Happy Through the Sadness

My wife and I like to hang out and watch award shows. She likes to see who is wearing what and I like to criticize and make fun of everyone on the show. Tonight was no exception, but the night wasn't without them.

Robert Plant (who is doing his best Cowardly Lion style) and Allison Krauss picked up a couple Grammys, including album of the year. If you haven't downloaded or purchased 'Raising Sand' in the last year, you're missing out. This collaboration, which includes the front man from arguably my favorite band of all time, has been on my radar since it was announced. I waited with eager anticipation to actually pay full price for it on iTunes. A rarity this day in age. I didn't want some crappy leaked demos.

The fact that this project won some hardware tonight isn't a huge surprise as the album has been a critical darling since it hit the airwaves. I was surprised it won album of the year however. Last year another surprise took place when Herbie Hancock walked away with album of the year beating out the likes of (thank God) Amy Winehouse. Coldplay or Lil' Wayne seemed poised to win tonight, as the Grammys are notorious for picking something obvious one year, and picking a dark horse the next, but never two years in a row. Thanks for keeping me coming back.

Other than the few wins by Plant and Krauss, it was a downer of a year. Coldplay beating Metallica for rock performance of the year, John Mayer still being alive and well, and the attack of the Disney kids. Luckily for all the pre-pubescent fans, CBS front loaded the show with the Brothers Jonas and Hanna Montana, but not before they threw in a little faux-lesbianism with Katie Perry singing "I Kissed a Girl" which is the best ode to bi-curious activity since Jill Sobule's 90's classic (the video featured Fabio, remember? plus it's a better song) of same name. I'm sure old Jill is pissed her song will probably be erased from most of the record books thanks to Perry.

Not more than 30 minutes after saying to my wife that Coldplay looked like a homeless version of The Beatles from their Sgt. Pepper era, one of the band members not named Chris Martin apologized to Paul McCartney for ripping off his style he created 42 years earlier. I'm sure Sir Paul was flattered.

The night's biggest abomination, other than Kid Rock, was Keith Urban and John Mayer sharing the stage with blues legends B.B. King and Buddy Guy. Why King continues to keep Mayer around is astounding. Maybe he is trying to subtly tell him he has the potential to be a solid blues musician, rather than a James Taylor-esque whinny douche bag who writes songs for middle aged women, destined for elevators around the globe.

Equally horrifying, at least to me, was Kanye West. What the fuck man? You used to be a solid socially conscious MC and hella producer. Now you look like an extra from "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo." Sad, sad, sad.

While waiting for the show to start, and milling around the house, I overheard from my wife's E! pregame show that Chris Brown and Rhianna were unable to make it to the show as they were doing their best Ike and Tina Turner impression. Good on ya kids, pop music needs a little controversy. So I say take the black eye and scratch marks, because I'm getting sick of hearing about Nick Jonas and his purity ring. Like he's not pulling in ass like an NBA player. Give me a break.

Whitney Houston gave out the first award for best R&B Performance, won by the incredible Jennifer Hudson, and is still showing signs of the Bobby Brown affect. I guess crack and prescription painkillers take awhile to run their course.

All in all, it was a great show to sit back and text my sister complaints and shared grievances. It's good to know that someone out there shares the same twisted thought process as yours truly. Next up, Oscar Gold!!

Now What?

Today officially marks the end of the NFL season. Players who decided to go to Hawai'i and not stay home and nurse a broken ego will duke it out for conference supremacy in the Pro Bowl. I might add, this is the last year it will take place in Hawai'i. Next season it will move to the continental U.S. in Miami, much to the dismay of Ray Lewis and Peyton Manning.

No one cares about the Pro Bowl. I know I don't. I never watch it and I probably won't watch it today either. So what we have now is what I like to call as the sports "dead period." I'm huge on college football and baseball, neither one of which is seeing much action now. My fantasy baseball league won't have our draft until March, which gives me approximately four weeks of watching college basketball and the NBA.

I attempted to watch the NASCAR Bud Shootout last night. When that didn't work out I ended up watching Zack and Miri Make a Porno with my wife. Chew on that one for a bit for things to do on a Saturday night.

In any event I do have F1 racing starting soon, and hopefully they start broadcasting all the races in HD now that I have the Speed channel. I never thought I'd become one of those HD snobs that I hated so much, but once you regularly watch shows and movies in HD it's hard to go back.

Adding to the anxiety of waiting for another season of college football, which is a mere seven months away, was purchasing my Spring Game tickets for my beloved Huskers. Who knew that buying tickets to travel a couple hundred miles to watch practice would get me as excited as it does.

Yesterday was nearly 70 degrees in Kansas City. Does anyone else find the yo-yo weather this winter to be a little disturbing? I'm not one of those greenie freak out people, but walking my dog in shorts and a t-shirt was a little odd. Especially considering it was the first weekend in February and not the middle of April.

Tidbits from the Big Tree

If you still check in on this blog from time to time, which I would be surprised if you did, then you'll notice I've posted two columns from the campus newspaper I write for, The Park University Stylus. Not only do I lend my talents to the editorial side of things, I cover various sports on campus. Like men's basketball and women's volleyball.

Each time I do a column I'm going to post it here before it goes to print. So Park students, you're in for a real treat because you'll always be privy to what is coming out in the next issue. All the others will continue to read and have no knowledge of what makes it into the paper or not. My posts that don't will probably be filled with naughty language like you've come to expect from me in previous years.

The sentiments contained in this post are between not serious and somewhat believable.

I am also one third of the way to my post total from last year. You should be proud.

The Information of Errors

The state of how people obtain information and what they do with it has started to disturb me. In the age of the information superhighway, it's possible to have a world of knowledge at your fingertips. It's a great deal of power to have on your side, especially for those of us that can remember when you couldn't check on the arguments for Cosmological theory in a split second on Google and you had to look up articles in a library. Possibly on microfilm or some other horrific precursor that predated our beloved friend and partner in academia, the Internet.

Back in the day, to use a phrase, you could only have access to the opinions of those that were in your immediate zip code or metropolitan area. Knowing what Larry the Blogger in New Mexico thought regarding the breeding habits of the Whiptail Lizard (it's the state reptile, seriously, look it up) could only be enjoyed by those in his part of the country. Now, it's possible for people from Maine to Outer Mongolia to come to understand the wonders of this fascinating reptilian specimen.

Not that I have a problem with Larry who writes about his favorite animal, it's just that for his nine to five job he's a clerk at an AM/PM outside of Santa Fe on Interstate 25 and hasn't spent five minutes in a classroom studying biology or any of the thousand other things you have to know to become a traditional expert on wildlife.

This type of thing begs the question, do you have to be professionally trained to become an expert, professional or casual, in your field of interest? It all comes down to whom you trust. If you can take the opinion or what could be construed as fact from Larry, and that's good enough for you and millions of other blog readers, then that could show the beginnings of a sea change in how people gather and process information.

My Grandfather used to bird watch and would log all sorts of interesting facts and habits of birds indigenous to South Dakota, where I'm from. Now imagine if he also had the ability to wield the power of the internet (which he doesn't, for the record) and present his findings as fact. "The Hooded Merganser only comes to feed on every third day. It must be so that it only needs to feed two times per week," he could write. Is a residential backyard with a bird feeder and a birdbath a scientifically acceptable controlled environment?

Imagine a seventh grader in Seattle doing a report in his or her science class on birds of the Midwest, and using my Grandpa's blog site as a credible source. What sort of grade do you think they would get? This is presupposing any legitimate schoolteacher would allow such nonsense, but play along. Shouldn't the information detailed in this report come from say an encyclopedia where the information is somewhat dry and boring but undeniably accurate? Or should my 74-year-old Grandpa and former regional manager of a Cummins Diesel Truck dealership be the beacon of information? Sure, the text in an encyclopedia is not as colorful as the wit and candor of good old Grandpa, however I'm certain it has more quality information where the child could gather it all in and come up with an opinion of their own, thus achieving a higher grade.

This is the problem we face. Taking the easy road and trusting someone else's word for it is what we are seemingly shifting toward. When you read someone else's opinion, it's unfair to say that you, the reader or listener, cannot dissect what they are saying and form some variation of it on your own. However, it is a passive way of ignoring what some see as the big issue at hand. While reading opinion as your sole source of information can be fun and enjoyable it leaves little time for critical thought. To not have time for facts is to not have time to create your own ideas and opinions.

It's not news to most people that the newspaper industry as we know it is dying a slow and painful death. It hasn't completely fallen by the wayside, however the people that get their information from traditional print journalism aren't getting any younger. Facts and interesting stories with depth are being condensed to give way for larger advertisements for Verison Wireless or Macy's so papers like the Kansas City Star can sustain themselves and be somewhat viable. Should we sacrifice facts so we can write in a more appealing way to my generation? I'm not so sure that facts and details are so expendable. They way we write? Sure. Leaving out the important stuff? Not so much.

I'm not saying don't read blogs, or the opinions of others, because if you just take my word for it you probably missed the point of this entire piece. Go out and be receptive to anything you can get your hands on. No one ever regressed in intelligence because they had too much information. Getting out there and being able to recognize was is fact or fiction equips you to know what is right for you. Letting someone else do that for you could be one of the biggest mistakes you could make.

Mission Accomplished?

I'm writing this on the eve of what is building to be one of the most historic days in American history. At least so I'm told. Today, in remembrance and celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is a day to reflect on the struggles of the oppressed minority in our country and to do what we all can do to make our world a little better than how we found it. Taking one day out of the year to try and better and repair centuries of bitter racial divides is clearly not enough. However the formation of the day itself marks the recognition of a step in the right direction.

There is still work to be done. Not only on trying to mend a broken relationship between races in the United States, but on erasing the lines that keep us apart. We all hold unique and special traits among ourselves as individuals and as descendants of differing nationalities. Reaching out and coming together by identifying what makes us, well us, and not necessarily trying to erase those distinctions to live free but rather accepting them for what they are and realizing we're not all that different underneath it all. This seems to be the objective of a different, and not necessarily new, generation of people clamoring for something they are not used to.

Tomorrow when President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama becomes the 44^th President of the United States of America, it will signal a change throughout the presidential history in our country. Never has a person that is not a white male, who was also not of meager means, been elected into one of the most powerful offices in the free world. For those who support Mr. Obama it will be a time of hope and optimism. For those that didn't cast their vote for the former U.S. Senator it will be a time of initial criticism and a game of wait-and-see.

Whether you support the man or not, we as citizens are called on to support the office. Our country is facing what seems to be dire consequences from many problems that most cannot identify. At least specifically. Leaving most people I talk to confused and unable to ascertain what is going to happen next. Whether it affects your livelihood or the livelihood of those around you, to say we live in a giant uncertainty is a gross understatement.

Will those that support Mr. Obama, and even to a larger extreme those that revere him before stepping foot in the White House, be able to temper their ideas a promise of hope and change? Will those who despise the fact that he has ascended to the Office of the President be patient enough to see his policies through? Or will they pile on and start the campaign for 2012 before the first 100 days have been completed? It seems the old credo of “what's so funny about peace, love and understanding?” aren't just lyrics in an Elvis Costello song. I've also heard that patience is a virtue.

Using a presidential election as a metaphor for racial change is just one of the many aspects on what will take place tomorrow, or what has already taken place by the time most of you read this. On a symbolic level, something has been accomplished and for that we should take a moment to be proud of it. However, our time to stand back and admire what has happened has a short window attached to it.

Right now we face real problems that lie beyond the obvious racial divisions in our country. A weakening dollar and manufacturing industry. A crumbling banking empire. A military complex that grows stronger as those who provide it's dutiful service become overextended. Even the basics of holding on to your job and making ends meet is in jeopardy. So placing your hopes in one man, however noble or disingenuous you see him as, is a game that the public cannot afford to play these next four years. Change must start at a household and neighborhood level. Taking care of ourselves in our communities is what must happen in order to resurrect and save ourselves. Change shouldn't come from above, it should come from you and I.

Missing Out?

This past weekend was my 10 year high school reunion and as I'm sitting here today I'm thinking I would like to say that I would have liked to have been there. Confusing enough sentence? Maybe, but the fact sort of remains that I'm not that unhappy that I didn't go.

Sure, I would have liked to have seen some people that I don't normally get the opportunity to see when I'm back home in Sioux Falls who don't live there either, but other than that, I only thought about what I could be missing for a few brief moments while I was down at the Lake of the Ozarks. The fact of the matter is that I haven't really kept in contact with that many people from high school since we all either moved away, went to college or both.

I didn't stay home for any typical reason that most people use to not attend a high school reunion, for example working at Wal-Mart or weighing 450 pounds, I stayed home just because I didn't really feel like it. It's pretty generic and probably even lazy, but I didn't feel like dragging my wife up to Sioux Falls for the third time in about two months. Gas is expensive, and I need gas money to get back and forth to Lincoln, Nebraska in September, October and November for Husker games.

I almost decided to go the week of, I won't lie. I even told my wife I was considering it. A few people were in my ear about coming up, and I felt bad (and still do) that I turned them down in a way by not coming at all. So I'm sure I'll sit and struggle with it for a little bit, but not too much. Had I still been living in Sioux Falls it would have been a no brainer and I would have gone. I guess living away gives people like me an excuse not to go. But it sounds like everyone had a good time and that's great. I'm glad to see that my class was still operating on the same level they pretty much were the last time I was around them. The get togethers were informal and not at some stuffy fucking country club, which is what my Mom's high school class has done every time. Screw that. If they had done that I wouldn't have even given it a second thought.

Well, now I've got 10 years to decide what to do when I'm 38. Maybe I'll give it more thought this time.

Who's House?

Have you ever wondered why people will always insist that they are right? Do you ever ponder the question of why people are so adamant in their beliefs that even when shown the folly of their ways will continue down the path of self-righteousness? It stumps me just as much as it befuddles you, the curious yet intelligent reader of this blog. Both of you.

What seems to be the most frustrating aspect to me is that people who take this position generally decide to take all opposing views as a personal attack on them, God and their country. If they say "tow-may-to" and I say "tow-ma-to" they say "fuck off you jerk off." I guess what I'm saying is if I'm going to get into a healthy and heated debate I'd at least like a little foreplay before we exchange blows.

It's funny to me that people who defend the country's honor and safety against would-be terrorists by sacrificing young men and women with children into a country that was all but absent in the attacks from September 11th, will turn around and say that they hope a bomb would have gone off in Independence, Missouri yesterday while Barack Obama was giving a speech defending his own patriotism.

The thing that irks me is that these people can, within a single breath of a conversation, wish a fiery and violent death on a United States Senator and then justify and support the deaths of thousands of troops all while saying that Jesus loves us all and we are forgiven. Maybe ultra religious conservatives who wish everyday for death are happy to wish it upon others so they can come to salvation. Who knows. I'm almost done with trying to examine the psyche of the closeted John Hagee supporter. You know, the people who are all ready to quote the Bible and will tell you that they'll pray for you but will stop short of saying that God is punishing us by increasing the price of gas because of our support for the gays. They don't want you to think they're really nuts under their shallow sea of piousness. They haven't tap danced on the lines of public craziness. Yet.

All I know is that now that the headphones are off from 9 to 5 so to speak, and the public opinions of the near senior crowd is giving me a headache.