would not have listened to music.

Those tapes helped to foster in me an insatiable appetite for music. As an adult i now own in excess of 600 pieces of PURCHASED music on various formats. Even if calculating with a modest average price of $10 per item that is at least $6,000 spent in recorded music alone. Add to that hundreds of bands seen live with ticket revenues. Lastly, sprinkle on band merchandise and i have become a life-long contributor to their fat-cat lifestyles.

i wish that ANY business in this country had the ability to take a moment, take a step back, and look at the long term effects of actions. Music distribution, sold or copied, is ultimately helping their bands and in turn them with fans that follow music for life. The older we get the more money we have to spend. If the music industry wants a part of that action they need to look the other way during those childhood years.

What Was That Noise?

Fuck the Free Masons and every other secret organization. Manipulative cowards screwing everyone else over.

Yeah i said it, in a public forum even. Take that bitches!

(If i die some strange death you all know who did it)

And The Solution Is... The Moon

This may seem crazy at first (by this point you should not be surprised) but hear this one out. i think that the solution to our environmental woes is tourism on the moon.

As an Environmental Science Major in college during the late 1990's there was lots of talk surrounding simplicity vs. technological faith. Throughout the environmental movement of the period many environmentalist felt that people put too much faith in technology. The threat was in the fear that people had faith in future advances to solve all problems so changing behavior or taking any kind of action was unnecessary.

Why recycle? Why worry about the ozone hole? Scientists will figure out ways to fix it. Why don't we launch our garbage into the sun? Why not take all that extra ozone in the LA smog and blow it through tubes into the hole over Australia?

The counter to this was returning to a simpler, less polluting life style. Some took this to extremes suggesting we go back to the less polluting horse and carriage transportation and the rejection of unnecessary and frivolous electronics.

Well, i don't usually think of my iPod as evil (except when it freezes up... you damn, stinkin'...) nor do i have a whole lot of faith in my fellow man's ability to do the right thing and exhibit any type of self control. My faith lies in the intelligent of our society and the hope that they can either educate the rest, or at least enough, of our society that change can occur, or that they can come up with logical solutions appealing enough to the masses. Talk about an idealist!

Reading excepts from interviews with men who have travelled and/or walked on the moon i was struck with the solution of Lunar Tourism. Getting to the moon, turning, and seeing this small blue planet in the context of the enormity of the vast universe had a significant effect on every man who went there. The humbling effect. The realization that this is such a small and special place. The absence of distinguishable borders.

Our perspective plays an incredible role in the decisions we make. Most people have little perspective in regards to the planet we inhabit. It seems like some vast, infinite source of materials. If more people were able to see this fragile little world we live in from an outside perspective, the moon perhaps, then i can only image the effect it would have on their day to day decisions.

If Lunar Tourism can't change their minds maybe we can switch to one way ticket sales only.

Atoms, The Universe, and My Shoulder

i have named the two fish on my shoulder who are struggling to achieve balance. The red one is "Anger" and the black one "Empathy". These are the two opposites of my life which are in constant battle. One quickly and easily leads to the other.

R.A.M.B.L,E

i am going to make a small plug here. Blogs are great and the more people reading them the better. The two problems, however, are: a) there are so many to sort through it gets difficult to find quality ones that become part of your regular reading routine, and b) the only way readers are usually introduced to good blogs is through word of mouth (or word of typing).

So i am going to do my part and spread the word. Last summer i met PJ Chmiel. He was doing a scooter trek through most of the country east of the Mississippi (and some of Canada). It was great meeting him and being the scooter enthusiast that i am i have been reading his updates on the journey (which is now complete). His site is: http://www.pjchmiel.com/ramble/index.html

So if you are interested in reading about a nice guy riding ridiculous distances on a scooter you really can't go wrong here. If you know where i live you can see a picture of me on the entry from that leg of the trip. Am i giving away too much about me? Gotta protect myself from those dirty Internet stalkers.

You can take my word on it because not only am i a Vespa rider, i'm a part owner (thanks to their stock going public).

He's... What?

It has recently been reported that Tom Cruise is the Jesus Christ of Scientology. My apologies to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and to Buddha and any other religious icon who has been wrongfully compared to an actor that slides across floors wearing sunglasses and no pants.

But wasn't Cruise in a movie with Christ once? No, wait... that was Jim Morison when he used to fly planes. Before the beard. Never mind.

If someone decides to hang Tom Cruise on a big wooden cross though, i may be inclined to poke him in the ribs with a spear. Just saying.