Friday Music Post

I used to have Cat Stevens' Greatest Hits on vinyl but when I ditched all my vinyl a number of years ago (my turntable croaked and I didn't think I'd replace it) I couldn't find that title on CD. So I got another Cat Stevens hits collection but discovered later that it did not contain the song "Ready" which I love. So recently I purchased Cat Stevens' Greatest Hits on CD.

So for your listening pleasure, Cat Stevens "Ready":

Luddites Unite!

I think that more and more technology is basically ruining everything.

It is my considered opinion that technology has ruined popular music. Peer-to-peer file sharing, music downloads, streaming services have all be destroyed music as a viable career for many artists that were really good. Why you ask? Only huge artists that were big before the big tech eruption of twenty years ago are really making any money, or so it seems. My music teacher basically agrees with this, he feels the whole music download thing has made a situation for musicians go from bad to worse. Now some might argue that there are some great talents out there that never would have gotten any exposure but now with the Internet, YouTube, Facebook and other social media outlets they can self-publish and get recognized for their talents without the middle-man record company. This might even be true, but I feel like this has destroyed more than it has given us. Sounds like the record business is a pretty shady business in the first place, but it's even less attractive for good acts now.

Just my humble opinion, pretty much fact free. Feel free to correct me.

Putting the "Fun" back in Funeral

I'm kind of Mr. Introspection these days. I think when I pass, if I am given something of a standard funeral, I think I'd like this song played in the proceedings at some point. I'm at an age where I find myself looking back a lot more lately and it makes you think.

"Time" by the Alan Parson's Project:

Eulogy for my brother

This was originally written in August 2014, after my eldest brother passed away. I saw it in draft status and decided to publish it. I'm sure I wanted to say much, much more.

No one asked me to eulogize my brother. I want to do it, but will probably not get a chance.

I have a lot of things I want to say about my brother and his passing but I am going to start with something that was found among his photographs we searched while looking for pictures of him when he was married and his family was young. We wanted to have some photos of him with his children and what we found was a wallet card, the kind you might buy at a stationary store. It said:

Don't Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
when the road your trudging seems all up hill,
when the funds are low, and the debts are high,
and you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
when care is pressing you down a bit,
rest if you must but don't you quit,

Life is odd with its twists and turns,
as everyone of us sometimes learn,
and many a failure turns about,
when he might have won had he stuck it out,
Don't give up though the pace seems slow
you may succeed with another blow

Success is failure turned inside out
the silver tint of the clouds of doubt
and you can never tell how close you are
It may be near when it seems so far
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit
It's when things seem worse
that you must not quit.

And even before we found this, I had already realized that this sort of thing epitomized my brother. I told him on many occasions about my admiration for this ability of his to keep going in spite of everything that had happened to him, especially in the last 7 years or so. When he lay in hospital, and we all knew he was dying, I repeated to him how I admired him for his tenacity in spite of the odds.

My brother was a pretty humble guy most of the time. He was an ordinary working guy, an organization man, that is until the organization vanished. My brother worked hard and he worked a lot. From my perspective he gave until it hurt. It hurt him, it hurt his family but he was at work a lot and rare was the day he called in sick or went to the doctor. When his work went away, they paid him a few weeks severance, It might have amounted to a month or so of pay. The company certainly wasn't going to pay people like Paul what they deserved after decades of dedicated service and sacrifice. This was the first of many trials and tribulations my brother would have to face in the next 7 years. The lack of full-time employment that paid a living wage, a heart attack, a quadruple by-pass, loss of his home, bankruptcy and finally cancer. I had run out of happy talk for my brother a long time ago, I could see how things were shaping up for him. He had persevered through so many things and did it pretty cheerfully most of the time. Yeah there times he was down, lamenting his misfortunes, but he had always gotten up, dusted himself off and kept on keeping on. What a tremendous example for his children. He was an easygoing guy, made friends easily, was a hard working guy and cared about his family. I told his son Jonathan, that in the end, his children, he in particular, was all that my brother had, it was all he had to live for.

Friends

I quit Facebook recently. I always knew it was a bad idea to ever join Facebook, but I am enough of an attention whore that I joined up, posted all sorts of pictures, talked about personal stuff, argued politics (for a time) and joined groups that interested me and then just got sick of feeding the beast. Plus the revelations about your personal info (big surprise there). I was sick of all the marketing, all the perfect statuses, the wonderful vacations, etc. I knew most of the people on my list and I knew that their lives are not that great all the time. In addition, it was a huge time waster.

So here am I using another digital psy-ops site (you think Google is going to do no evil, or whatever their bs motto is?) but I feel more in control here for some reason. I want to talk about friends.

I have learned, rather late in life, that you don't ever really have many friends. Not really good ones. Mostly we have friendly acquaintances. If you're lucky to have really good friends, take care of them. I learned, again late in life, who some of my better friends were. Unfortunately for me, one of them in particular, and his wife, have passed away. He, at 48 on his birthday, and she about 6 years later, just before their youngest child was about to graduate high school. Extremely tragic. The tragedy for me however was, I realized too late, what a good friend this guy was to me. He kept the friendship alive throughout the years even though I tended to neglect it. He kept trying to keep it alive and kept reaching out to me, inviting me to be his better friend. I failed and all too late realized what a wonderful friend he was. Every time I think of this person, I cannot help but choke down the tears but honestly, most of the time, I just let them flow.

I have also learned that your family is often your truest source of friends. I've lost two sisters and a brother in the last 12 years and in the case of my brother in particular, I feel that loss most acutely. He and I were friends, we spent time together, we "hung out", had many common interests from our youth, even through he was ten years older than I. He was a bit of a mentor in some ways when I was young, as was my other brother who is still with us. It pains me to think I will never see him again, never enjoy his company, camaraderie or his support. He is, like my friend who died on his birthday, an irreplaceable loss. I still have my wife, my brother, my wife's brother, my son but I do not feel like my friends, even those who claim to be my best, oldest friends, really care one whit about me and that can only engender he same feelings within me towards them.

So, if you have a good, true friend, try to take good care of them, you don't get many in this life.

Happy Thursday

This tune was on my mind, so I'll share with my readership.

Arrested Development

Alone

I feel alone a lot these days. Occasionally lonely, but mostly just alone. I've been alright with being alone because as a child being alone was at a premium so I kind of treasured solitude. In a way I still do. I'm talking about on our journey in life. We are all alone, ultimately. We have our parents and our spouses, children, siblings, extended family and our very close friends, but over time, we lose them in one form or another and even in their company we are alone. As a young person, you seldom realize it, or think of it in that way but I have found as I have gotten older, that we are alone. No one can really share your thoughts, your feelings, your pain, your joy, or even your beliefs. You are a universe unto yourself. Alone. I've realized lately that we really need to love ourselves. Not in a selfish or self-centered way but in sort of a kind way. We must be kind to ourselves and give ourselves a certain amount of leeway for our feelings or our behavior (provided it's not off the charts of acceptable norms). I've lost 3 siblings in the last 11 or so years now, a brother and sister in the last 3. I watched them die, alone. People around them, but they were in themselves alone. No husband, no son or daughter, no brother or sister can relieve that aloneness, that apartness. They entered this world alone and they left it, alone. This realization has prompted sadness for me, to realize that I am alone in the universe and that my loved ones, my wife, my son, the whole of my family, my good friends, all exist in this universe as solitary beings. I think it's important to have a certain amount of mental/emotional toughness to be able to confront this reality and to endure your life as you must, alone. I have been noticing that as I grow older I am becoming more and more emotional, more prone to express my feelings, to privately cry to grieve this loss. The loss of illusory connectedness to people, places and things. I feel like I need to take a deep dive into myself. To work on myself, to be kind to myself and show the people closest to me, a better me.

Father's Day

NOTE: I started writing this just before Father's Day, but wasn't able to finish.

I'm pretty certain that no one, or next to no one is reading what I write here. Well, except for the government spooks who are watching everyone. I want to write about Father's Day. In particular the Father's Day I'm going to have. This will be my 13th Father's Day and because I only have one child, everyone makes a big deal about it. That is to say, my wife, my son and brother-in-law. I appreciate the honor and for a long time I never really gave it a second thought. I've not been a very religious person, even through I was raised to be one by people who were by contemporary standards, pretty devout. So, I've struggled with the notion of God, and his intervention into my life on some kind of regular basis.

What I have learned about being a father.

My wife and I decided a bit later in life to start a family. I was opposed to having children, for a raft of good reasons. Some might argue that my reasons may be a bit grandiose, but even now, I cannot criticize the past me for not wanting to have a child. The human race faces some pretty grave existential challenges. The idea of bringing another soul into this enterprise is a daunting one and I would never criticize someone for not wanting to have children. In fact, I'm more prone to criticize people who have too many, for obvious reasons. Fatherhood has brought challenges that I was hoping I would not have to face. One in particular is the fact that my son is on the autism spectrum. He appears to have a couple of other learning differences. Fortunately, these are not so severe that he cannot function. In fact, he functions quite well and if you were to meet him, casually, briefly, you might not even detect that he had these differences. But, he does. As a parent, a father, it's painful to watch him as his schoolmates and "friends" change and grow by what appears to be leaps and bounds and while my son is progressing, his changes seem much more incremental, sometimes it seems like to me a glacial pace. I am hopeful that he will bloom in his own time, much as I bloomed later than many of my contemporaries.

The fact is,I've spent most of my own life feeling like I was always behind or falling behind most of my contemporaries, my family, my friends, etc. It's not a good feeling when you think about it, when you view life as some sort of game with winners and losers, but contrary to what a great many people think, life really isn't a game of winners and losers. The people who view it this way put themselves in a very bad place. It's a place that I have been, now and again, when I forget that we're not playing a game and that if life is a game, it's a game for keeps. Because the world and a great many people in it, tend to view life as this contest of winners and losers, I not only fear for myself, but for my son, who will view the world differently than many people and may not see it's expectations and challenges the way others see it.

Of course I would want for him, many of the conventional "wants", a good paying job/career, a solid love relationship, good family ties, good friends, all the material success that would go with being smart and hardworking, but that may not be in the cards for my son and great many of his cohorts. He will likely be marginalized by the larger society. Even now, I see him sidelined by his "friends", neuro-typical kids who realize that he is different. As they now enter their teen years and all that entails, they are swiftly changing and adapting to the new paradigm, they head to that goal, maturity, as if powered by steam turbines. My son meanwhile, is moving along as if under sail, at 45 degrees towards the same goal. He will hopefully get there, but not on the same timetable. This is a bit problematic for a young person, left behind by "friends" and schoolmates, with no one his own age to associate with because he is different, views the world through a different lens, isn't "cool" enough, or isn't into the latest thing that a boy his age "ought" to be into.

In some ways, it is an advantage, because I was a later bloomer and I simply wasn't as mature, for better or worse, than many of my friends and associates at the time. This means he will likely avoid getting into trouble with things like experimenting with his sexuality before he is ready. He is cautious of the larger world, because he doesn't see it the same way and views things with great care and skepticism. He is getting used to being disappointed by faithless friends and therefore will hopefully avoid finding out that real friends are very few and far between much later in life. I am hoping that when the time comes to choose a mate, if that is in the cards for him, that he will be schooled by his experiences that he will choose someone wisely, for their inner strength and beauty which is eternal, rather than the exterior beauty which does not last. All of this has informed me of late, that I cannot hope for someone outside of his family to be his good friend and confident. It must be me. It can be his uncles, or his mom, but I must be his friend, to the extend that I can. I remember in my own family of origin, I think my father must have come to a crossroads with me, around 14 or 15 and took a more active role with me and we forged a bond which lasted till the day he departed this earth. I have thought a lot about those times and I also had two older brothers who did the same thing for me, friends when there were few or even none around. My son doesn't have siblings, so this is my calling. Being a father, his father, means I must rise to this occasion and do my level best to help him make it through these years, with a decent sense of himself, in spite of what the world intends to do to him.

Festivus Airing of Grievances

Had an argument with my brother last night, mostly over things that no longer matter and were certainly none of my business. Nothing like airing ugly feelings or opinions just before the holidays to make the season bright.

I apologized via text message, because I think a telephone or face to face apology is just going to open wounds. I'm not too happy about it, disappointed in myself because I had told myself a long time ago that I wasn't going to express my feelings or opinions about certain subjects, mostly because they weren't my business and it wouldn't affect the outcome in any case. I'm not totally to blame, but I accept my culpablity. I guess I have my first of many New Year's resolutions to work on.

The good news is that I will be missing the "feats of strength" portion of the Festivus holiday.

Hope you all have a blessed holiday season and a happy, healthy, prosperous and peaceful new year.

Letter to my father

Dear Dad,

You've been gone for 22 years now so this letter is overdue. I've had 22 years of living life to realize how fortunate I was to have you and mom for parents. I want to apologize for any criticisms I may have made to and about you and mom when you were living. Not many days pass that I don't think to myself what good people you were and how you tried so hard to impart your wisdom and goodness to me. While I was extremely lucky to have you as a role-model Dad, you set the bar pretty high. Most days I don't feel like I measure up. Yes, I realize that we are different people and that times and circumstances are also different, but I cannot help admire you. I feel like if only I had a fraction of your wisdom, patience, intellect, discipline, practical-common-sense, know-how and a myriad of other attributes I would be a giant of a man. Instead I fumble and struggle and often times fall short of the high standard that you set. A dozen times a year I curse myself for not paying more attention or being around when you were doing some boring, mundane and ultimately very important to the care and maintenance of our family home or automobile. I thank my lucky stars for the times I was there and paid attention. Daily I realize how your "cheap-skate" ways and bargain hunting were tremendous skills that I simply do not possess. I wish I was half as frugal and careful with my money as you and mom were with yours. I can remember deriding that ethic and thinking it was unnecessary. I realize now that you were so right about money and a dozen other subjects. You were right about saving money, debt, the value of doing things yourself and a host of other related topics which I now find myself confronted with in a very real way. Again I curse myself for not paying closer attention and at the same time I am so glad for the parts of those lessons that I did internalize. I am not where I wanted to be at this point in my life, but I'm further along than many of my peers. Thanks again Dad.

I used to think you weren't a very good father in some ways, you seemed so distant most of my life. I realize now you were preoccupied with the serious business of providing for mom and all of us kids. I know you didn't have much of a leg up in this mean old world and that you didn't have your own father as a guide and mentor. Again my apologies. Thanks for reaching out to me as a teenager. I think I know that you knew you needed to do it and it helped a lot. I knew you cared in your own way and you had to juggle me as a priority among many priorities. You seemed to know that I needed your firm but friendly guidance in those years and unlike my brothers, I never felt a need to prove myself by challenging you. Not sure why it worked out that way, but I am glad it did. I remember living in fear of your judgement and I was terrified if I did something wrong but in fact, you were usually very patient and loving with me, and at the time while it seemed harsh, you were probably better with me than I've been with my own child. I am ashamed of myself when I think of how I felt for so long that you were so hard, when in fact you tolerated my many mistakes and transgressions with very few consequences equal of the offense. Thanks for being easy on me Dad. Again, I think you knew me better than I knew me.

Thanks for showing me the value of hard work, but putting it in perspective with the rest of my life. I realize I am so lucky that while you were an industrious person, you were never a workaholic. Thank you for teaching me about labor and about the labor movement, while I've never been in a labor union, having things explained to me about the importance of labor was helpful in understanding the world or work and my place in it. Dad, while you were never much of a "roadmap" when it came to my career you did give me good general advice and it is still true today. Be skilled, be in demand. They were words of wisdom I tried to heed. Thank you for giving me that advice when I asked for it.

Dad, I'd be lying if I told you I felt like a smashing success these days. I don't. In fact I feel quite the opposite, but the success I have had, I attribute a great deal of it to the things I was taught by you and mom.

Dad, I'm also grateful for how you and mom always stayed out of my romantic affairs. Thanks for having faith that I could seek the right person out. I did. I think many of the things that you demonstrated and taught me were extremely valuable in this regard, but again the bar was set high and it was not easy to achieve.

There are many more things I would like to say in this letter but time doesn't permit. I tell my wife all the time, if I were half the man you were I'd be a colossus in my own estimation. While I'm not happy with my own performance, I keep trying to get better, even now that I'm over the hill. I thank you for that too Dad. You are still the gold standard for me in so many ways. Oh and by the way, I've missed you and mom for these last couple of decades. I know it's just the way things worked out. I would give much to hear your voices again and see you two. I am consoled by my wife, another pillar of strength in my life. She has helped to keep me strong when I was getting weak. She's buoyed me up when I was sinking and all this and she's pretty and smart too. Let mom know that I did well that way.

Love,

Your son

Rock Band

"Id' like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we pass the audition."

Diversifying Income Streams

This has been a question that has been on my mind for nearly 10 years now. I realized when I was still working in the automotive supplier game that I needed diverse sources of income, other ways to make money than a job. The last 2 - 3 years has really highlighted the need for that. Being dependent on a single employer for all your money makes you extremely vulnerable. Employers like that, I don't. I could do side work, or contract in the off time, which would sort of work, but being essentially "lazy" (I like my leisure time, period) the thought of doing more of the same kind of work doesn't feel good. I no longer love what I do, although I must admit having the right kind of job makes a difference and in my most recently work situation I am much happier and enjoy my work more generally speaking. However, I am not keen on doing contract/side work, because it could place you in a possible conflict of interest kind of thing. I want to create some kind of thing that I can run from home, not require a huge capital investment, be in demand yet not so critical that you could be vulnerable to a lot of legal action and finally be something not so technical or arcane that my wife and son could not participate. Yeah, I know a lot of parameters and constraints there, but that's what I'd like to do. I've love to create some kind of part time thing that the three of us could do and maybe earn a couple of hundred dollars a week doing it.

I have some ideas, but I so far I haven't researched them very much, so I'm open to any suggestions.

Happy New Year!

Well three years running I've gotten sick around the New Year. Very tiresome. Looking forward to a better new year this time around. Starting off with a better job and a new car. I honestly don't see the economy getting much better with the status quo being what it is. The people in control (the banksters, not the president) simply do not want to take it on the chin, like they should have a few years ago, so they will continue to run their con games on Wall Street and in public finance. My own tack is to move to the safest positions I can within the captive 401k plans we're in. I have already gotten most of my own non-retirement monies out of the stock market a few years ago. It's been a struggle to keep things together and "normal" for the last few years because of my employment situation, hopefully that will not be the case going forward. I think I am going to follow the advice of people who seem smarter than I am, people like Charles Hugh Smith for example. I think the building of social capital and diversifying ones income streams needs to happen for a great many of us. I think the next 20 years will barely resemble the last 20 years. There is only one constant in the universe, change.

We Won!!!

My son's Pinewood Derby car won 1st place for his Den and almost took 3rd place for the pack overall (bad luck ruled out heats where his car was 1st place, another car kept flying off the track, so they threw out those results and he ended up not taking 3rd place). But it was a good day overall and we're going off to the District races on April 30th!

Pinewood Derby Car!

Here's my cubscout with his Pinewood Derby entry. It's our first time at the Derby, so while we don't expect to win, we at least wanted to look good.

Robert Reich Just Calls It Like It Is.

I love reading Robert Reich. Why can't we have more of this!?!?

What's Good For Wall Street Ain't Necessarily Good For You

Look at this, in the New York Times. I've been thinking this for a while now.

As I Have Suspected

I haven't been reading the Cab Drollery blog in a while. It's an excellent blog and this tid bit, while no surprise to me, is depressing.

Lower Expectations

The past year has been a sea-change for me and my family. Recently I had the one year anniversary of my lay-off from my last job. It is an anniversary I view with mixed emotion because on one hand I knew I wasn't going to stay with that company, there was no way that would be tolerated and on the other hand, it represented a zenith in my compensation. I do not believe I will ever make that kind of money again as a staff programmer with the current skill-set I possess. This past year has been a difficult one in many ways and liberating in others. It is the liberation of lower expectations. I now take much more delight in simple things. My son, who is really at heart, kind of an outdoorsy kid, will get to enjoy some camping. Something that I never did as a kid except in the backyard with a pup tent. So, it will be something to try. Also more use of the boat and 'camping' on it. One of my Xmas gifts was a nice twin inflatable mattress that I hope we can use for the cockpit of the boat so the three of us can overnight on it. I'm looking forward to it.

End Of A Long Year

Coming to what for me was a long, difficult year. While there were a few positives, on balance it was a difficult year for me and many around me. Starting with my job loss in the worst economy since the Great Depression, I quickly recovered, to a point, getting a job in about 3 weeks. For that I deserve some kind of award, for good luck I think. I look forward to the new year, I expect to pay off my mortgage and with proper adjustments I can make progress again towards some other goals.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.