Somewhere between retiring to bed and waking up to an endless loop of Ease On Down The Road stuck in my head, I had this weird dream about shopping for vinyl records.  There was a Kitten Machine vinyl that I wanted real bad, but it was like $305.  There was a Soulive album there titled Count of Monte Cristo (there is no Soulive album titled Count of Monte Cristo, I have no clue where that came from), the cover art of which was meticulously designed to align with the stars and foretell prophecies of some sort.  That particular press was priced at $416, so being the negotiator that I am I bought the somewhat less impressively designed version at the bargain price of $14.  How I woke up with Ease On Down The Road stuck in my head I haven’t the foggiest idea, but I will attest here and now that that song gets REAL annoying at 10:00 AM on a Sunday when all you want to do is sleep.

Anyway, that’s not what I came here to write about.  I’ve been doing a lot of un-documented thinking lately, which is never a good idea.  I’ve been struggling with the idea of self-analysis;  how can I step outside myself and look at my situation from an unbiased point of view?  How can I be sure that my decisions are made from logic and not from raw emotion?  Is it even possible?  Is this way too deep for plasticwater.org?  All of these are questions I’d rather not answer.

Lately my mood has been like a pensive adagio.  I’ve been doing a lot of staring at walls, lost in thought.  People are beginning to take this as me finally losing my last bean and slipping into insanity, but I assure you that is inaccurate.  At least I think I do.  Closer to the truth is that I feel like I’m at some sort of a crossroad, and the choices I make this year are going to be of the utmost importance.  I don’t know why this year is special, it just feels that way, and who am I to argue with intangible feelings.

There are things I want, but when confronted with the question of why, I stumble trying to answer.  I don’t know why I want the things I do, all I can do is compare it to a feeling of hunger — I feel this way, and to feel better, I know I must eat.  But, this is why we don’t go grocery shopping when we’re hungry.  We end up with $70 worth of food we don’t want.  Time to reflect, analyze.  Make good choices.

Come on and, ease on down, ease on down, down the road…….

Ok, I promise I’m gonna use this thing.  I just realized that I haven’t checked it since before my birthday last year.  That happens to be in August.  I fail at blogging.

One of my tasks for today is to work on a WordPress theme that displays properly in browsers besides IE.  Wish me luck?

I’m in a rather thoughtful mood today.  I noticed a long time ago that I wasn’t updating, but I just couldn’t think of anything to write about.  I still don’t really have anything to write about but this is what’s on my mind.

When I was in 9th grade, I had a teacher named Mr. Sinnaeve (pronounced Sin-a-vee).  He taught English.  It wasn’t until long after high school was over that I realized just how amazing of a teacher he was.  See, Mr. Sinnaeve used to have us freewrite for 10 minutes at the beginning of every class.  Freewriting is an exercise where you grab a pen and a few sheets of paper and just start writing and don’t stop.  Whatever comes out, comes out.  If you ever stop writing, even for a second, you’re doing it wrong.  Needless to say, the end product of this exercise rarely makes any sense whatsoever, but that’s the point.  It’s a valuable tool for finding ideas you didn’t know you had, or just to get something off your chest, or to teach you that it’s okay to write, even if you’re not sure yet why you’re writing.  It was something that I really enjoyed at the time, and really took to heart.  It made me a better writer, doing this for just 10 minutes every day.  At the end of the 10 minutes, we would turn in our freewriting paper, and he would grade it.  The only things he would mark people down for would be if there were eraser marks, or if the paper made too much sense.

Mr. Sinnaeve had a totally different approach to teaching than any other teacher we had encountered in our public school careers.  If someone asked a stupid question, he gave a stupid answer.  “What do you mean by ‘just write whatever is on our mind,’ I don’t get it,” would be answered by something like, “There are parrots in the ceiling.”  And then he would move on.  I was absolutely delighted by Mr. Sinnaeve.

One day, we came in to class and the teacher there was not Mr. Sinnaeve.  I don’t remember who it was, because they were painfully uninteresting and not at all memorable.  We learned later that Mr. Sinnaeve had been fired, because he ruined some ditzy cheerleader’s 4.0 because she couldn’t grasp the concept of freewriting, and her mom threw a bitchfit.  Clearly this girl was excellent and retaining facts and regurgitating them, but if you can’t grasp the idea of just simply writing to write, you shouldn’t have a 4.0 in the first place, let alone get the teacher fired.

I was angry at the time, but looking back, even then I didn’t fully appreciate what Mr. Sinnaeve was doing for us.  By changing the way I looked at writing and learning, he literally changed my life.  I’ve made efforts to find Mr. Sinnaeve recently, because I want to thank him for being the teacher that he was, and I want to acknowledge the injustice of what happened to him.  I want to tell him that I still freewrite every time I need to get something off my chest or come up with a new idea, and that he was the best teacher I ever had.  Unfortunately I can’t seem to find any information about where he is or what he might be doing now.

If anyone can find a Theodore/Ted Sinnaeve that used to work at Holt Junior High, let me know.

George Clinton at Common Ground

Last night I went to Common Ground in Downtown Lansing for the first time.  I never went before because I never really wanted to see any of the acts they booked (at least not enough to pay $30 for it).  But, this year when I heard they booked George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, quite possibly my favorite band ever, I immediately took the day off work.  It was well worth the $35 ticket (after processing) and the $6 beers.  I saw an amazing number of people that I knew, listened to fantastic music, and got to get right up front to see George Clinton himself for the first time.  Truly an amazing experience.  My voice is a little rough today, but I have a brand new P-Funk t-shirt and some great pictures.  All in all, it kinda made me think I should go to more of these city-wide events.

It has been a while, yes?

Alright. I know whenever something this huge happens there’s going to be a lot of controversy, there are going to be people who care more than others, of course of course. But there are some attitudes surrounding Michael Jackson’s death that are just simply silly. I honestly don’t feel that most of them are worth responding to, because the people expressing them are just looking to ruffle feathers and I’d rather not encourage that. I will, however, give my opinion here, where said feather-rufflers can’t deface it.

I’ve seen lots of people calling Michael Jackson nothing but a child molester and a freak. It even hurts me to type that. How anyone can ignore the simple fact that Michael was a musical and cultural icon, that he gave us timeless music, escapes me. Can any of the people saying they’re “glad” that Michael is dead really honestly say that they’ve never enjoyed his music? They’ve never imitated his dances? No, they can’t. He was (and still is) synonymous with American music and culture, and should be remembered and respected as such.

I’d have to be blind to deny that he became eccentric and, yes, his appearance became somewhat zombie-like. But can you say that you wouldn’t get a little wacky if you never had a single memory of being a normal person? Being a superstar since you were 6? If you never got to go to a grocery store or a bar, never got to meet people on your own? EVER? I know I would start to lose a few screws. People like us can’t possibly fathom that kind of fame. If we can’t fathom the way he lived, who are we to judge how he responded to it? Nobody, that’s who we are. Until you’ve lived your whole life in a fishbowl with millions of people watching you, and until you’ve changed the face of music and culture as we know it, then you should keep your judgemental mouth shut.

I don’t know whether he did anything wrong or not (actually I highly doubt he ever touched a child inappropriately in the first place, but that’s another discussion), the bottom line is this: it doesn’t matter. Everyone has their shortcomings. You’re not perfect. I know I’m not perfect, and when it comes my time to die, I don’t want to be remembered for my mistakes. I only wish that I had the opportunity to do something so incredible that it would totally overshadow any mistake I may have made… and Michael Jackson did that. I suggest getting down from your high horse for a second to respect him for the legend he was, and is. At least for a damn second.