Learn to Play Acoustic Guitar 8

Music.Art.Dance.Drama. NIGHT

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:04 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!            Hot and Cold - Katy Perry          If I Were a Boy - Beyonce Twist it - ""        1985 - Bowling For Soup        Stop and Stare - One Republicomfg peoplelike OMFGGGGGGGGGG!!!fuck, this is why i love music.you win some, you lose some.you fuck up! and your stuck feeling like shit ...and then a decision has to be made ....you gonna get the fuck up and play some music"or you gonna sit around feeling sorry for youself"FUCK THAT!I'M A WINNNERRRRRRRRI'M A FIGHTERRRRIMA GET BACK ON MY FEET!!!!YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!FUCK! JOHNNY CAKE WE OWN!!I'M SITTING HERE, JUST COOLING DOWN NOT WEARING MUCH .. WAIT .. TOO MUCH INFO?umm yeah .. my bad :D, thinkning to myself about tonightit was freaking legendary bro, MADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD NIGHT INDEED!(BTW - Music, Art, Dance, Drama)OMG OMFG ... where to start aye?THE WHOLE DAY'S BEEN A BIT OF A BLUR LIKE .. OMG MANwe had music practice the whole day today (omg why can't everyday be like this?)just being around all these likeminded people, who, you can sense .. were like born to perform and play music and just entertain people Some practices went off without a hitch, others .. not so much. it broke my heart to see lang upset, over something we've all worked hard for. Those kinda moments, i think i'm really hopeless at, and it sucks feeling that vulnerable. but it was so awesome seeing us all as a collective get back up and start playing so well.CONGRATULATIONS! NOT JUST FOR US JOHNNY CAKE, BUT FOR EVERYONE.Days like these don't come 'round too often .. days when everyone gets crammed into a seemingly huge green igloo shaped dome :D and gets treated to nearly 4 hours of good music, with good people. HIGHLIGHTS:-Omg, Paulini and Saito, those two beautiful Islander girls, make me believe in something divine like god, cause only someone truly blessed can sing like that.-Hearing the girls (Larisa, Lynh and Eva) sing beautifully and in hectic harmony it gave me goosebumbs and chills that ran all the way down my spine  .. it's just something so hectic to hear, see, feel. using such basic senses that have almost been forgotten.-OMG "1985", WHAT MORE CAN I SAY" this song, is sooooooooo legendary. hands down one of the top three favourite David Bui Songs .. of ALL time. and to be able to play it for a crowd that appreciative, and enthusiastic, and supportive. i think, this song sums up all the good times and the funny shit we got up to during our high school years, and wihtout it. i think we'd be lost, stuck listening to depressing slowjams (HAHAHA!). It was one of the best feelings in the world to play this song, for MADD night, more importantly .. for wendy, but ultimately, all of us. dedicated to having a good time, while listening to good music with good people.-The teachers 12 pc band performances at the end of the night, was the stuff of legends, great versions of such classic songs pulled off with so much, enthusiasm and raw hurrah! that just brought the whole crowd to their feet, and evetually! LIKE 60 OF US (including yours truly ;D) ran up on stage dancing to these golden oldies. That was the craziest feeling ever.-AND! what kind of music night would be complete if we didn't have awesome seniors to play all those hectic songs, i must admit, thoguh you guys aren't my favourite people in the world, but you put on an awesome show, and i salute you! HAHAHHA (oh and i was one of the people singing to "My Sharona" :D:D) -And of course .. our very own group, Johnny (motherfucking!) Cake!!!!!!!.Guys, my heart and soul went into this performance tonight, and i felt (and this is no bullshit) that we were so awesome, every single note expressed by Langs Voice, Keagan's guitar and mine, Danny's bass, and Trang's Drums you could hear all the hard work, the really shitty lows and the awesome highs we've felt practicing at lunch, practicing during music lessons with that furiosly frustrating (haha! alliteration) teacher of ours .. who i have [...]

The importance of practicing guitar with a metronome

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:04 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!The importance of practicing guitar with a metronome by Tennyson WilliamsEventually there comes a time in a guitarist's life when he or she decides that it is necessary to clean things up a bit. I have seen so many guitar players work with sloppy riffs, and unsynchronized timings, until one day they make the "decision of precision".1. The decision of precision and why it is importantYou should understand that no matter how far you want to take your playing on the guitar, there is always room for cleanliness and finesse. If you are going to spend a lifetime playing the guitar, you might as well do it to the best of your capabilities.The great invention that bestows perfect playing is none other than the metronome, and I strongly believe that a guitarist who does not work with one, at least every now and then, is wasting talent. We all have the ability to play at a phenomenal level, no matter the choice of music.A metronome facilitates all speeds of guitar playing or music in general. If you plan on playing something slow - use a metronome. If you plan to work on something fast - use a metronome.The biggest reason for this is simply the fact that when we practice, our hands tend to move a little faster than they are capable of. I can go a little further in that statement, by explaining that our hands tend to move faster than our minds.Remember this, control over timing, speed, and fluid movement is determined by the brain. This is also why a lot of guitar players never move forward with their speed goals. They don't understand that its a 50/50. Fifty percent of precision and speed comes from the physical properties of the hands, like muscle memory, and the other fifty percent comes about by the mind's strength and focus. These two factors must always be working in unison, in order to make the best of your playing.2. Training with a metronomeWorking with a metronome is not hard, but at first it can seem a little boring. If you can stick with it consistently for a few days, you will start to notice a large amount of progress in your playing, and then the progress itself becomes a lot of fun.A metronome is your best friend, because it tells you what's really going on. It works with you to clean up your playing and make great progress, as long as you are willing to work with it and not against it.It reminds me of this program Quicken, which is used to manage your finances. Its amazing, because everyone who starts using it always comes back with the same response. "I had no idea that I was wasting so much money on useless things, and now that I see where my money is going - I can correct this for a better financial status!".Though its and odd comparison, Quicken and a metronome both have something in common. They both can help you determine bad habits. In other words, they contain a lot of strange wisdom and help you to see the light.No one can possibly progress in anything in life until they see what is holding them back.If you really want to make great progress with a metronome, then here are some tips, and these tips can be applied to working with chords, or simply notes and other techniques.a) Always start something new at an insanely slow amount of speed.b) When you are working at this slow rate of speed, your objective is to establish perfect clarity with notes, chords, or other techniques.c) Building a good foundation with a chord, chords, lick, riff, note, notes techniques, is the key to true progression. Speed should be in the back of your mind, as it will come naturally if you can play smoothly at increasing tempos.d) Practice all things on the guitar with a different variation. If you can play one lick with strictly alternate picking, then work on that same lick with strictly legato. Play an exercise backwards, forwards, east and west.e) Work with exercises in 4ths, 8ths, and 16ths, and do this at varying tempos. Remember, the more notes or pick strokes, the more yo[...]

Learning Classical Guitar the Right Way

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:04 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!Learning Classical Guitar the Right Way by Ben DressenBeginners can sometimes feel overwhelmed when they start learning classical guitar. The technique, sight reading, interpretation and the whole complexity of the experience can make one feel a bit anxious about what proper steps should be taken to gain visible results. It doesn't help that classical music as a whole conjures up images of snobbish people that aren't very interested in letting someone in their private circles.Well, it's not like that at all. Learning classical guitar can be fun and rewarding if you keep in mind the things we will be discussing in this article. and no, it's not mandatory to wear your tuxedo, pull out a monocle and start speaking in a "highbrow" tone.Jumping straight into complicated material is one of the biggest mistakes that beginners make and it leads only to frustration. Imagine for a second that you are trying to work on your car's engine with the blueprint in front of you. Now, if you have never taken an auto mechanic course and don't know much about how engines work you won't get very far. You might be able to figure out where certain parts are by looking at the blueprint but you'll have no idea what exactly they do and how you should fix them.If your car engine would be your guitar playing, then your blueprints would be the sheet music. But there is another component that must be brought into the mix for things to work. Either take classical guitar lessons or teach yourself using a classical guitar method such as the one by Mateo Carcassi or Sagreras.These books have been written in such a way as to gradually give you tangible results. Because they are method books, they teach the student in a progressive and correct way, and as a result you may find yourself tackling your favorite piece easily and with great results. They use exercises as well as "studies" (musical pieces devoted to teaching you a certain technique) to build your technical as well as interpretative skills. Besides teaching technique, methods also facilitate intimate knowledge of your instrument, which is just a fancy way of saying that you will know your guitar inside and out. But can you really teach yourself classical guitar? Yes, you can. Two of the greatest classical guitar players ever, Tarrega and Segovia, where self taught.In the beginning it is a good idea to spend at least half of your practice time doing exercises. This will help you become more limber on the guitar and you will also see great progress in the pieces you're working on.After you get a classical guitar method and you start working it, the next step is getting some material so you can build your repertoire. Pick carefully so that you balance your own personal taste with the level of the piece. In other words, the piece you choose should be one that you like and at the level that you can handle technically.You may go to a gym wanting to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, however trying to weight lift 250 pounds when you can barely get 70 pounds off the ground isn't the way to do it. If you do attempt it, instead of bigger muscles you will probably end up in the hospital. It's the same thing that's happening when you attempt to play pieces that are way above your current level. Having said that, it should be noted that it's good to get pieces that challenge you a little bit. This makes you grow. You will have to use your good judgment as to what constitutes challenging. Just like getting a hernia isn't a muscle building technique, playing way above your level will only lead to failure and frustration.Because of the nature of baroque music and of his compositions, Bach's works are extremely conducive towards gaining great balance and technique on the instrument. Therefore, any student would benefit immensely by learning from the master's material. Bach's pieces are also great for developing great tone and they are fun to pla[...]

Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale speaks

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:04 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now![3 articles]Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale speaks in Berkeleyhttp://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_11613729By Kristin BenderOakland TribunePosted: 02/02/2009BERKELEY ­ Kicking off Black History Month at Berkeley City College on Monday, Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, denounced last month's riots in downtown Oakland in the wake of Oscar Grant III's shooting by a BART police officer, instead calling for greater community control of police.About 100 college students and community members turned out to see Seale, now 72 and promoting his book, "Barbeque'n With Bobby," give a wandering 90-minute talk that prompted at least a dozen students to walk out. Organizers and other students, however, called a success.The speech jumped from the history of the radical party to the importance of electing progressive African-Americans to political office to why the Grant riots were pointless."I wouldn't have rioted," Seale said, answering a question by a student of how he would have reacted to Grant's killing. "I understand why (it happened), but I wouldn't have rioted. When Martin Luther King Jr. died, there were 400 riots in America, (which didn't solve anything)."Instead, Seale said there must be structured legislation and policies to "give people the power to investigate the police. These so-called police review boards are not the name of the game."Seale, who was part of the original group of 14 young men and women who armed themselves and "observed" the police in West Oakland during the 1960s, said Grant's killing shows that racism has not been banished from police work."(The officer) said he was trying to pull out his Taser. Why would you pull out a Taser, anyway?" Seale asked the crowd. "(Grant) was on the ground facedown and handcuffed."Brhett Skipper, a 26-year old North Oakland resident and full-time Berkeley City College student, said Seale's talk was a success because he is such a "big name in African-American progress.""I think it was great to hear more about the (Black Panther Party) programs," Skipper said. "That is the epitome of what needs to be done in our community now."Although former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover once called the Black Panthers the "greatest threat to the internal security of the country," the party is known for its more than 20 social programs that gave free breakfast to thousands of schoolchildren every day, registered people to vote, distributed free bags of groceries and ran urban medical clinics.Heavily inspired by slain civil rights leader Malcolm X and his teachings, Seale and Huey Newton founded the party in October 1966.Though the party was based in Oakland, there soon were 49 branches and chapters nationwide with a membership of at least 5,000 at one point during the '60s and '70s, Seale said.Seale was one of the original "Chicago Eight" defendants charged with conspiracy and inciting to riot after 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. A judge sentenced him to four years in prison for contempt because of his outbursts in court. Eventually he ordered Seale severed from the case, and the remaining defendants became known as the "Chicago Seven."Seale said that Steven Spielberg was looking to direct a movie about the trial and cast actor Will Smith as him. Dozens of reports about the project on the Internet say Spielberg has dropped the project and that Ben Stiller is in talks to direct it.--Kristin Bender covers Berkeley. Reach her at kbender@bayareanewsgroup.com.--------Co-founder of Black Panthers sees progresshttp://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/623280.htmlBRIAN EVERSTINE; brian.everstine@thenewstribune.comPublished: 02/11/09When Bobby Seale became an activist in the 1960s, there were about 80 elected black politicians throughout the country.Seale, a co-founder of the Black P[...]

Dead Man Talking

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:04 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!Dead Man Talkinghttp://www.texasobserver.org/article.php"aid=2955Why Bill Hicks is still funny.Brad TyerFebruary 06, 2009"Here's the deal, folks. You do a commercial, you're off the artistic roll call, forever. End of story. Okay? You're another whore at the capitalist gangbang, and if you do a commercial there's a price on your head. Everything you say is suspect and every word that comes out of your mouth is now like a turd falling into my drink." ­Bill HicksOn Friday, Jan. 30, The Late Show with David Letterman aired a routine by comedian Bill Hicks that Letterman himself had inexplicably axed from the program when it was recorded in October 1993. It would have been Hicks' last major appearance. Three months later he was dead.The anniversary repeat of a bit that never ran seems a reasonable occasion for wondering whether Bill Hicks, an Austin favorite who started his career in Houston, is still worth listening to.Letterman seems to think so.Hicks had been on the show before, 11 times, the first courtesy of a recommendation from early-days running buddy Jay Leno, who had an in. After Leno helped him get the Letterman spot, Hicks developed a savage bit called "Artistic Roll Call," on the Rant in E-Minor album, in which "Dorito-shilling whore" Jay Leno, rather than waste the rest of his bought-and-paid-for life interviewing the likes of Joey Lawrence, swallows the barrel of a 9mm pistol and sprays a blood-and-brains mural of an NBC peacock on the wall behind his head, "a company man to the bitter fucking end."They call that biting the hand. No point in asking why Hicks was never invited on The Tonight Show.The Letterman incident, on the other hand, was never satisfactorily explained until Friday, when Letterman apologized to Hicks' mother Mary for his earlier timidity. Hicks' routine was dated but spot-on, culminating in a riotous critique of pro-life hypocrisies that was probably the least profane bit Hicks ever did on the subject.After getting cut Hicks wrote a long letter to New Yorker theater critic John Lahr, who immediately profiled Hicks in the magazine:"What I realized was that they don't want the people to be awake. The elite ruling class wants us asleep so we'll remain a docile, apathetic herd of passive consumers and non-participants in the true agendas of our governments, which is to keep us separate and present an image of a world filled with unresolvable problems, that they, and only they, might somewhere, in the never-arriving future, may be able to solve. Just stay asleep, America. Keep watching television."It was Hicks' Lenny Bruce moment, the instant he became an officially sanctioned martyr to a cause. He sealed the deal by dying of pancreatic cancer in January 1994. He was 32, a year shy of Christ.Legacy-wise, it's probably for the best that he didn't live long enough to become a hermit or a hypocrite himself. Watching Bill Hicks get and then lose his inevitable sitcom would have been much too much to bear.For a certain sort of comedy fan, and for a whole subgenre of rock and roll fans who probably never listened to a stand-up act before Hicks, which is to say for the cult that survives him, his early death turned every word he ever spoke to gold.When Bill Hicks was in his prime, in the early 1990s, the pornography business was conducted via VHS, George H.W. Bush was exercising what's come to look like restraint in Iraq, and the now-obliterated notion that artistic integrity might bear an inverse relationship to commercial servitude could still draw a thin but appreciative crowd. Domestic terrorism was an FBI raid in Waco, which provided a close-to-home target almost tailor-made for Hicks' Big-Brother-Lies-To-You sensibilities."I was in Australia, and the Australians had a big contingency at the Branch Davidian co[...]

Anti-war play gets a timely revival

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:04 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now![2 articles]Anti-war play gets a timely revivalhttp://www.dailybreeze.com/lifeandculture/ci_11620363By Jeff FavrePosted: 02/04/2009Though the 87-year-old Jesuit priest is still alive and active, Daniel Berrigan isn't familiar to post-Vietnam War generations.But the ongoing, unpopular Iraq war again brings to light his seminal anti-war protest, which Berrigan turned into a play."The Trial of the Catonsville Nine" is a free-verse dramatization of the conviction of Berrigan, his brother Philip - also a priest - and seven others for removing files from a draft board in Catonsville, Md., in 1968 and burning them in the street with homemade napalm.The play, inextricably linked to Los Angeles because it premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in 1971, returns home, this time to The Actors' Gang, a hub of political theater."The Trial of the Catonsville Nine," directed by Jon Kellam, with Andrew J. Wheeler portraying Berrigan, is in previews at The Ivy Substation in Culver City. The regular run opens Feb. 14.Interest in "Catonsville" was revived in 2007 when The Actors' Gang, under its original director, Gordon Davidson, staged a reading at Culver City's Kirk Douglas Theater with Martin Sheen, Tim Robbins and several other Hollywood notables.The Gang, which addressed the current war with Robbins' dark satire "Embedded," added "Catonsville" to its schedule as a full-scale production."We tried to get the play up before the election," said Kellam, during a rehearsal break. "But we realized it's the perfect time even after the election because it revives the idea of civil disobedience and brings up a time of grassroots movements, which is kind of what this election represented. Also, given the economic crisis, which is a large scene in the play, the time is right."Though he wasn't intimate with the material before taking on the project, Kellam recalls the era well."I was 10 in 1968, and living in Chicago," he recalled. "My father was a professor, so I saw a lot of demonstrations. My dad's family lives about 20 minutes away from Catonsville, and when I was visiting last Thanksgiving I visited the site where it took place. There's a library across the street, and I went there and talked to the librarian."Wheeler's research goes directly to the source. While touring with "Embedded," the actor met Berrigan. Their conversation led to an ongoing correspondence."Some people you meet have a courage of conviction and quiet confidence that is inspiring," Wheeler said. "Daniel is one of those people."After Berrigan was convicted, he went underground, eluding capture for months and giving interviews about the anti-war movement. He eventually was apprehended and spent two years in prison."What I didn't know was that he went underground to help keep the event in the public eye," Kellam said. "It helped change public opinion."When the play debuted, Berrigan was still in hiding, but Davidson, the former artistic director of the Mark Taper Forum, played a recording of the author. Berrigan didn't attend the recent staged reading for health reasons, but he wrote a letter that stated, "Would that the point of the play had been learned - alas for these dark times!"Kellam met with Davidson, who shared his original floor plan and discussed the blocking he used for the 2007 reading."Even though it was just a reading, I realized that the way he created a triangle with the two lawyers and the judge was a perfect symbol for the checks and balances of power between the three branches of government," Kellam said.Though some of the production's look may reflect Davidson's ideas, the Actors' Gang's stamp will be evident. Kellam is incorporating actor training in the Suzuki Method and Viewpoints, which he used for the company's "Drums in the Nigh[...]

Students are revolting: The spirit of '68 is reawakening

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:04 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!Students are revolting: The spirit of '68 is reawakeninghttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/students-are-revolting-the-spirit-of-68-is-reawakening-1604043.htmlCampus sit-ins began as a response to the Gaza attacks, but unrest is already spilling over to other issues. Emily Dugan reportsSunday, 8 February 2009They are the iPod generation of students: politically apathetic, absorbed by selfish consumerism, dedicated to a few years of hedonism before they land a lucrative job in the City. Not any more. A seismic change is taking place in British universities.Around the UK, thousands of students have occupied lecture theatres, offices and other buildings at more than 20 universities in sit-down protests. It seems that the spirit of 1968 has returned to the campus.While it was the situation in Gaza that triggered this mass protest, the beginnings of political enthusiasm have already spread to other issues.John Rose, one of the original London School of Economics (LSE) students to mount the barricades alongside Tariq Ali in 1968, spent last week giving lectures on the situation in Gaza at 12 of the occupations."This is something different to anything we've seen for a long time," he said. "There is genuine fury at what Israel did."I think it's highly likely that this year will see more student action. What's interesting is the nervousness of vice chancellors and their willingness to concede demands; it indicates this is something that could well turn into [another] '68."Beginning with a 24-hour occupation at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) on 13 January, the sit-ins spread across the country. Now occupations have been held at the LSE, Essex, King's College London, Birmingham, Sussex, Warwick, Manchester Metropolitan, Oxford, Leeds, Cambridge, Sheffield Hallam, Bradford, Nottingham, Queen Mary, Manchester, Strathclyde, Newcastle, Kingston, Goldsmiths and Glasgow.Among the demands of students are disinvestment in the arms trade; the promise to provide scholarships for Palestinian students; a pledge to send books and unused computers to Palestine; and to condemn Israeli attacks on Gaza.Technology has set these actions apart from those of previous generations, allowing a national momentum to grow with incredible speed. Through the linking up of internet blogs, news of successes spread quickly and protests grew nationwide.Just three weeks after the first sit-in at SOAS, students gathered yesterday at Birkbeck College to draw up a national strategy. The meeting featured speeches from leaders in the Stop the War movement, such as Tony Benn, George Galloway MP and Jeremy Corbyn MP. There has also been an Early Day Motion tabled in Parliament in support of campus activism.At the end of the month students from across the country will gather for a national demonstration calling for the abolition of tuition fees, an event that organisers say has rocketed in size following the success of the occupations over Gaza.Vice chancellors and principals have been brought to the negotiating table and – in the majority of universities – bowed to at least one of the demands. The students' success means that now there is a new round of protests. On Wednesday two new occupations began at Strathclyde and Manchester universities, and on Friday night students at the University of Glasgow also launched a sit-in.Emily Dreyfus, a 21-year-old political activist in her third year of reading classics at Oxford, was one of around 80 students to occupy the historic Bodleian library building in the city and demand that the university issue a statement condemning the Gaza attacks and disinvest from the arms trade. She said: "I found Oxford politically very dead when I arrived, but it's completely di[...]

Remembering Huey P. Newton

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:04 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!Remembering Huey P. Newton: A People's Warrior For REAL Changehttp://www.blackcommentator.com/311/311_kir_black_history_month_huey_newton_printer_friendly.htmlKeeping it RealBy Larry PinkneyFebruary 12, 2009"It is the power of the people and the people only to whom we will be thankful, and in whom our faith rests for the future." - Huey P. NewtonIn these perilous times of corporate media and government manipulated false "hope" and fake "change" gimmickry - combined with the dangerous messianic illusions on the part of some pertaining to Barack Obama, who is the U.S. Empire's latest cynical attempt at mass political hallucination and control; it is important, necessary, and sobering to reflect upon the accomplishments of a genuine people's warrior for real change, the late (Dr.) Huey P. Newton.Huey P. Newton was born on February 17, 1942, and ultimately cofounded the Black Panther Party, in which among other things, he served as Minister of Defense and its chief theoretician. Today it remains accurate that, "Perhaps no single political organization in modern U.S. history still evokes more joy, pride, hope and debate in the hearts and minds of people than the Black Panther Party, a revolutionary, community based, national Black political organization founded in October of 1966, which by the end of the 20th century had been physically decimated nationwide."Under the leadership of Huey P. Newton, the Black Panther Party consistently and nationally demonstrated the unmitigated audacity to demand full human rights in the U.S., including the right to "full employment," "an immediate end to police brutality," the right to "land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace" [from the Ten-Point Program of the Black Panther Party]. Huey P. Newton succinctly authored the aforementioned Ten-Point Program of the Black Panther Party, which Program was effectively designated into the simple and crystal clear format of "What We Want" and "What We Believe." The issues of the Ten-Point Program including "housing, employment, police brutality, education, justice and peace" are just as relevant, if not even more so today in the 21st century, for Black, Brown, White, Red, and Yellow peoples in this nation, as when they were first penned over four decades ago under the auspices of Huey P. Newton and the Black Panther Party.Huey P. Newton's message was one of action, of self actualization, not false hope, fake change, and the cynical opportunism of continued U.S. Empire. Rather, Huey P. Newton and the Black Panther Party went about the work of creating nationally in Black communities "free breakfast programs, free health clinics, free child care programs, free food programs, free seniors escort programs, free shoe and clothing programs," etc.Also, with the guidance and encouragement of Huey P. Newton, the Black Panther Party established the Oakland Community School for children in the community of Oakland, California. Huey P. Newton "immediately went about finding a way to develop a nonprofit corporation and to secure funding to buy the building that the Oakland Community School sat in for almost ten years." [Reference paragraph 2 in part 2 of the August 28, 2008 Black Commentator article titled, The Oakland Community School, Oakland, CA, The Hope Is Our Young People.Following the leadership of Huey P. Newton, and the Central Committee of the Black Panther Party, the Black Panther Party stood in stalwart and open opposition to the U.S. war of aggression in Vietnam, and strongly supported the rights of peoples around the world in Africa, Asia, Cuba, Palestine, South America and elsewhere to self determination, free of U.S. hegemony. The internal and external political stance of Huey P. Newton and the Black [...]

Former Black Panther Warren Kimbro dies

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:05 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now![8 articles]Warren Kimbro dies at 74; former Black Panther who led Project MOREhttp://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-warren-kimbro8-2009feb08,0,5628150.storyAfter 41/2 years in prison for second-degree murder of a suspected informant, Kimbro earned a master's degree from Harvard and reformed his life as head of a rehabilitation program for ex-cons.By Elaine WooFebruary 8, 2009Warren Kimbro, a former Black Panther whose 1969 murder of a suspected informant brought on the unsuccessful prosecution of party co-founder Bobby Seale in one of an unruly era's most raucous episodes, died Tuesday in New Haven, Conn., where he rebuilt his life as head of a rehabilitation program for ex-offenders. He was 74.The cause was believed to be a heart attack, said Douglas Rae, a Yale School of Management professor who knew Kimbro for two decades and co-authored a book about him.On May 20, 1969, Kimbro fatally shot Alex Rackley, a 19-year-old Black Panther member who party members thought was an FBI informant. Prosecutors said the killing was ordered by Seale, whose 1970 trial in New Haven became a cause clbre for the radical left.Seale was freed after the jury failed to reach a verdict, but Kimbro was convicted of second-degree murder and went to prison for nearly five years. He rehabilitated himself there, earned a master's degree in education from Harvard and for 25 years led Project MORE, a nonprofit agency devoted to helping ex-cons reenter society."The most important part of Warren Kimbro's life began when he left prison," Rae, a longtime Project MORE board member, said last week. "He was a remarkable leader who set a tone and a standard in the New Haven community that hundreds of us learned to respect."One of eight children in a strict Roman Catholic family, Kimbro was born in New Haven on April 29, 1934. His mother was a Republican ward chairwoman in New Haven, while his father worked for a steel plant.A high school dropout, Kimbro served in Korea during five years in the Air Force. After completing his military duty, he returned to New Haven, which by the mid-1960s was flush with money from President Johnson's Great Society programs, and became a community organizer for a local antipoverty effort.But he quickly grew disillusioned with the program and thought the government was more interested in "controlling rather than empowering poor people," said Paul Bass, a New Haven journalist who co-wrote with Rae "Murder in the Model City: The Black Panthers, Yale, and the Redemption of a Killer" (2006).In 1969 Kimbro joined the Black Panther Party, founded three years earlier in Oakland by Seale and Huey Newton with a sweeping agenda to empower blacks by pressing for decent housing and jobs, courses in African American history, amnesty for black prisoners and an end to police brutality. They also preached self-defense and armed their members, which led FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to investigate the group. Fears of FBI surveillance and infiltration pervaded the Panther ranks.Kimbro's apartment became the headquarters for New Haven's Panther chapter. It was there that Rackley was interrogated and tortured for three days before a brash Panther leader named George Sams ordered Kimbro and another party member to take him away.Afraid that he might be the next one purged, Kimbro cooperated. He and a fellow Panther, Lonnie McLucas, drove to a swamp outside New Haven and, at Sams' order, shot and killed Rackley, who was never proved to be an FBI plant. His body was found by fishermen the next day.Nine Panthers were eventually put on trial for the killing, with Seale's case drawing the most attention. Thousands of protesters -- including Tom Hayden, Jerry [...]

Remembering Merl Saunders 02/14 Great American/SF

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:05 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!Remembering Merl Saunders 02/14 Great American/SFhttp://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php"id=296782009-02-07By: Joy Bashew RosenbergRemembering Merl SaundersFebruary 14, 1934 - October 24, 2008I never saw organ and keyboard player Merl Saunders perform live, but I remember the first time I heard him on a clock radio in my suburban New Jersey bedroom, during a Philadelphia-broadcast "Grateful Dead Hour" in 1997. Cushioned between an Ominous Seapods tune and a snippet of an electronic tornado from a crazy new band called the Disco Biscuits, was the funkiest version of "After Midnight" I'd ever heard. The laid-back groove seemed effortless, as if the musicians were merely hanging out rather than recording an album. It was funky. It was sensual. It was a side of the organ I hadn't known before! It was Legion of Mary, the early '70s collaboration that featured Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders, and it was easily the coolest thing I'd ever heard.Born on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1934, Merl Saunders emerged on the music scene in the late '60s via San Francisco. By the time he stopped performing in 2002 due to a debilitating stroke, he was revered as one of that era's finest musicians. For over thirty years, Saunders, on his Hammond B3 organ - named "Jessica" - played music that made people all over the world feel good.He'd begun playing in jazz clubs, but it was his collaboration with Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead in the early '70s that exposed him to a larger audience. The two developed a band over the next few years that culminated as Legion of Mary. It included Garcia on guitar, Saunders on organ, Martin Fierro on saxophone, and John Kahn on bass. Drums were alternated by Ron Tutt, Paul Humphrey, and Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann.Saunders/Garcia and Legion of Mary laid the framework for the Jerry Garcia Band by covering Motown, R&B, and blues classics with funk and reggae twists. Covers like the Soul Survivors' "Expressway to Your Heart," Smokey Robinson and the Miracles' "I Second That Emotion," "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)," and other songs by Bob Dylan, The Band, Stevie Wonder, and others. You want to dance? Try the Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders Band's thirteen-plus minute rendition of Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come," from Keystone, Berkeley, 9/1/74 (fourth release of the Pure Jerry disc series). Hallelujah! Merl and Jerry's connection was clearly a spiritual force.High Noon was Merl Saunders' band in the late '70s and early '80s, and included guitarist Michael Hinton and drummer Mickey Hart. The Rainforest Band, which formed in the late '80s, at times included guitarists Steve Kimock and Michael Hinton, Merl's son bassist Tony Saunders, drummer Vince Littleton, and bassist Michael Warren. By the time he stopped, Merl had performed with musicians as talented and diverse as Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, B.B. King, Lena Horne, and Phish. John Popper from Blues Traveler appears on Merl's 1991 live album, Save the Planet So We'll Have Someplace to Boogie (on Merl's own Sumertone record label). Another Garcia collaboration resulted in the 1990 release Blues from the Rainforest, which hit number four on the Billboard New Age chart. Although I heard his studio records, it wasn't until I heard tapes of his live shows that I truly came to appreciate Merl Saunders' music. My husband, Milton, introduced me to recordings of shows he'd seen at small clubs across the country in the early '90s. From these tapes, I gained a better understanding of Merl's sense of humor and his concern for the environment.Mostly though, I heard how much the audience l[...]

Breaking up with the band [Phish]

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:05 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!Breaking up with the bandhttp://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article"AID=/20090208/LIVING03/902080305/1028/OPINION02After dozens of concerts together, Phish and I are calling it quitsBy MIKE ALBERICI For the MonitorFebruary 08, 2009Once upon a time there was a band called Phish that just wouldn't go away. In March, Phish will make a triumphant comeback, playing a three-night stand in Hampton, Va. The announcement that Phish was reuniting, after five years of retirement, thrilled its fan base. But I find the sudden resurrection bittersweet, another kink in a long but tempestuous relationship with the band.Phish has always been one of my favorite bands. I started listening in the late 1980s and was stunned by its musical style. As a jam band, Phish seemed to borrow a lot of style from the Grateful Dead, but in a self-depreciating, sardonic and witty way the band turned the music inside out. While the Grateful Dead simply grooved along in common time, as Jerry Garcia noodled over the same old major scale, Phish took its music into another atmosphere altogether, using longer, more extended forms, Baroque-style counterpoint and highly technical instrumental proficiency.It was never the music that let me down over the years. I'm still bewildered by the tunes. Phish's style only expanded and stayed true. Yet somehow the whole scene went wrong in the most capitalistic way.In the 1980s, Phish was a small group out of Burlington, Vt. It had a local following and played at clubs throughout the Northeast. For years Phish flew under the radar, never releasing a chart-topping album. Ignored by radio stations, Phish's fans (myself included) followed the band religiously. For Phish-heads it was never about the studio album; the live performance was the pinnacle of the band's artistic merit.Gradually word got out, and Phish began playing bigger venues. All was fine for a while. Then Jerry Garcia died and everything changed.The ultimateWhen the Grateful Dead broke up in 1995, almost overnight Phish went from an unknown underground band to the ultimate underground band. Legions of Dead fans, now without a musical outlet, switched teams and began following Phish.The band was thrust into the public spotlight, playing huge arenas and enormous weekend festivals drawing 60,000 fans. I had seen the band about 25 times by now, and the influx of new fans made my head spin. Suddenly the stands were filled with drunken frat boys and trust-fund brats more interested in finding the right chemicals in the parking lot than enjoying the music. Getting tickets became next to impossible.I did see Phish once again in 1996, and the scene had changed dramatically. Although the music was great that night, I was so turned off by the crowd that I gave up on seeing the band live anymore. The thrill was gone.The first cracks in the band's armor started to show in 2000 when Phish announced that it was taking an extended hiatus. We knew the band would be back, but this hinted at some elemental flaw in the personal makeup of the band. It was like the Beatles, but without Yoko.For two years Phish did not play together. Then in 2002 the band was suddenly back. The hype was overwhelming. The reunion tour sold out in minutes, spawning a secondary ticket market, driven in part by eBay, with prices soaring in the stratosphere.Corporate monsterAt this point I was ready to give up. As a longtime fan I felt betrayed, shut-out, passed over and out-bid. The little band I once loved had become a corporate monster, a slave to Ticketmaster. My need to see Phish live was still there, but the circus surrounding the band was oppressing. I stopped trying to even get [...]

Bill Ayers wants you to 'open your eyes'

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:05 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now![2 articles]Bill Ayers wants you to 'open your eyes'http://media.www.dailynorthwestern.com/media/storage/paper853/news/2009/02/05/Campus/Bill-Ayers.Wants.You.To.open.Your.Eyes-3614693.shtmlChristina Chaey and Nathalie TadenaIssue date: 2/5/09Bill Ayers spent his brief 20 minutes in front of attendees at Cahn Auditorium charging the audience of students to "do something.""If you ask, you might learn, and if you learn, you might have to," Ayers said during Muslim-cultural Students Association's highly anticipated event nearly three months in the making.Although the former Weather Underground leader was not encouraging the 350 in attendance to take to the sort of violence he engaged in during the 1960s, he repeatedly challenged them to question the conventional wisdom.The event, entitled "Peaceful Progress: A Discourse on Effecting Change,"also featured speeches by Ayers' wife, Bernardine Dohrn, and Chicago area Muslim activist Rami Nashashibi. All three touched upon similar themes: the lasting impact of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the revolutionary nature of Barack Obama's presidency and the importance of grassroots activism."Who here supports slavery"" asked Ayers. "Who here supports women's right to vote""The former activist said he was trying to illustrate that at one time, the answers were not assumed."Doing the conventional thing is the immoral thing," he said. "We need to free ourselves from our blindness."Ayers and Dohrn, an NU Law School professor, were originally scheduled to speak at NU in November. University officials postponed the event two days before the scheduled date because of what they deemed a lack of planning and security issues.But the only disruption Wednesday night was three protesters outside of the auditorium, including College Republicans President James D'Angelo.McSA co-president Dana Shabeeb said she was pleased with the event."There was a clear message, students were engaged, and anyone who was here definitely benefited from the speech," the Weinberg junior said.During the Q&A period, the speakers discussed issues including the conflict in the Gaza Strip and the future of race relations in the U.S."I thought it was really relevant to the times and definitely got a more activist presence on campus, which is something that there is a lack of at NU," said Weinberg senior Rachael Druzinsky.Though Ayers stressed the importance of debunking the "myth of the '60s" as a time of cohesive political action, to compare that era to the present is also an inaccuracy, said 64-year-old Evanston resident Shel Silver, who attended NU in the 1960s but did not graduate."That's the one time when everyone wasn't unfailingly polite," Silver said. "I don't think this is the kind of meeting that's going to promote peaceful progress because I don't think it's going to promote much besides sleep."Both Ayers and Dohrn have generated negative attention from the media for their involvement with the leftist Weathermen in the 1960s.During the 2008 presidential campaign, President Barack Obama was criticized by some Republicans for his past connections with Ayers. The two served on a Chicago education advisory council and Ayers contributed to Obama's Illinois Senate campaign.But when asked about his portrayal in the media during the campaign, Ayers said he did not take offense at being considered "just another guy around the neighborhood."Dohrn came under attack from NU alumni in November 2001 after an editorial in the Wall Street Journal compared the Weather Underground to Al-Qaeda. In response, 15 NU alumni retracted $11,300 in donations from th[...]

Jane Fonda returns to Broadway

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:05 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now![2 articles]American actor Jane Fonda returns to Broadwayhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/feb/09/jane-fonda-broadway-theatre-new-yorkAfter more than 45 years, actor heads back to the stage to explore how creativity can blossom late in lifeEd Pilkington in New York9 February 2009The last time Jane Fonda took the stage on Broadway, John F Kennedy was in the White House, Bob Dylan had just released his second album and the first James Bond film, Dr No, was in American cinemas.That was in June 1963, when she finished a run of Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude. More than 45 years later, she makes her Broadway comeback tonight in 33 Variations, a play, fittingly, that explores the exceptional creativity of artists late in life.Critics itching to find out whether Fonda, aged 71, has hung on to her thespian magic will have to bide their time through a month of previews before the official opening night on March 9. Fonda herself, chronicling her return to Broadway in a blog, predicts that she will find tonight's opening preview as surreal as it was being on stage in 1963, aged 25.She says she is approaching the coming four and a half months of shows as an adventure. "That's how I choose to think of it. I could be real scared. I mean, eight shows a week after 45 years! But I am choosing to think of it as a challenge."Her relationship with Broadway began in 1960 in There Was a Little Girl. Later that year she played in Invitation to a March, written and directed by Arthur Laurents who is currently directing a Broadway revival of West Side Story that opens next month.In 1963 she was given the lead role in the comedy The Fun Couple, which proved such a flop it closed after only a day.After four Broadway shows in quick succession, she then followed in her father Henry's footsteps into the movies, with big hits in Cat Ballou in 1965 and the quintessential 60s sex movie, Barbarella, three years later.She went on to take two best actress Oscars (Klute 1971, Coming Home 1978), as well as embarking on a highly-publicised engagement with radical politics as a prominent anti-Vietnam war campaigner, and as she did so Broadway faded into the wings where it has remained until today.Shortly after she announced her return to the stage, a friend of hers, a little her senior, told Fonda that at their age they were supposed to be retired, not looking for new adventures. "I don't agree," she replied, pointing out that she was writing a new book, provisionally called The Third Act: Entering Prime Time.It was her passionate belief in the potential of later life that drew her to 33 Variations. Fonda was researching a chapter for her book on Beethoven. Just when she was delving into the exceptional flurry of creativity towards the end of the composer's life, the script of Moises Kaufman's play arrived on her desk.It too looks at Beethoven's late period, specifically his rush to compose 33 variations on a Waltz by Diabelli at a time when he was becoming progressively deaf. Fonda plays Katherine Brandt, a musicologist who travels to the composer's birthplace, Bonn in Germany, in an attempt to uncover the truth behind the variations.Brandt herself is in a race against her own physical deterioration - she has a terminal illness that progressively takes hold."Obsession, passion. These are things I love in life, the fact that people can grow old and become sick and yet their passions remained undimmed," Fonda writes in her blog. "Some of the greatest artistic works and achievements have been done by people late in life - Monet, Cezanne, Degas, Matisse, Beethoven."So in a[...]

Open Question: R U going out tonight? Or will icy winds keep you in? Plans for this wintry weekend? Share ya what's on sites?

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:06 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now! Have you seen:- http://www.VisitLiverpool.com http://www.VisitBlackpool.com http://www.VisitSouthport.com http://www.VisitChester.com http://www.VisitManchester.com How @ whats on in the Lake District "" What's On - Cumbria the Lake District, everything about Cumbria ... Cumbria - The Lake District from Cumbria Tourist Board. Where to stay in Cumbria the lake District. http://www.cumbria-the-lake-district.co.uk/whats%20on.html - 10k What's On Windermere - Cumbria the Lake District, everything about ... Brockhole - Lake District Visitor Centre Type: What's On Town: Windermere Description: Visitor centre with interactive exhibitions, Mawson gardens, ... http://www.cumbria-the-lake-district.co.uk/whats%20on-windermere.html - 9k How @ whats on in the Peak District "" Peak District and Derbyshire - Official Tourist Information for ... Peak District and Derbyshire - What's On and Events Peak District & Derbyshire - What's On, events, festivals, fairs, music, drama, rock, pop, jazz, opera, classical, theatre, shows, comedy, entertainment, http://www.visitpeakdistrict.com/events/default.aspx - 17k How @ whats on in North Wales "" Entertainment, whats on & leisure activities in North Wales ... Check out the latest entertainment and leisure activities in North Wales. Find out whats on in Bangor, Wrexham, Llandudno, Anglesey and across North Wales. http://www.dailypost.co.uk/leisure/ - 49k How @ whats on in Yorkshire "" digyorkshire " whats on guide to Yorkshire Yorkshire's whats on guide for arts, entertainment, and culture. The place to find things to do and places to go. Read reviews and previews, ... http://www.digyorkshire.com/ - 32k Wanna link events/gigs/films/shows etc in your area? WOW This 82-minute video re-enacts when Ian McKormack was stung to death by highly lethal box jellyfish & was raised from the dead:- http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay"docid=3682855866783766146&q=ian+mccormack&total=70&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0 Here's links to his story in writing, as he'll be telling it, live, 7.30pm @ City Church, Jubilee Drive, Kensington, opp Kensington Medical Centre, Liverpool http://www.multimap.co.uk One night while diving for lobster on the small Island of Mauritius I was stung on my forearm by 5 Box-Jellyfish, which the local Creole fishermen called "invisables" A sting from a Box-Jellyfish often proves to be fatal - as exemplified in Australia where 70 people are known to have died from their stings Many books quote this particular type of Jellyfish to be among the most venomous creatures in the world. By the time an ambulance arrived my body was totally paralyzed and necrosis had begun to set into my bone marrow. On route to the hospital I began to see my life flash before me At this point of my life I was an atheist - but I knew I was nearly dead and I didn't know if there was life after death or whether there was just nothing As I lay there dying, I saw my mother in a vision praying for me, encouraging me to cry out to God from my heart and He would hear me and forgive me (my mother was the only Christian in our family.) I didn't know what to pray and cried out I didn't know what to pray and cried out that if God was real, could He help me to pray Immediately God showed me the Lord's Prayer, and for the first time in my life I prayed from my heart and gave my life to the Lord. Death & Hell The ambulance stopped and they placed me in a wheel chair and raced me into the hospital The nurse took my blood pressure twice but could not find a pulse as my veins had collapsed [...]

Love By Numbers - My Saarang 09 entry

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:06 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!Well I know I haven't blogged in a while. It doesn't mean I haven't been writing. My latest was the online creative writing for Saarang 2009. I didn't win, but I'm still pretty proud of my work, after all its been ages since I've done anything of the sort. My entry for "Three Phase" - you are supposed to write a poem, a one act play, and a short story on the same topic. The topics were 1. Love By Numbers 2. A is A and 3. Epiphany. The topics are really quite amazing if you think about it; they give you a lot of scope for abstract thought. I chose the first topic, seemingly the easiest. Well here's my weeks work. They aren't my best, but on the watch and a topic constraint, here's what I did: (Comments and criticisms are more than welcome :) )LOVE BY NUMBERSThe PoemTell me, young one, of the land from which you come,Where is your mother? Where is your home"Abandoned, a poisoned derelict; your tears I see,Mar a once wishful face, jubilant and carefree.A heap upon my arms, you lay, turning me into a scoffer.Are you the crme de la crme that society would proffer"Weakened limbs and a scarred soul, distrust beckoning,The more of your kind, the numbers I?d be reckoning.Remember the times, when humankind was at its peak,Its downfall, a mighty fall it was; the cause of which I seek,A ludicrous leap of faith, an enervating provocation,Hatred and corruption in enormous magnification.I call out to the all the people left on this ravaged planet,To forgo their narcissistic notions, to release their gauntlet.Fighting has only brought tears and fears in victory,Why testify time after time that we can?t learn from history?I urge them to love not merely their kith and kin,But to love by numbers, all the people and all within,To love the differences and the reasons to be alive.For when you close your hearts, you will not survive.*****LOVE BY NUMBERSThe PlayDisclaimer: The following piece is a controversial work. I apologize if any derogatory statements have indirectly been derived. I have nothing with or against you.CastNarratorAntony RudenhamMelvin WendorgNina BellinaSilipina MendozaNumerologist(Curtains open. Stage lights up. The stage remains dark except for spotlights on the characters in conversation.)Narrator: It is evening at a particular beach at a particular city. The sun would still hover around for a few more hours before it departs. There is a bench facing the sea, on which a young man is sitting, thinking and wondering. Another man is walking briskly on the pavement, taking in the smell of the ocean, and enjoying the breeze. He passes by the man on the bench.Antony: Melvin! It?s been so long since I last met you. Five years is it? How have you been?Melvin: Antony! Well, to tell you the truth, I?ve been better. Antony: Really? On the contrary, my life has been splendid. Come on tell me what?s been on your mind. Melvin: The unpredictability of life. I cannot take it anymore. I never know why I?m doing the things I?m doing and if it has any consequences. Antony: It?s that unpredictability that makes living life worthwhile. Melvin: I guess you should take a seat. This might be a long story.Antony: I have all the time in the world my friend.(The stage goes dark. Spotlight falls on a young woman sitting on a stool at the left side of the stage. She is dressed in an attractive sparkling red dress. Melvin gets up and points towards her.)Melvin: Silipina Mendoza. Exhibit A. (Spotlight falls on another young woman sitting on a stool at the right side of the stage. Melvin points towards her.)Melvin: Nina Bellina. Exhibit B.Antony: (rises[...]

Love By Numbers - My Saarang 09 entry

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:06 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!Well I know I haven't blogged in a while. It doesn't mean I haven't been writing. My latest was the online creative writing for Saarang 2009. I didn't win, but I'm still pretty proud of my work, after all its been ages since I've done anything of the sort. My entry for "Three Phase" - you are supposed to write a poem, a one act play, and a short story on the same topic. The topics were 1. Love By Numbers 2. A is A and 3. Epiphany. The topics are really quite amazing if you think about it; they give you a lot of scope for abstract thought. I chose the first topic, seemingly the easiest. Well here's my weeks work. They aren't my best, but on the watch and a topic constraint, here's what I did: (Comments and criticisms are more than welcome :) )LOVE BY NUMBERSThe PoemTell me, young one, of the land from which you come,Where is your mother? Where is your home"Abandoned, a poisoned derelict; your tears I see,Mar a once wishful face, jubilant and carefree.A heap upon my arms, you lay, turning me into a scoffer.Are you the crme de la crme that society would proffer"Weakened limbs and a scarred soul, distrust beckoning,The more of your kind, the numbers I?d be reckoning.Remember the times, when humankind was at its peak,Its downfall, a mighty fall it was; the cause of which I seek,A ludicrous leap of faith, an enervating provocation,Hatred and corruption in enormous magnification.I call out to the all the people left on this ravaged planet,To forgo their narcissistic notions, to release their gauntlet.Fighting has only brought tears and fears in victory,Why testify time after time that we can?t learn from history?I urge them to love not merely their kith and kin,But to love by numbers, all the people and all within,To love the differences and the reasons to be alive.For when you close your hearts, you will not survive.*****LOVE BY NUMBERSThe PlayDisclaimer: The following piece is a controversial work. I apologize if any derogatory statements have indirectly been derived. I have nothing with or against you.CastNarratorAntony RudenhamMelvin WendorgNina BellinaSilipina MendozaNumerologist(Curtains open. Stage lights up. The stage remains dark except for spotlights on the characters in conversation.)Narrator: It is evening at a particular beach at a particular city. The sun would still hover around for a few more hours before it departs. There is a bench facing the sea, on which a young man is sitting, thinking and wondering. Another man is walking briskly on the pavement, taking in the smell of the ocean, and enjoying the breeze. He passes by the man on the bench.Antony: Melvin! It?s been so long since I last met you. Five years is it? How have you been?Melvin: Antony! Well, to tell you the truth, I?ve been better. Antony: Really? On the contrary, my life has been splendid. Come on tell me what?s been on your mind. Melvin: The unpredictability of life. I cannot take it anymore. I never know why I?m doing the things I?m doing and if it has any consequences. Antony: It?s that unpredictability that makes living life worthwhile. Melvin: I guess you should take a seat. This might be a long story.Antony: I have all the time in the world my friend.(The stage goes dark. Spotlight falls on a young woman sitting on a stool at the left side of the stage. She is dressed in an attractive sparkling red dress. Melvin gets up and points towards her.)Melvin: Silipina Mendoza. Exhibit A. (Spotlight falls on another young woman sitting on a stool at the right side of the stage. Melvin points towards her.)Melvin: Nina Bellin[...]

Back From Mars

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:06 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!Chapter 1 Icara saw herself on the polished walls of the ship. She was tall with a tanned complexion. She had deep brown hair today, with streaks of blonde and fluorescent highlights, here and there. She had tied it up in such a way it looked like she had a basket of flowers on her head. The blue jumpsuit she was wearing had been modified with extra lapels and more frizz, with some torn ends and cuts which matched the upcoming fashion. Her face was indeed unique one, compared to rest of the members of the colony. Perfectly arched eyebrows, with striking eyes, a softly pointed nose, with broad lips, a deep fuchsia, formed her young face. The most arresting part of her visage was her eyes, a distinctive color of caramel, which had melted the hearts of many young men she studied with. They seemed to twinkle now, under the changing neons. She removed a speck on her cheeks with her fingers and smiled at herself.A saddening thought passed through her mind. She was the last of her race, of a pure line of beings from the planet Earth. She was seventeen and was born on a private tropical isle on this planet. Before she was five, an apocalyptic war broke out, a cataclysm, which ended her up here, in this space colony. It was no ordinary war fought with guns and rockets, nor with fusion bombs and bioagents.The League of Nations found out that the Orientals had been rising in power, swiftly and stealthily, behind their backs. They had stolen the resources after the Great Floods and obtained monopoly over the rest of the nations. The Supreme Chancellor decided to end their domination, and gave word to unleash the galaxy"s most powerful weapon, which led to the ultimate demise of life on that lonely planet.The weapon"s existence was a mystery till it broke out of the ground. Something went wrong during its execution and a million geysers from the deep abysses of the planet, spewed out a dense deadly metallic gas around the world. These geysers reached phenomenal heights, and some fumes were even released into space. Everything and everything was vaporized in an instant. There were no broken buildings, no fired forests, no blackened oceans; indeed there was no evidence of anything that existed and ruled over the planet for countless eons. Simply said, there was nothing.Icara had been on the planets satellite, the Moon, on a vacation with her family, when she witnessed the world?s end. As she saw, the planet looked peaceful, with lush greens and browns, and enchanting bright blues. Then, there was a golden glow, which appeared as cracks swiftly covering the globe, as if the Earth was about to hatch. In a few seconds, when the gases spilled out, the entire globe turned black, and almost seemed to vanish in the darkness of space. Only flashes of white kept shooting out. There were exactly 100 human beings on the Moon that day, and all of them stared into space, and watched the Earth disappear in front of their eyes.Icara remembers that day clear as crystal. She witnessed her mother faint, and fall onto the dust dead. Her father hadn?t done anything; he just knelt down and wept to himself. She was only five, and had found the incidence absolutely exciting. She ran towards the horizon, trying to catch that bygone planet. She jumped up as high as she could; but she could never reach it.That past, she couldn?t dwell on it any longer. Whenever she thought about it, she broke down in tears, as if she felt that she had played some vital part in its cause. Not today. She couldn?t risk getting [...]

Back From Mars

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:06 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!Chapter 1 Icara saw herself on the polished walls of the ship. She was tall with a tanned complexion. She had deep brown hair today, with streaks of blonde and fluorescent highlights, here and there. She had tied it up in such a way it looked like she had a basket of flowers on her head. The blue jumpsuit she was wearing had been modified with extra lapels and more frizz, with some torn ends and cuts which matched the upcoming fashion. Her face was indeed unique one, compared to rest of the members of the colony. Perfectly arched eyebrows, with striking eyes, a softly pointed nose, with broad lips, a deep fuchsia, formed her young face. The most arresting part of her visage was her eyes, a distinctive color of caramel, which had melted the hearts of many young men she studied with. They seemed to twinkle now, under the changing neons. She removed a speck on her cheeks with her fingers and smiled at herself.A saddening thought passed through her mind. She was the last of her race, of a pure line of beings from the planet Earth. She was seventeen and was born on a private tropical isle on this planet. Before she was five, an apocalyptic war broke out, a cataclysm, which ended her up here, in this space colony. It was no ordinary war fought with guns and rockets, nor with fusion bombs and bioagents.The League of Nations found out that the Orientals had been rising in power, swiftly and stealthily, behind their backs. They had stolen the resources after the Great Floods and obtained monopoly over the rest of the nations. The Supreme Chancellor decided to end their domination, and gave word to unleash the galaxy"s most powerful weapon, which led to the ultimate demise of life on that lonely planet.The weapon"s existence was a mystery till it broke out of the ground. Something went wrong during its execution and a million geysers from the deep abysses of the planet, spewed out a dense deadly metallic gas around the world. These geysers reached phenomenal heights, and some fumes were even released into space. Everything and everything was vaporized in an instant. There were no broken buildings, no fired forests, no blackened oceans; indeed there was no evidence of anything that existed and ruled over the planet for countless eons. Simply said, there was nothing.Icara had been on the planets satellite, the Moon, on a vacation with her family, when she witnessed the world?s end. As she saw, the planet looked peaceful, with lush greens and browns, and enchanting bright blues. Then, there was a golden glow, which appeared as cracks swiftly covering the globe, as if the Earth was about to hatch. In a few seconds, when the gases spilled out, the entire globe turned black, and almost seemed to vanish in the darkness of space. Only flashes of white kept shooting out. There were exactly 100 human beings on the Moon that day, and all of them stared into space, and watched the Earth disappear in front of their eyes.Icara remembers that day clear as crystal. She witnessed her mother faint, and fall onto the dust dead. Her father hadn?t done anything; he just knelt down and wept to himself. She was only five, and had found the incidence absolutely exciting. She ran towards the horizon, trying to catch that bygone planet. She jumped up as high as she could; but she could never reach it.That past, she couldn?t dwell on it any longer. Whenever she thought about it, she broke down in tears, as if she felt that she had played some vital part in its cause. Not today[...]

mmm brainsss

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:06 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!Brad: DONT shoot the car.*moron shoots the car***car alarm**Brad: GOD DAMMIT you GOD! I SAW YOU! YOU WERE A F'ING FELON! YOU WERE A FELON! OH GOD THE HUMANITY!*Brad falls on the floor**Brad: Help me somebody help me! Behind the van! BEHIND THE VAN! guys you f***kers on the van. YOU HELP ME NOWWW. God dammit you felon, you piece of shit felon. We gotta get some help!Hello ppls! :D i havent been blogging about anything interesting or funny so i thought why not make this entry be less serious and more about happier things eh? its gonna be quite a long entry with a couple of videos and pictures on the lower half of the entry. well I was searching for left4dead videos on youtube and i stumbled upon a couple of videos that just made me laugh over and over. partly because it has happened to me, ashri, my bro and fauzie once or its just plain funny. Especially for the car alarm part. Of course our reactions weren't as awesome as this guy's but the same thing happened! I guess sometimes its just funny to see everyone panic ahha. this is to show you guys what it really looks like when SOMEBODY decides to shoot the car and sound off the alarm. anyways I went to CCK's gym alone just now around 8pm and i reached there around 850pm so i only had 1hr and 10 mins to work out. I thought that theres not gonna be enough time but it turns out that it was just nice for 1 person. I trained my chest and triceps for today. im telling you, its so much harder when somebody isn't supporting me when i do things like the vertical chest thingy. The first few tries were quite hard but as i went on, it got easier. I skipped the last gym session because i was really sick so i can't afford to miss anymore. Stopped around 955 and walked all the way from CCK Stadium to CCK Mrt station. LRT'd home and i got back around 11pm. Oh and i have this habit of not showering the moment i step into my house ahha. im such a lazy ass at times :x. pfft, what a pig. dont worry im all showered up by now if you're wondering.Alright here more left4dead videos by the same guy. the first video is self-explanatory so i shall not spoil the fun. The 2nd video is his friend being the last survivor. His reaction for the hunter that popped out of nowhere is almost the same as ours without the constant cursing of course hahaha. the funniest part about the 2nd video is when he says 'this time, this game is my bitch.... except right now!' and he starts cussing so fast LOL. i have no idea how many words he can squeeze in 5 secs man. you have GOT to listen to it ahha.alright so KATHERINA is back :D. the band mates are Mizi, Aidil, Isa, Hafiz and Ahmad! Initially aidil and mizi asked me to play bass but i turned the offer down. Isa's gonna play the bass instead woohoo. I'm gonna watch them at Music Garage on the 21st February and they asked me to take pictures and videos of their performance. i'll do it for them but first i have to find my volt-converter thing because my adaptor is US made instead of UK so the voltage is different. oh and mizi owes me a huge favour for KILLING MY DYLAN. thanks alot for killing my guitar man, really appreciate it :P. My baby had so much potential and you took his life away. nooooo :(. you know how we can be fair? you can let me jump on the stage while you're playing and i'll start rocking away on BFMV/All that Remains Riffs and solos that i've learnt on my SILENT electric guitar. then and only then, we can be fair AHHAA. okay well i have some extra [...]

back in dayton the place we hate and love

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:06 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!heads full of thoughts which isnt necessarily a good thing. im kinda like stressing out and i dont know why. maybe its because ive been cooped up in here for the past few days. maybe its because anita has had one health problem after another. maybe its the stories she constantly shares. maybe its trying to see if she's blogging, or the constant conversations we're having. but i definately feel like the atmosphere has been tense. it's hard to relax when things are like this. and its no good. we've been lsitening to the old recordings i made back in the day. first i organized everything we had on the laptops which didnt take long, i just sutuck them into folders with the month they were created listed, which was pretty easy because windows had kept their creation dates which is kinda cool because you can go back and look at these windows and see like by month and year going all the way back to like april of 2008 i think and then every month after which is pretty impressive i think anyway because ive never had that ebfore and im actually going through my original organization style where there was basically just over three thosuand five hundred mp3s and wav files and wma files all stuck into the same folder none labelled as to the artist or even the album the month created the time i stick them onto the hard drive is the day that theyre listed as being created, which are a homogonous date from like a year or two ago which doesnt help but the new ones are all accurate so you can just go through and everything is listed. at first i was pissed because mybloop was down again and again but then i began to realize that you know what that website isnt necessary at least not asnecessary as i thought it was back in the day because i can actually organize the comptuers to be a much better form of storage for the files, and now that ive picked up this mp3 converter i wont have all these massive wave files taking up all my hard drive space which lets me put lots more songs on the computer and makes it way more feasable to sit there and shovel on songs onto the hard drive every day hah and thats kinda cool its nice having all these files around available for me to listen to or to tweak to refer to or show off its really nice and especially with the new files and the months listed its nice to kinda chart progress you can see how active you were each month and what sort of music you were making at that point which can be pretty helpfull in either determining what your sound is what youd call yourself or what phases youve been through in the past and all that good stuff but yeah - so anita has been on the net surfing and ive asked her to try and put up adds for drummers and bass players too and we've already got one guy who is trying to bite but the catch is he doesnt want to commit fully because he's already in a full time band that has gigs as far as i saw until at least april if not june which seems a bit unrealistic if he wants to play with us you know? i mean if he wants to play with us he's going to need to make some time for us and if he never makes any practices he'll never learn the songs and he won't be good at the performances so that's kinda the bottom line with that i dont wantto have a drummer that will make me sound worse than with a drum machine now there are benefits to having a drummer youve got the energy of the guy which people like its a crowd thing people can feed off the energy of a d[...]

living under conservatism versus pure freedom

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:06 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!im thinking back on the days and months i spent in columbus in my first stint, from about 03 to 05, and how i basically exited in this state of perpetual freedom. like, basically, i had nobody to answer to, no obligation, and even provisions made for any financial need. i was free to explore, learn, just exist and really, like any college student, explore the world around me. however, the world is a dangerous place, and 18 is way too late to begin that process - you really need to have begun that whole process of exploration at a much younger age. i was 17, in my case i'd been born in england, and swapped over to america mid school, so i was upped a year, but none the less, before that point, i'd been kept on a short leash, in a conservative household, with parents who were effectively immigrants two-fold. from india to england, and then from england to america. twice they found themselves surrounded by the unknown, by new things - the sacrifices they made are currently beyond my imaginations bounds, but one could postulate that perhaps sacrifices were indeed made. at the very least, things haven't been peachy. to make it frankly simple, im laymans terms, in everyday talk, they had a rough time. it aint easy. you could fuckin say. but anyhow, yeah. i was more or less sheltered from death until i'd say realistically about 18 or so, when vivek passed away. but yeah, besides that, drugs, alcohol, these were all things i explored in a setting where basically there were no training wheels. honestly it would've been better to have gotten a handle on things with a guiding hand, but such wasnt the case. i was plunged face first into a world of unknown dangers and hostile peoples. the dealers, the scene kids, the druggies, the weirdos, the self destructives, the suicidals, the pill poppers, the gays, the sissies, the self contained psychopaths, the conservatives, the ultra liberals, the anarchists, - its a big wide world out there outside suburban white picket fences and cul de sac back yards. but yeah, so i moved out from this place of pure control, to a place of pure freedom. it wouldn't have been so bad if i didn't harbor resentment, but i did. seven years of it, for living in a country where i was forced from house to house, place after place where there was nothing to do, nobody to play with, just boring apartments for 50 somethings and structure, lots of strict rules and do's and do nots. in the end, i was kept from my nature, and i rebelled, at the first chance i got, in the most awesome way i could imagine. music, alcohol, drugs, girls, anything and everything that i had missed over those many years i plunged face first into once i was free, and teh thing of it was, not all of those things were things i necessarily enjoyed. the girls weren't always great, they were fine as a mystery but at the same time, nah, didn't find necessarily any one girl that *got* me persay. like a deck of cards i went through them all, without finding my match. and then the drugs, booze nights were puke nights, and drug days were dead weeks, haze clouds covered our minds as we pulled ourselves together after going through the most insane mind trips of our lives. never had i imagined just years earlier the world i would be fast consuming and moving through just a few years later. it all stopped when vivek died. he went to fast, too hard, and burned out, literally. his life snuffed out. [...]

20 to 23, close game

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:06 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!the superbowls on. i first realized it was coming up a few days ago when i saw commercials for it. its on now and ive slept through most of it. honestly the stuff doesnt strike me as AS cool as it used to beso anitas brother's girlfriend is pregnant, at about 15 or so? and the kids about 16 or so. darsheel's roomate just got done being pregnant, and has been using darsheel's food bought by her parents for like, a year, and didn't pay any back, or buy any food, so that was irresponsible. darsheel decided to move out this year and get her own place. i think its a good decisionshe's also decided to do some sort of a leadership thing, maybe something oriented in business, so thats cool, good for her. my mom just got back from being in vegas and nyc, she went out west for a conference and east for her sisteranitas bitching because there's lots of dishes to do and she wants to do them, more importantly she doesn't want my mom to do them. we're down in the basement, real cramped.i've decided to get a electronic drumset, one to replace the normal one, cause the sounds just too loud, too loud to practice too, and its also too loud for the ears, its just unsafe. so yeah. so jasons band the spruce campbells is doing a show in may 09... its a bit premature doncha thing heh. anyway he's recording this album with some people, then planning on recruiting new people to play the shit. i mean maybe he can pull it off maybe not, but it does look pretty haughty and arrogant to witness.anita says that maybe im being a bit highschoolish about jason. that i shouldnt be blaming him for viveks death. also that i shouldnt be blaming the parents either, or lauren. or any of them. at the end of the day it was viveks fault, and even if i dont like the idea of blaming vivek, its the best i can come up with for now, so for now ill say ill blame vivek and noone else, not his parents, nor his friends, nor myself, or my friends. i was talking to anita and her girlfriend, the first one, was like three years older than her, like she was 14, and her girlfriend was lik 17, there was a time she was 15 and her girlfriend was about 18. and i was telling her that there's gotta be something fishy about that. like, if she, now at 18, went out with someone who was 15, that'd be more or less the scenario. and that's regarding a girl who died like, at least two or three years ago. now death is a sensitive subject for sure, but i think anita's not used to dealing with her emotions good or bad, like she seems to get kinda snappish sometimes, but other times seems to be kinda closed up. i can understand it because i used to do the same shit, like you close yourself off because youre trying to keep yourself safe because youreused to a hostile situation but both anita and i are having a difficult time realizing that we are not a bad situation for each other. but as time goes by we realize it more and more, and thats what allows us to grow closer. i think both anita and i had intimacy issues. anita and i went out with my dad and sister out to the gurudwara today, darsheel and i both played shabads and i got a few comments from my dad about people telling him they were glad to see me come - anita and i both noticed that there were lots of people who were amazed that i was playing music. it was pretty crazy. like lots of people rushed the room where there were people and they were all ple[...]

Thought Vomit

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:06 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!Just some thoughts, in no particular order, and of no particular theme from the last few days.MONDAY:Saw a guy today, sitting at the Red Cross Blood Drive table, reading his scriptures. What an awesome guy. =) I feel like that image is the quintessential image of BYU-Idaho righteousness. Made my day. Along with the fact that "Handsome Book of Mormon class guy? talked to me before class. Of his own accord. And of course I kind of made a fool of myself, and what he said made him all the more appealing, but I still can"t figure out if he?s engaged anyway. So oh well. Just made me happy. In that 13-year-old girl kind of way. [We had an actual two-way conversation on Wednesday. A short, but complimentary and great little conversation. That made my day, too.]I could NOT sleep last night. I?m not entirely sure why. Well, I partly know why, but I don?t feel like revealing some of the half-awake dreams that I kept (sadly/frustratingly) waking up from.That, and I kept almost having the classic alien abduction nightmare. Not nearly as scary as Beckah's Joker nightmare, but scary. We watched a program on aliens on the history channel over the weekend (on Netflix instant viewing, by the way, which I have recently discovered, and which has changed my LIFE), and ever since then, I keep thinking about it as I drift off to sleep and it gets scary. Things that you laugh at while doing a puzzle and watching a TV program in the light of the living room sure get frightening in the dark of a bedroom when everyone else is asleep.Me and Annie were discussing the fact that the hundreds, maybe even thousands of alien abduction stories that people tell are so similar. We were wondering about why this was true, and came up with two possibilities. Well, three, I guess. One, these things are really happening, and that?s why everyone?s stories have common similar elements. But I somehow don?t think that?s likely. I think the more likely explanation is a combination of the other two possibilities. Possibility One: People want attention, so they make up a story similar to the ones they?ve already heard. Possibility Two: Alien abduction stories/UFO?s/etc have been a huge part of our culture for the last 50 years. It came into popular culture starting in about 1947, which was also near the beginning of the Cold War. One historian said that part of the reason so many people connected to this UFO threat is because it gave an embodiment to the otherwise abstract threat of communism?that there?s this very possible threat out there that we don?t understand. I thought that was interesting. I also started thinking about archetypes and the social norms that define us?the things that are a deep part of our subconscious, just because they?re so deeply embedded in our culture. I wonder if the alien abduction story is so much a part of our subconscious that it becomes a common hallucination, when someone is put through a certain trauma, or has a certain mental illness.One of the stories that the program talked about was of a couple in the 50?s, whose story was one of the first recorded alien abduction stories. The program played some of the audio tapes of sessions with a psychologist, telling their story under hypnosis. It was pretty scary. At least when I look back on it in the wee small hours of the morning. The interesting thing about this couple is t[...]

Bloggy Memories

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:07 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!Hello everyone!Note, to preface: I feel real uneloquent tonight. Words just aren't coming so naturally to me. Sorry.Well, 'tis 1:30 a.m. and I am awake and blogging! As per usual. My late night activities of late have included the world wide blogosphere in a lot of ways, and here's the result. The last few nights, I've had fun looking through the FOUR YEARS worth of entries on this blog. I found a lot of stories I'd forgotten about, and re-learned a lot of things just from reading about them again. There was a lot of laughter and a lot of thinking on my part, and so I thought I'd share some of the highlights here! Forgive the lengthyness of this entry...in my defense, there were 234 entries that I was skimming through. So there are quite a few gaps in between each of these, but here they are anyway. Enjoy! May these inspire a bit of a smile and/or a bit of a think!PS: Apparently a lot of my best blogging happens on Thursdays.THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2004All right, folks. The most bizarre thing just transpired in our dorm. It was seriously one of the weirdest things that has ever happened to us, and I would give anything to re-live it. Wow. Here's the story.So, Jen, Jenny and I were sitting in our living room, surfing the web and discussing the fundamental differences between Canada and the United States, when we noticed a strange male face looking into our window. We all looked at eachother like "Do you know this guy? No, do you"" None of us had any idea who he was, but he was standing in front of our dorm, looking in the window just the same. So we gestured for him to come in. He opened the door and stood there looking at us. We all looked back. After a lengthy pause, Jen said "Who are you"" The guy stepped into the room, closed the door behind him and looked into the mirror on our wall. In complete silence, he proceeded to remove his hat and spent a minute fixing his hair. Then he turned around and sat in one of our armchairs. Us girls were all kind of laughing a little. Finally, I looked at him and said "You never answered our question." He just looked at us. "Who are you?" I added."Addison."Long pause."Oh," I said. "I'm Liz." Jen and Jenny introduced themselves, and Alexis was summoned from the back room and introduced. So, after introductions were complete, we all just sat there. Silently.After another moment, Addison stood up and said "Well, it was nice meeting you guys." Then he stood up and left.We all sat there and looked at eachother for a minute, then burst out laughing. I don't think I can accurately describe the event to do justice to it's weirdness. But it was one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me. I'm still not completely sure what happened, exactly, but it was still the highlight of my night.THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2004So, last night, I was in the Snow building, preparing to go caroling when I ran into my good friend Ben. We spent a pleasant 1/2 hour or so discussing many a thing, one of which was the musical "Oklahoma!" Since we have both been in the show, we were swapping analizations and stories of our experiences. I decided to tell him about one night when the actor playing Jud did something really scary. The whole problem was that I was standing in a doorway.For those of you who know me you know that for me, telling a story is actually, like, story[...]

Quotation marks make all the difference

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:07 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!Hullo friends!Well, my sleep schedule is back to normal, I'm happy to report. (Which for me means going to bed sometime around 1am...)When I got home tonight, I was full of grumpiness at my Spanish class because half of the class doesn't understand the difference between when to use the preterite and when to use the imperfect. This only made me grumpy because I already understood the concept, and I wanted to move on. I'm an academic snob. Sorry.Anyways, in an effort to cure myself of my grumpiness, I ate a leftover waffle and read the quote-books. And I found some gems that I don't think have been shared yet. So here they are! There are LOTS, so have fun. =)Should you be grumpy, I hope these make you smile. And if you're smiling, I hope they make you laugh. Enjoy!A LITTLE BIT O' FRIEND-ISH QUOTE-NESS..."I could never live in a place where the buildings are PINK." --Annie"I'm so tired that everything that comes out of my mouth sounds Bohemian." --JordanKathleen: Ooh, this seat is nice and warm. Thank you.Stephen: Uh...you're welcome. I'm glad my bottom could serve some purpose.Jesse: For the first time in your LIFE!Stephen: I...don't even know what to say to that."I'm not a mechanical guy. I like canoes." --Omar"Aw, Annie. We're like twin babies cuddled up in the womb! You know, if we were twins in the womb, you'd probably be the one stealing all the oxygen and nutrients and stuff." --Me"Keep your nudity inside your tent!" --Chris K"He is such an awesome guy. He's ALWAYS learning. Every time I see him, he's got a new book under his arm. He'll probably NEVER get married, but he'll be BRILLIANT." --Jordan"I'm chubby and I drive a mini-van! I just can't pull off that menace to society thing!" --Jillian(narration while watching the movie "National Treasure 2")Nathan: Oooh, an altar.Me: Anyone here a virgin"Nathan: No? Well, we're screwed.Me: Literally."I LOVE this dress! The texture is like the inside of a coffin!" --Nellie"Um, pretty sure there's a big difference between a 747 and an albatross." --Beckah"I miss you so much that it is causing pain to my lower abdominal area...could just be the kidney stones, but the romantic in me wants to believe it's you." --Carrie(on the casting of the lead role in the musical "Sacagewea")"I think she's Asian. I don't think there's a bit of Indian in her. Maybe she's Vietnamese." --Anonymous audience member (overheard during intermission)Nathan: So...if you're going to Kerblapistan or whatever on Monday...Me: Uh, you mean "Honduras""Nathan: Yeah, Honduras.Mary: No, let's take individual bags of chips, because the whole big bag crushes too easily.Dad: My heart crushes easily, but that doesn't stop you from taking it for a ride.(Me: What are you, fifteen?)"Yeah, but I was the shiniest piece of tail on that stage, and you wanted me. And it showed." --Jesse (to his wife, on playing opposite each other in "Oklahoma!")"There's nothing more celebratory than gunfire." --Mom"That's the reason little kids are afraid of clowns. That and they come to your school to teach you sex ed in 2nd grade...that's pretty scary..." --Isha"I just realized I easily have man-crushes on video game characters that have unrealistic but amazingly cool hair." --IvorJeff O: No, my sister would get mad at me because I would chew off her Barbies' feet.Barba[...]

"Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures." --Jessamyn West

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:07 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!This is one of those short stories that come about because you just start writing. I started it while waiting in an airport about six months ago, without a thought in my head as to what it would be about, and then just kept writing until something solidified. I'd been reading Hemingway and Cormac McCarthy a lot when I started this little fiction free-write, and it kinda shows...my writing always mirrors what I'm reading at the time, whether I want it to or not. Skill or weakness? Probably both.There's an image in it that is reminiscent of Plath's "The Bell Jar," which I read recently, but interestingly enough I read the Bell Jar after I wrote the scene in "Gravity." Channeling Plath...blessing or curse? Again, probably both.I decided to be vague in this as well. Deliberately Hemingway. Hills like white elephants, anyone? (AKA I'm not sure what I want to have happen at the very end. So you get to decide. I've my own theories, but they're just mine.)Anyway, enjoy. It probably needs a lot more work...at this point its just sort of a few scenes and facts thrown together over two or three pages. But it was fun to write. I haven't tried any straight-up fiction in literally years. So I welcome your comments and critiques! This is my way of work-shopping this draft.GRAVITYElaine McFarther had become Elaine Jeorges, wife of the rough and silent Harold Jeorges, exactly two weeks before her twentieth birthday. He was more than 25 years her senior. The reception was held in her father"s office building, in one of the three reception rooms. She had wanted it on the roof, but there were too many guests for whom stairs was a challenge. Her colors had been lavender and yellow, and she had carried lilies. On the day of her wedding, Elaine had climbed to the roof of the McFarther Enterprises building. The McFarther Enterprises building was forty-seven stories high. There were six elevators, four staircases, and two maintenance stairwells that led to the roof. Not caring whether anyone missed her at her own wedding reception, she had gathered her petticoat and dress up in her arms, and legs bare up to her thighs, walked the four flights of stairs to the maintenance door. She had crushed part of her bouquet of lilies in her efforts to open it. Elaine had stood at the edge of the roof, shivering in her strapless gown. Her lilies lay in a heap at her feet, and beside them a steadily growing pile of half-smoked cigarette butts. She never finished cigarettes. She could smoke a pack in four hours, but always put them out before they were finished. It was her way of working up to quitting. Deep down, she had no intention of quitting, but not finishing a cigarette made smoking one seem less harmful. She leaned against the railing, smoking, counting the cars down below and wondering where the people in them were going. Looking up, she could count on one hand the number of stars that were visible. She peered up at the moon, and pursing her lips, tried to blow a smoke ring to surround it. The smoke blew away in the wind.Pursing her lips again, Elaine wondered about Harold. She glanced down at the lilies at her feet. She dropped her half-finished cigarette and ground it beneath the heel of her wedding shoes. She picked up the lilies and gathered them to h[...]

"Not mein kampf im afraid my friend, not mine. h.f. loves all of his children, even the homo-sexuals and lezbos and in bet weeners." -Jacqueline

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:07 -0500

Learn to Play Acoutic Guitar - Become Fantastic Guitarist Using Jamorama...Get Jamorama Instant Download by Clicking Here Now!Okay, so I've been thinking about/writing this blog entry for about a month now. And I figured that since election is in about oh, a week, I'd better post it.So Prop 8. So civil rights. The pursuit of happiness vs. freedom of religion. Freedom of speech vs. freedom of religion. So the separation of church and state.So the Church asking us to give of our time and our means to make sure Prop 8 passes.So Liz's very close gay friends/family and THEIR rights and feelings.It's been quite a journey to reconcile my initial feelings towards Prop 8 with what the Church and the prophet has been asking us to do. I know a lot of LDS friends have been blogging (part of what they've asked us to do anyway...use the internet and our knowledge of technology to advocate Prop 8), but this here entry will also include some thoughts of my personal journey of reconciliation, and obedience. Because when we were first asked to support Prop 8, boy, was I up in arms. I still think the wording of Prop 8 in the law itself is good and clear, but think that the way it's written in the ballot is pretty biased. But that's beside the point.***Important note: For any of you who are gay, bi, lesbian, transsexual, straight, unsure...please don't be offended at my words. If something that I say here is hurtful to you, I am sorry. Nothing here was written in hate. I believe that everyone on earth is a child of God, loved dearly by their Creator, and it is my responsibility to love and respect them as such as well. I urge you to keep reading, throughout this entry. It's a little long, and may be a little...straight-forward. But before you make any judgments, I ask that you at least give some thought to what I'm saying, because I promise these conclusions were made after many many many hours of study and prayer. They were not easy conclusions to come by, and I am not writing them lightly, so I ask that you please not treat them lightly. I would welcome your thoughts and comments.***First, a little background:Proposition 8 is a proposal on the ballot to amend the California state constitution to read "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in the state of California."Brief legislative history---? 1977 - First legislation regarding marriage is put into California law, defining marriage as "a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman."? 1999 - "Domestic partnerships" (also known as civil unions) are given many of the same eligibility and civil rights as marriage, including those regarding hospital and jail visitation, insurance, wills, sharing of property, tax benefits. Domestic partnerships can be applied for by same-sex couples, or by straight couples in which one partner is over the age of 62.? 2000 - Proposition 22 is passed by 61% of California voters. It was the exact same wording as Proposition 8 currently, but it applied to the California "Family Code."? 2004 - San Francisco county clerk begins issuing same-sex marriage certificates. This action is immediately challenged by supporters of traditional marriage, and the conflict begins its journey to the California Supreme Court? May 15, 2008 - Four Supreme Court judges rule that Prop 22 is discriminatory and overturn it.Holding(s):[...]

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