Observations Part II

As an addendum to previous southern fashion observations:

Croakies. My personal history with Croakies is a vague memory of 4-eyed elementary schoolers with colorful (essentially) tassels extending from behind their ears flowing toward the back of their cephalic region (usually blanketed with a feathery mullet and/or rattail). To find post-pubescent males donning these somewhat utilitarian, yet undeniably Chucky Cheese-esque devices as a widespread fashion statement is extensively humorous to me.

The Southern Boy haircut. Bangs on dudes. Reminiscent of Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber, but preferably fuller. A reverse mullet, aka long-short, with progressively longer hair the higher one migrates toward the crown of the head. I suppose I'm just jealous.

Keys to a Southern Accent (outsider perspective)

I've known how to talk like a generalized redneck for some time now, but appreciating the southern variety of speech is a new pastime and evolving science for me.

Two key words that have distinguished southern speech from my perspective:

Water- pronounced "wudder"

So- Southern "so" is often separated into two syllables:

"sah-oo"

with the "oo" making roughly the same sound as the "u" in "wudder."

Irony Alert

The Brady Center, which I oppose adamantly, hosted a little get-together back in 2006 which was graced with a number of Hollywood doofuses, the most interesting of which was Sylvester Stallone, aka Rambo. Insert head scratch here.


http://www.bradycenter.org/donate/events/2006/losangeles/

Dark Side of the Moon+The Wizard of Oz+Munchkin Suicide Investigation-CNS depressants=(boredom/confusion)

Pink Floyd is like Che Guevara. They have achieved widespread underground reverence and overground props and respect, yet there are few who could say exactly why.

Che Guevara was a scumbag, literally a filthy murderer. He was a lunatic whose image has been used by the Castro regime and Rage Against the Machine to inspire ignorance. Using his image as iconography makes as much sense as wearing a Jeffrey Dahmer T-shirt. Before I learned this, I assumed he was a repectable guy.

I also gave Pink Floyd the benefit of the doubt and assumed they were worthy of extensive hype. I tried to listen to their music for years, but concluded that how much any given person likes them is directly correlated to their level of LSD use. I could never make any sense of their schizophrenic, video gameish, cacophony.

During my years of giving them a chance, friends and I watched The Wizard of Oz in conjunction with Dark Side of the Moon per the widely known urban legend. I'm not sure why I expected this to be a mind-blowing experience when I don't like The Wizard of Oz or Pink Floyd. And as we discovered, we neglected the unmentioned third member of the equation-horse!

In summary, after starting the album at the Metro-Goldwyn Mayer lion's roar, the only significant synchronization we found was when the movie converts to color. At that point, Money starts, which, oddly enough, is one of the only Pink Floyd compositions I can think of that actually sounds like what could be labeled as a song.

The other purpose of the oxymoronic drug-free Pink Floyd party was to investigate claims of an on-camera munchkin suicide in the film. Again, drugs would have helped make this work:

http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/ozsuicide.asp

Link to one of my Favorite Sites

Like you, I receive entirely too many emails with outlandish claims, urban legends, and categorical falsehoods. For example the email that goes around saying that Bill Gates is giving away his fortune. Obviously false, but where did it originate? Likewise, my post on the paranoia surrounding the use of microwaves. I am baffled by the ability of simple hearsay and/or conjecture to cause many to blindly forward blatant bullcrap to everyone in their address book.

One of the advantages of the internet is that while lies run rampant, valid research into a topic can be done almost instantaneously. Some of the research has already been done, specifically on urban legends and circulating emails, at snopes.com.

Here's a link to an article about McDonald's coffee spoons. Maybe you've heard this before.

http://www.snopes.com/business/origins/mcdspoon.asp

The Last Lecture-Randy Pausch

I am in a constant dilemma of wanting to read books but not having the time to crack the pages of the ever-increasing stack labeled "to read." Fortunately, The Last Lecture isn't much of a time investment and the majority of time spent reading it occurred while waiting for a ride one afternoon.

Randy Pausch was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, PA who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died earlier this year. Prior to his death he gave a final lecture at Carnegie Mellon and published a book based on the lecture. The subject matter was obviously frank and concise, but not grim or even sad, and related to his life experiences chasing his goals. Dr. Pausch was an incredible nerd. That fact largely contributes to the entertaining nature of the book. For example, one of his life goals was to win giant stuffed animals at state fairs and carnivals. Other goals include-being in zero gravity, being Captain Kirk, being a Disney Imagineer, and playing in the NFL. Obviously a recipe for amusing tales of failure and (mostly) success.

Aside from being very entertaining, the book has great practical advice and wisdom, much of which has to do with interpersonal skills. My favorite nugget of wisdom is, "if you wait long enough, a person will impress you." We tend to be very impatient with other people's faults and may even write them off completely when they make mistakes. This in itself is a mistake, and we should keep in mind that everyone has something to offer that will eventually impress us.

The tone of the book is hopeful, family-focused, and not overly serious. This post is inadequate at describing the book, so check it out. The actual lecture (about an hour long) is available here.

Overall, a great book by a good man that will leave you with things to think about.

Matisyahu-Shattered EP

I've been pretty curious to see what Matisyahu's new stuff was going to be like. I am a firm supporter of Live at Stubbs, but felt like Youth was largely a mistake and evidence of the dictatorial influence of producers. With those two feeling tugging at my expectations, I didn't set my sights incredibly high for this release. I like the songs on this EP. I can admire the fact that Matisyahu's style is evolving and is not stuck in a rut of repetition. While I normally don't approve of too much technological wizardry, Matisyahu picked up a keyboardist and is successfully incorporating more electronic sounds in and out of the studio. That being said, I still think that Matisyahu's place is on stage. Energy, spontaneity(there are about 95 live versions of any given song), and a positive message make him what his is, and only one of those things is carried over to the studio. Live versions of the songs from this EP were available on his website and are better in my opinion.

In short, I'm not upset about Shattered.

The upcoming full-length Escape should be a decent album and I'm glad that it wasn't forced to release during the summer as planned. I would expect more Shattered-esque songs, some of which are already available live, and a studio track Master of the Field is available on his website. Matisyahu has also been kind enough to put all of his albums on his website for free listening enjoyment, including Shattered. Take a look see.

A few more thoughts on Prop 8

While I am pleased that Proposition 8 has passed and the propositions in Arizona and Florida also passed, I am well aware that the issue is far from resolved. Intolerance in the name of tolerance continues to rear its ugly head as evidenced by the protest at the Los Angeles LDS temple.

Considering this, I came across a speech given by Neal Maxwell in 1979. I can think of few things as applicable to the current situation in California. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I believe in ongoing revelation through apostles, prophets, seventies, and other church hierarchies who possess priesthood authority. The foresight of this nearly twenty year old address given by a seventy confirms my faith in that authority.

My support of traditional marriage stems from my faith in what God has revealed through inspiration, my own logical evaluation, and the evidence of anti-religious intolerance already abundant without legislation to further enable it. While the first reason will hold little swaying power for some, I feel that the second and third are quite adequate when measured objectively. At any rate, this post is to address the faith portion of my motivations and where they are derived from-follow links for more info.

Adam and Steve?

With Prop 8 churning a buttery madness before election day a week from today, I thought I'd throw in my 85 cents about the issue.

I hope Prop 8 and similar propositions in other states pass. I think that homosexuality is morally wrong. I think that gay marriage would be detrimental to our society and especially children, who I believe are entitled to be raised by a mother and father who should be the primary sources of moral teachings.

So does this mean I'm a bigot forcing my morality on innocent gays? I must HATE gays then. Shouldn't they be able to do what they want? They aren't hurting anyone.

Well, obviously I think that they are hurting people, as I noted above. And I'm convinced that gay marriage will undermine the basic structure of our civilization. But why should MY morality hold anymore value than that of gays? I suppose that is why the issue is up for vote. To determine what morality the population would prefer.

Murder is a good example of a moral issue that has already been decided. There are quite a few individuals out there who would support legalization of murder, I'm sure, but we say no. Likewise child molestation is not accepted by the general population. Why have we said no to these things? Shouldn't child molesters have the right to do what they want? Why should I push my morality/judgement on them? Isn't it an act of hate to say murder is wrong? NO. And gay marriage is no different. The only difference is the number of people who support it.

I find it interesting that the word bigot is thrown around so vehemently against supporters of the proposition. It seems to be a word of ultimate put-down. The sharpest arrow in the quiver, as it were, to expose the evils put forth by the close-minded ultra-conservative fascists.

Do these fire-breathers know what bigot means? Click to be enlightened.

In light of this review of definition, the following links illustrate the infinite hypocrisy of some self-proclaimed "open-minded" persons.

http://messengerandadvocate.wordpress.com/2008/10/26/tolerance-iii/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31610199@N05/2961598988/

http://messengerandadvocate.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/tolerance-ii/

http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/516158238.html

Does the elephant-in-the-room irony of these stories not bring many a head-scratch?

So, think what you will, vote how you will. This issue has been put in the hands of the people (again, thanks to the judges) to decide.

ADHD occurance by state

http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/adhdprevalence.htm

This is one of the more interesting things I've stumbled across recently. There is a link on the page to the full report, which has breakdowns according to race, economic status, and more. Enjoy.

Meat, Murder, and You

Occasionaly I hear complaints about the evils of hunting and/or fishing. The point being that it is cruel to kill innocent animals and that we don't have a need for such brutality in our ultra-advanced space-aged culture. Fine. If that is what you want to assert, then you can. Unfortunately, many who hold this view also have no problem wolfing down a McDonald's Aortanator or self-asphyxiating with chicken fingers. Delving into the hypocrisy of this will be unnecessary. So, my point is this-if you wish to make complaints about the brutality of animal murder, don't eat meat-ever.

On the other hand, if you are like me and you like a moderate amount of meat in your diet, do the following: kill an animal and eat it. I believe that everyone who eats animals should take personal responsibility for their deaths and personally kill and consume a beast. By doing this, a few things should occur, at least they did for me-first, you should be uneasy about killing animals. There is nothing fun about it (if you do like killing animals, I consider you abnormal and frightening). Second, whenever you eat non-personally-slain-meat, you will remember that the process of putting that meat in the fridge at Wal-Mart involved a similarly unpleasant experience to the one you had. Ultimately, putting a face to the meat should decrease your meat consumption. Most would agree that less meat is more as far as health is concerned.

In summary, eating meat is a responsibility as I see it. If you are going to eat it, don't pretend like your garments aren't stained with the blood of the animals you're eating and personally kill something to fully understand this. If you aren't going to eat it, pontificate to your heart's content about its evils.

Free Book

http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/index.html

The author of Stopping Power, J. Neil Schulman, put his book up for free download. The site also has a personal statement by him about why he chose to do so.

I appreciate his genuine efforts to dispel the fallacies associated with gun control. The quote from Geraldo, of all people, at the top of the page sums up the main point pretty succinctly.

Yet another observation

Today riding down the road away from the gas station was a man on a bicycle. With one arm he had a large, five plus gallon plastic gas can held over his shoulder. With the other had he was steering the steel horse. In his mouth was a cigarette. The story could get more interesting from here, but fortunately for this man it didn't. It is uncertain how much gas the man wielded over his shoulder like a highly flammable knapsack. At any rate, this observation brightened my day significantly.

New observations

Having recently moved to the South, I have a few new fashion question marks to address.

First and foremost-pleated khaki shorts. And I mean SHORTS. It is apparently quite becoming for males to flaunt carrot-toned boar-bristle hairy legs well beyond the knee boundary. Pleating is a practice I wish to formally denounce. This type of shorts usually accompanies a tucked in polo shirt and what I call "boating shoes" for lack of a better term and the complete absence of socks. Entirely too much sweaty, hairy legs for my personal comfort.

Somewhere towards the opposite end of the spectrum are what can be termed shants or ports. These are shorts that are too long to be called shorts and too short to be called pants. The result is roughly 1-3 inches of exposed leg-flesh. Gangster/thug populations are the primary offenders, who to complete the ridiculous uniform wear absurdly oversized t-shirts akin to the Looney-Tunes nightshirts none of us will admit that we have owned at some point in our lives. Gold teeth and a hat that has no evidence of prior human contact gingerly positioned atop the skull will complete this year-long Halloween costume.

NKOTB Reunion

While contemplating the implications of the impending New Kids on the Block reunion and resulting Armageddon, I decided to pique my curiosity and revisit a 30-second clip of the song "Hangin' Tough" on iTunes. For any of you who think you are familiar with the music of NKOTB, I suggest reviewing some of their work, for when I did, I was quite disturbed. The pinnacle of torture was the synthetic whistle sounds which piggy-backed Transylvanian organ riffs sprinkled about a hearty layer of bad boy gibberish. I heard but thirty seconds of the mayhem before uttering the following, "this is what it's like to be dead."

Good Things

This weekend will prove to be an interesting and beneficial one. General Conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will take place and unique to this conference will be the first series of speeches by the new prophet and president of the church, Thomas S. Monson. The former prophet, Gordon B. Hinkley passed away in January, leaving a legacy of service that makes any person feel like they can and should do more for the benefit of others. During President Hinkley's tenure, he wisely denounced such plagues as pornography, profanity, and abuse (sexual, physical, and emotional). He urged humanity to exhibit more kindness and gratitude-simple but powerful tools to lift us all up to a higher level of life. Such an intuitive link to real issues that humanity grapples with is a genuine testament of his divine guidance. Lessons like these have enabled me to live a life that is more focused on love, leading to lasting friendships, and a better understanding of Christ's teachings. I am anxious to hear the message of President Monson, knowing that the advice, warnings, blessings, and experiences he shares will be equally timely and applicable to my situation and challenges. To hear/watch him and other church leadership, click here.

Bands That Won't Die

I find it humorous that there are adequate fans to support the eternal nature of a band like Poison. While in their prime, Poison would not touch a place like Idaho with a 10-foot mic stand. However now, as most sane people have abandoned them, they are forced to cater to true fans who have been waiting literally decades in the nether reaches of the earth for a tour to come to them. Poison is not alone. I've noticed a disturbing trend of ancient, petrified rockers who refuse to stop playing formerly popular songs. Summertime is when the most problems arise, as touring state fairs and biker bars increases exponentially. Some bands, unlike Poison, where at some point capable of producing something of substance, but because of their incessant persistence, have become little more than a novelty. The following is a list of bands (ranging from good to terrible) that have apparently burned all other bridges and refuse to stop playing their music, much to our misfortune:

Dead Kennedys
Misfits
Pennywise
Scorpions
Poison
Van Halen
Quiet Riot
Coolio
Run DMC
Snoop Dogg
Eagles
Peter Frampton
Styx
The Lovin' Spoonful
Skid Row
Korn
Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Rolling Stones
etc, etc, etc.

Almost all bands would have been better off had they called it quits after two albums. Seldom does a band get better. In the cases above, they get worse and worse until all of humanity questions the purpose of life. I will concede there are exceptions to this rule. Some bands actually do develop and improve over time. The Ramones is my favorite example. They started off great, then were absolutely terrible for about 15 years, followed by some great songs before they called it quits.

The pattern is thus: 1) youth+passionate song writing and idealism 2) aging+focus on money and loss of ideals 3) Either a return to passion and idealism or increased focus on marketing of musical product.

Few can pull off what the Ramones did, while there seems to be no end to the sales associate traveling shows criss-crossing the nation. I'm glad some bands have broken up and kept their bad music from propagating itself, and also good music from becoming corrupted by overuse.

ONE of the reasons I'm not voting for Hillary Clinton

http://hillaryclinton.com/files/audio/Hillary08themmix.mp3

If you listen to this three times, you will receive a visit from Beetlejuice.

Mountains Beyond Mountains-Tracy Kidder

As cheesy as it sounds, I really did have trouble putting this book down. A biography of Paul Farmer, who is a doctor and effective advocate of the poor, this impacted me for the better. Dr. Farmer has quite literally dedicated his life to serving the Haitian poor, along with projects in Peru, Russia, and Boston, among other places. His logic and motivation for doing so can not be contended with and left me feeling very inadequate. However, the message of the book embraces this inevitable by-product of reading about an inspirational life. It encourages us to not be intimidated by the scope of poverty and suffering to the point of ignoring it-rather to acknowledge it and do something, whatever we can, and admit the humanity of the poor and our responsibility to help them. I appreciated how the topic was addressed, citing misled rationalization that we all are guilty of from time to time such as: "the poor are poor, but they are happy that way (pobre pero feliz)," "the poor are poor because they are lazy, if they worked harder, they could be like us," and "I'm an American, I don't have to deal with this." All of these are shameful ways we detatch and ignore the fact that the world's poor oftentimes don't have the opportunity to advance out of poverty or even to live. Dr. Farmer's primary work is leveling the right to life playing field and addressing the "pathogenesis of poverty." This book helps us look out of our comfortable materialistic bubble to the reality of suffering and our ability to alleviate it to some degree.

Some good links to organizations that actively address poverty/health issues:

Dr. Farmer's organization:
http://www.pih.org/home.html

Doctors Without Borders:
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/

Microcredit organizations (I love these, another post, another day):
Unitus
Grameen Foundation
FINCA

An important link

Little I could say would expand upon the beauty of this blog:

http://ihatecrocs.com/

Microondas

Occasionally I receive doomsday emails about health issues. Most recently, the subject was microwaves and their inherent evil. I have been exposed to anti-microwave opinions for some time, most of which have been non-convincing. Arguments such as "it changes the chemical structure of the food" have left me scratching my head. I call that cooking. "They use radiation" is also a bad argument, because radiation isn't inherently bad, nor are the different wavelengths equal. Conventional cooking uses radiation, albeit a different flavor. It was with these nonsensical points by the anti-microwavists that I read the recent email. Attached were links to numerous web pages with plenty of arguments like those mentioned above, but I was also able to find some substantial evidence instead of just opinion and ignorance this go around.

One of the favorite citations of these websites is the case of a woman who was killed after recieving a blood transfusion. The blood was heated in a microwave oven by the nurse. The claim is that microwaves do "something different" because blood is regularly heated by other methods before being administered to a patient. Well, anyone who is familiar with microwaves knows that they don't heat evenly and that hot spots are created. It seems pretty evident to me that the blood probably got overheated and the cells were lysed, something that could just have easily occurred by carelessly heating the blood another way. The nurse clearly acted thoughtlessly, but the microwave is not to blame. Upon further investigation, I found that there was reason to believe that the woman died from a blood clot rather than the lysed blood, something the sites fail to mention.

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/3142/

A frequently cited study appeared in Pediatrics

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1557249&dopt=Citation

This information actually comes from what I believe to be a more credible source than random people on the internet and is less subjective. In this study, anti-infective factors in human milk, namely IgA, were reduced to varying degrees after being heated at different settings in a microwave. Subsequently, E. coli growth increased after incubating the microwaved milk when compared to the control milk.

Again, is seems like overheating is the underlying issue here, although even at low settings the milk was affected. It would be interesting to do this study side by side with human milk heated in other ways to determine if the IgA is just really sensitive to any heat at all or if microwaves are actually to blame.

One claim I read deserves consideration, if it is true. I was unable to find the information on the study, but it claimed that "increase of leukocytes with the microwaved foods was more pronounced than with all the other variants." Additionally they claimed, "Common scientific belief states that cholesterol values usually alter slowly over longer periods of time. In this study, the markers increased rapidly after the consumption of the microwaved vegetables. However, with milk, the cholesterol values remained the same and even decreased with the raw milk significantly."

The sites tend to leave out findings like the following, which I found on wikipedia:

"Cornell University scientists looked at the effects of cooking on water-soluble vitamins in vegetables and found that spinach retained nearly all its folate when cooked in a microwave, but lost about 77 percent when cooked on a stove. They also found that bacon cooked by microwave has significantly lower levels of cancer-causing nitrosamines than conventionally cooked bacon."

The one thing that really caught my interest, and once again, it is entirely dependent on the veracity of the site, is this:

http://www.execonn.com/sf/

The link is to a site about a 6th grade science project where plants were watered with microwaved and regular water. You guessed it, the microwaved water-fed plants didn't do so hot.

So, there is some of the evidence that is out there from sources of varying degrees of dependability, but nonetheless interesting. In the meantime, I'll keep warming up my leftovers the fast way. Check out this link for the general anti-microwave consensus:

http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/microwave.html

Band Names

In many cases you can very accurately judge a book by its cover. This is especially evidenced in the case of band names. A good band name can almost entirely offset the complete lack of talent possessed by its members. Below are some names that have won my heart, most of which belong to punk rock bands, which is my background and bias.

REO Speeddealer
John Cougar Concentration Camp
The Flesh Tones
Screeching Weasel
The Meatmen
Megadeth
Death from Above 1979
Septic Death
Swingin' Utters
Man or Astroman?
Tumor Circus
88 Fingers Louie

On the other side of the coin, a band name can prove to be overly contrived and indicative of the over-zealous nature of the group. In these situations, I believe that members brainstorm over their name before actually forming a band, which leads to such mistakes as:

Blink 182
Sum 41
Nickelback
Rage Against the Machine
Taking Back Sunday
Good Charlotte
Men Without Hats
Madonna
Papa Roach

Notice the unnecessary use of gerunds and arbitrary numbers to create the illusion of acceptability. While these methods can be tolerated when coupled with sheer coolosity of imagery, i.e. Screeching Weasel, they generally tout 1)A lack of imagination 2)Desperation 3)A record executive's hand in the "creative process."

The above lists are by no means comprehensive, therefore submissions will be appreciated.

'Tis the season for Mannheim Steamroller

It never ceases to amaze me during the holidays-meandering through any store, I hear that ol' familiar death-ray synthesizer take on Christmas music which is perpetrated by none other than Mannheim Steamroller. I am amazed that people apparently enjoy it enough to patronize it year after year. While I find it infinitely humorous to listen to for under 30 seconds, I am quite baffled that something so extremely cheesy continues to define the Christmas season.

On a recent flight aboard US Airways, I was horrified to witness several Christmas music videos from artists you probably wouldn't normally associate with audio/visual entertainment. The artists were: Enya, Kenny G, and Mannheim Steamroller. This was my last flight with US Airways. Allow me to make a short list of musical endeavors that should never have begun:

1-Enya
2-Mannheim Steamroller
3-Kenny G
4-Good Charlotte

I will not attempt to describe in too much detail what an Enya music video is comprised of, nor that of "MS" or Kenny G. But I will say, "wow." If you want to torture yourself for brief periods of time, look them up on YouTube. For the time being, I will listen to myself humming "Rudolf the Red-nosed reindeer" or other more traditional holiday music.

T-Pain is an Idiot

I had the misfortune of hearing the song "I'm N Luv (Wit a Stripper)" today and my anger has been duly fueled by this "artist" masquerading his excrement as music. Let us delve into the problems with the song. The song is about a man who "falls in love" with an exotic dancer at a strip club, and goes into graphic detail of the whole romantic tale. Love. What exactly does that mean? "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." I will use this as my working definition of love, as I have full confidence that it's originator was qualified to make it. Laying down one's life for another equals love. I interpret this as dying in defense of another, but also more importantly, living for them. Putting off your own desires to meet another person's needs-that is love. Is it any wonder that mothers love their kids so much? Babies are literally attached to them for months. I don't believe love is automatic, but rather it is something that grows and matures the more you serve someone. Infatuation and lust however, require no effort at all and in turn, nothing of worth or endurance is gained. The song in question contains no element of love whatsoever. Staring at a woman removing her clothing and dancing is nothing more than an act of selfish gratification. I feel safe asserting that men in strip clubs don't care about the women there. In fact, they spite them by demeaning them and supporting an industry that echoes sentiments of slavery. This song is a landmark in our decline as a race. T-Pain has poignantly described our problem with self-centered sexist materialism. Let's remember what love is-and isn't.

Pants & Evolution

Take a look at a peacock. The male peacock has cumbersome feathers that interfere with flight. They are bright and flashy to attract mates, but also make the bird an easy target for predators. The feathers are not practical except for the purpose of attracting female peacocks, who for some reason are wooed by them. Why are they wooed? This is a question that evolutionary biology attempts to answer. Does the disadvantage of the feathers make the male more attractive to the female because he has to overcome the odds of his own rediculosity? Does that say that he has good strong genes because he can survive even with a handicap? Or are they just pretty to the female? Whatever the reason, the system works and the species continues to survive. What are the parallels in our own species to this impractical system? Take a walk downtown on a Friday night. You'll see young men wearing equally impractical things. Namely skin-tight pants. I don't think that I am alone in my wishes for a rapid end to this abominable fad. In my day, it was big pants. In fact there are a few pairs of dusty old 50's in my wardrobe from my peacock days. The fads have gone from one extreme to another. So why do the fads have to be impractical? It's not just overly tight or overly loose clothes, anything impractical (Kris-Kross comes to mind-they wore their pants backwards). Is this a question of evolution as well? You may want to ask yourself if you admire guys wearing really tight pants because of their ability to overcome the inconvenience of their attire. Why don't sweat pants and V-neck T-shirts with pizza stains attract females? Because they are too comfortable. You can do anything in sweatpants, but try and run from a pack of wolves with a pair of low-rise girl pants on. If you can do it, you will be a real beefcake.

Matisyahu-Youth

Matisyahu is great. However, this album is not. It reeks of something forced out by a record company in the wake of Matisyahu's rising popularity after "Live at Stubbs" was released. A lot of the songs are mediocre, with some exceptions like "Time of Your Song" and "Jerusalem," both of which sound a lot better live and unadulterated by Bill Laswell. This man has a "Matchbox 20" effect on Matisyahu, turning everything unique about him into a cliche puddle of vanilla goo. I think something that was forgotten when this album was put in the mass-production machine is that Matisyahu got popular on his own merits with a LIVE album! The energy of "Live at Stubbs" is completely lost in this mainstream potboiler. The lyrical content however, is still pretty good. While the songs do not follow the story format of "Chop 'em Down" or "Aish Tamid," they are inspirational. In short, this album is a disappointment that requires effort to enjoy. If you like Matisyahu, you will have to look past this mistake and hope for better things to come.

Stay in Sturgis

This year I would like to encourage all motorcycle enthusiasts who answer the call of duty to attend biker rallies to not come home. The rest of us will be far better off without handle-bar moustaches, chaps, noise pollution, and a culture based on nothing other than materialism and rediculous machismo. Your chopper phenomenon is permeating the furthest reaches of our nation and can be seen in a flood of t-shirts, stickers akin to Calvin urinating on various logos, television shows promoting the chopper "lifestyle," and yuppies turned bad-boys who dress down from business casual to black leather tassels and dreamcatcher earrings. If you need something to spend your salary on, rather than extending the length of your chrome handlebars even further beyond reach, please make sure you have enough money for gas to arrive safely in Sturgis or Laughlin, but not a penny more.

The Quill and the Sword

Walking through any college campus or most large parks one will encounter a curious sight: persons outfitted in medieval garb wielding primitive wooden weapons attempting to hack each other to bits. Where did these people come from? Why are they here? And where are they going? I was baffled today as I walked by a tent for the Quill and the Sword medieval renaissance club and heard a 13th century maiden tooting away on a Robin Hood-esque flute of some sort. What drives these people to unite in such a strange and arbitrary purpose? Then again, maybe its not all that arbitrary. I imagine it fills some type of need. Olde fashioned good vs. evil, a representation of many of these peoples lives spent battling misunderstanding by the majority of the population. But then again, I don't know if they want to be understood. Perhaps that is the point of it all. The lifestyle tends to go hand in hand with hardcore gaming (of the video and board sort), sci-fi obsession (T-shirts that say things like "sith happens"), severe anti-social behavior (minus interactions with other "warriors"), poor hygiene, faded black clothing (betimes smudged with pizza stains), greasy, stringy hair, and marathon viewings of The Highlander and Star Wars films. While I am thoroughly entertained by the lifestyle itself, I am even more intrigued as to its purpose and the fulfillment it gives to those who adhere to its strict code. I therefore encourage and request publication of insights and answers into this enigmatic culture preferably in a language other than Klingon.

New Milestones in Poor Customer Service

I will make no claims to have the worst customer service stories, but I feel the need to share two entertaining tales of retail mediocrity. First, I had a comical/sad experience at L&L Hawaiian Barbeque. During my single days, I frequented this greasy Hawaiian spoon when funds permitted. They gave hefty polynesian-worthy portions, which was my only prerequisite for eateries. At this recent visit, I discovered my tastes have become slightly more refined. My meal consisted of fried Chicken Katsu, rice, and a ball of macaroni glued together with mayonnaise. This weighty dish wasn't all bad, but I knew that by eating it my life expectancy was shortening by a considerable amount. The nature of the meal demanded the use of my hands at times, resulting in a fair amount of grease soilage. I rose from my seat to search for something to remove the oil, but ne'ery a napkin was to be found. Defeated, I returned to my seat. Deanna, my dear wife, was experiencing the same phenomenon, but more determined than I, she asked the cashier for guidance. The cashier's reply seems more shocking each time I ponder its meaning. She said "we're out of napkins, but there's some paper towels in the bathroom." Returning to our table, Deanna informed me of the situation. Shocked and somewhat disgusted, yet still soiled nonetheless, I went to the bathroom and got our "napkins." Rather demeaning, the more I think about it. Second comes a tale from a fellow co-worker and friend who purchased a take and bake pizza from Papa Murphy's. Upon arrival at her home, she noticed a familiar fuzzy green fur on the cheese. Returning the pizza to it's contaminated creator, she said "the cheese on this pizza has mold on it." Now, it is relevant to mention that we work as microbiologists, and this friend sees mold on a daily basis. The employee responds, "oh, that's oven grease." No refund, no nothing. No pizza without "oven grease." Why the lack of responsibility from these people? Is it the low wage they earn? Drugs? Bad parenting? The schools? Oprah Winfrey? I don't know, but it really makes me wonder what allows them to detatch so well.

Baby Steps to Sanity

I can think of few practices more revolting than smoking. It smells like and is sure to bring about grim death. If people want to smoke, fine. The problem is others have to deal with the stench, so it is not an entirely self-contained self-destructive process. Why do people smoke? For many reasons I suppose, but one reason is to take off the edge, to relax, to relieve anxiety. So why not take anti-depressants instead? They don't smell like a tire fire and they won't kill you as certainly. If nothing else, this would fulfill my selfish desires to avoid cigarette stench. Is it a permanent answer to help smokers? No. People deal with stress, anxiety, brain snakes, the crazies, whatever you want to call it in many ways. Some people drink copious amounts of alcohol, some people chain smoke, others do "hardcore" drugs. These are destructive ways to cope. The clean-cut demographic tends to use legal drugs to cope, some of which don't have such detrimental side effects (like stench). This method is non-constructive. Others choose to fight the loopy McDoos by doing constructive things-hobbies. Rather than merely keeping madness at bay, some can replace it and develop a talent, learn their potential, improve. I guess that goes for a lot of bad situations-you can choose how to deal with them. You can make them worse, do nothing, or turn them into something good. So my plea to smokers is this: at least do nothing. Go get pills and stop stinking up my personal bubble.

Musical Fruit

The current state of music is quite grim. Unfortunately, it is not grim enough to end the careers of the dozens of petrified rockers that tour the country every summer or prevent the invention of such poignant anthems as "Break Stuff." So when something comes along with more to say than "Girl You Know it's True," I get excited. Matisyahu is one of the only good things going on with music right now. Finally someone sings about positive things that actually matter. Moses, Joseph, faith, obeying God's commandments. A lot different than most of the catchy nonsense that is unavoidable now. Naturally, when his traveling band came to town, I took notice and wanted to go take a looksee. So I did, and he was very entertaining and did what he did well. Sadly, the experience as a whole drove my disillusionment with the music industry to new frontiers. Amidst throngs of miscreants I attempted to gleam some goodness from the Hasidic man behind the microphone, while most seemed to be focused on how intoxicated they could get and ironically, forget the evening altogether. In fact, if Twisted Sister had been headlining the show, the crowd composition would have remained roughly the same, minus myself. Maybe I am a fool to think that I could go to a very commercial, very large, concert event and be there to listen to music. Apparently, that isn't what happens at the big bill events. This was my first amphitheater experience and probably my last. What I witnessed was little more than an excuse to get completely sloshed in public. Am I too idealistic to think that going to a concert means going to listen to the bands and not merely show up to the commotion and shorten my lifespan with gold paint fumes and hashish stained with the blood of third-world peasants? It seems that the Woodstock culture (which I'm sure didn't originate with Woodstock) continues to thrive in the current generation, people show up "to be a part of the experience." Well, I don't want their "experience" whatever that is. Anyway, listen to Matisyahu. By yourself. And cherish every moment. And, if you can, book him to come perform in your basement. But don't invite anyone who would wear a shirt with a list of tour dates on the back.