I started up a Blip page: http://blip.fm/stan8331

Also started up a Twitter page: http://twitter.com/stan8331

I have so much extra time on my hands - what better way to spend it than on a gazillion barely differentiated Web 2.0 sites?

Posted a new blog about my recent, first-ever visit: http://punkrockplanet.wordpress.com/2009/01/04/nyc-me/

Politicians are not a lovable bunch of folks.  As a group, they lust for mass approval and immense power and employ the most despicable of means to achieve those ends.  Manipulation of emotion and incitement of ancient prejudice are their stock in trade.

I'm not going to try to claim that Barack Obama isn't a politician.  Nobody who is entirely above the fray will ever succeed in the political arena.  But I do see Obama as offering a significantly different choice than we have been given in recent times.  The extreme wings of both major political parties have been running things for far too long,  The extremists love partisan vitriol, and in recent times they have successfully engineered it into the fabric of our political system.  Right wing Republicans have turned this strategy into a fine art but left wing Democrats are no less partsan - only less successful. 

For me, this election basically requires a decision as to who I believe will be more of a disappointment to his extreme-wing supporters.  Throughout this entire campaign, John McCain has offered no evidence whatsoever that he will be willing to stand up to the Republican "base".  He has repeatedly reversed his own previously held positions to adopt inflexible hard-line stances.  This comes after eight years of George Bush's disastrous, ideologically driven policies and repugnant nose-rubbing tactics.  Most significantly, it comes with the knowledge that the replacement of liberal Supreme Court justices likely to retire within the next four years with people like John Roberts and Sam Alito - the exact sort of folks John McCain has promised to nominate - could leave us with an ultra-conservative Supreme Court certain to eliminate or sharply curtail many of the individual Constitutional rights we now enjoy.  

For all those reasons, and because I believe Barack Obama is a stable, relatively normal guy will govern pragmatically rather than be driven by ideological zeal, he will receive my vote this Tuesday. 

MySpace seems to have become a victim of its own popularity.  There's so much commercial promotion here now that the social networking function seems to have more or less evaporated.  I don't suppose the genie will ever go back its bottle, but I nevertheless miss the time when it felt a little less impersonal in this neck of the woods...

Reposted from my SG blog...

Elsie

When I logged in tonight to discover that Lianne had passed away, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I don't think we had ever conversed beyond a few blog comments, but that girl had a special place in my heart from the beginning. Her spirit shines through in her music - she was just getting started and still trying to figure out her place in the world, like most young people, but she had a bright kernel of real talent. It's horribly, grotesquely unfair for someone so full of life and possibility to be taken so early. We all know that life offers no guarantees, but unfortunately it often requires something this painful to give that knowledge a tangible meaning.

I'm sad for everyone involved - her family and friends, of course, and for myself that I'll never have a chance to get to know her better. Sometimes there just are no words to convey the depth of a tragedy. My heartfelt condolences to anyone who's feeling this awful loss.

Here's my favorite original song of hers - for anyone who hasn't already heard it, Never Cared is absolutely fantastic and extremely well-written:

I raced for 10+ years, until my division was canceled at the end of the 2001 season. The ensuing seven years feel more like seven months - the memories are still that fresh. The odds of my old limited open wheel class ever coming back are very slim, but there are various classes of IMCA-type modifieds that could conceivably be something that would work for me. I just learned that a limited modified class will be added to OKC's State Fair Speedway for the 2009 season.

So, an opportunity does exist. The real question is whether I should get back into racing. IMCA Modifieds aren't the class I love most but they might be a lot of fun. Economically, racing makes no sense. Racing never makes financial sense for anyone who isn't a salaried driver at the very highest levels of the sport, e.g. NASCAR. But it is something for which I have both passion and at least a degree of knowledge and skill. There are plenty of other questions even if I do decide to jump back in - it's definitely not clear how much help I would get, and it would also feel really weird to try to do it without my dad.

If I decide to stay away from racing, the other possibilities are to try to do something music-related (DIY indie label, small club) or to get more serious about photography. Either could potentially be good, but both lack the visceral thrills of racing. I know I need to make a decisive move soon, but right now I'm completely unsure of which path I'll choose to follow...

Watching Tiger Woods do one miraculous thing after another in the U.S. Open yesterday, on one friggin' leg, I was reminded how similar golf can be to life.  Aptitude and ability matter, a lot, but while they're necessary they are definitely not sufficient.  Real success is to be found, when and where it can be found, through belief in self and persistence in the face of unfortunate circumstances and/or daunting odds. 

Humans are capable of doing incredible, unexplainable things when we both refuse to accept that we can't, AND develop a rational, well-thought plan that makes it possible for the improbable to occur.  That's  a truth that I've always had to struggle to believe in for my own life, but I think I can claim to apply it better now than in the past.

It's Father's Day, and my father isn't here.  I know I'm not alone in that circumstance - my heart goes out to all of you who have lost.  The best, really the only thing I can do now to honor my dad is to try to live my life by the high standard he set.  He and mom have given me a damn fine set of tools - it's up to me to strive to put them to the best possible use.  Thanks daddy, I'm going to do my best to live up to your example.