movement of c

If our actions can’t move mountains, why act at all? Well, I’ve been thinking about this lately and after feeling the initial disappointment of a non-epic life, I decided justify my existence so that I’d feel better. I think it’s a matter of what you consider a mountain. Your mountain is yours and my mountain is mine and the world is full of little mountains, more like molehills. The big ones come once in a while, and if we’re really strong we can at least hold it in place, but chances are it will never move. Sometimes it’s scary to realize that you are happy with the small things - the molehills. Dreams of grandeur make you doubt your molehills and look to the mountains but aside from a few great people, we all live merely in ant farms.

When you meet someone special and things start to click, you eventually start asking yourself questions pertaining to love. For some of us, you find yourself in love with them, or starting to fall in love with them.

When we are falling in love we start to idolize this person. In our mind, we see them as perfect, and we ask ourselves, ‘why would this perfect person love me?’ This brings about questions in yourself about your own insecurities. If the person that we are falling in love is perfect, why would they love anything that is imperfect?

As we continue to fall in love, we may evaluate our imperfections and inevitably find ones in our significant other as well. A healthy compromise will lead to the age old truth that nobody is perfect. Amen. But, does this mean that our insecurities begin to fade? If only it were that simple.

Insecurities stem from a time that is not the present. A friend once told me that she truly believes we mature in to people that are little more than our “middle school selves”. Hell, if that’s true, then what has all this self-exploration been good for in the 12 or so years since that time? I think what she was trying to say is that our insecurities never leave us. Let’s face it, middle school was hell. Our peers (self included) are ruthless, snarky children with little to no regard for other people’s feelings. We’re all guilty at some point for being Mr. or Mrs. Cranky-Pants in middle school. We didn’t have the wisdom or brain-power to relate yet. We are driving forward with such speed and hormonal recklessness that all we know is what we want and what we don’t have, or what we look like, and who we don’t look like; what we wish we could do, and what we don’t think we can achieve.

Perhaps these are insecurities that never leave us. We grow for years and years after this time in middle school purgatory, but we don’t really let our guard down again until we have reached a truly comfortable and safe place. That place presents itself when we fall in love. While we’re in the process of falling in love, we marvel at the perfect creature that dares to love us back. As long as we idolize; as long as we love, we continue to feel feelings of insecurity throughout our lives. These feelings will put themselves in to perspective as time goes on; as we value the imperfections over the false perfections. But we all know that our middle-school self lurks within us, or insecurities reside. So, the question remains…Do we ever really stop falling in love?

This song is called “Sidii hogosha roobka”. It’s a Somali classic standard, recorded by one of Somalia’s most prominent singers of the 60s and 70s, Mandeeq. This is her version of the song below. Scroll down to track 12, then press play.

I’ve been listening to K’nann’s new album, “Troubadour” so much lately and the Somali lyrics he includes are beautiful, and intriguing. I searched some translations on the web and came up with this neat connection. His version of the classic standard is below…love both versions.

To me, K’naan’s has something real special in it, something more raw, a little bit sensual. No luck in a translation yet, so I’m still working on that part. I wonder if K’naan’s english lyrics are a translation…

Hello Everyone,
Hope you’re all enjoying this Columbus Day. I just wanted to take a chance to respond to a couple of emails that have been going around lately regarding Barack Obama.

I think we all can agree on how important this election is to our country, our families, and ourselves. In light of the recent upsets in the market, I’m sure many of us, as am I, are thinking about where the next leader of our country is going to take us globally, nationally, and economically.

I have been a strong supporter of Barack Obama for a long time. I truly believe that he is offering the American people something that we all need; hope.

I ask that you all give great consideration to the well known fact that we have a biased media in our lives; this includes FOX, MSNBC,CNN and others. This rings true for both parties and recently we all received a forwarded email announcing Sean Hannity’s “special program” being aired on Fox in regards to Obama. I think we all need to step back and realize that whichever news source we choose to get our information from must be taken with a grain of salt. They are masters of distraction and embellishment of issues that often times we don’t even hear our candidates or their opponents giving heed to.

I urge you all to find the source of information. This means reading up on policies directly from our candidates, getting to know their backgrounds and plans not from a filtered media outlet, but directly from the campaigns.

A good way to get to know Obama is through this video, rightly named, “Meet Barack Obama“.

I’m also discouraged to hear the kind of comments that were in the previous email about Hannity’s Obama program. An Obama Presidency is not a dangerous prospect by any means. If you disagree with legitimate issues, then to each his own right. But to give in to false truths about Obama is just a result of bad information.

Here is a video aired on all news outlets. It’s a recent McCain rally in which his supporters turn on him when he calls Obama “a decent person”, and “nothing to be scared of”. It’s short, and interesting, and called, “McCain Defends Obama“.

Thanks for listening, and I look forward to keeping this discussion open with anyone who would like to do so in this important time in our lives.

On June 21, 2008 Daniel Johnston played a show at Lupo’s in Providence, Rhode Island. Lupo’s was fancier than I remembered it, and also there were couches set up on the floor in front of the stage. Eliot and I enjoyed a standing view where we were free to roam from wall to wall, shoulder to shoulder, swaying with the sweet sounds of the father of low-fi orchestration.

It was truly an honor to see him play live. I’ve always had a tremendous amount of respect for the man himself, and the music that makes the man. But I must admit, seeing him play live I had other feelings. A total awe inspired moment through each song. Seeing the fervor behind every word, and the passion for music, especially for the Beatles, brought the feelings home again & again.

Here are some video clips we were able to take at the show; some classic Beatles covers along with the original originals, and friendly Christmas wishes from the man himself. Unfortunately, some of the audio isn’t the best. His acoustic songs come through a lot clearer than his sets with The Capitol Years. Enjoy!

Daniel Johnston plays “Walking the Cow”

“Man Obsessed” - a stirring rendition.

Daniel Johnston doing justice to John Lennon’s “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”

Daniel Johnston singing “Hey Joe”

Daniel Johnston covers The Beatles, “I’m So Tired” and plays “Speeding Motorcycle” and rocks out with “Rock n’ Roll EGA”. A real crescendo!

Daniel Johnston closes the show with “True Love Will Find You in the End”. Truth.

Sweet deal!

http://38pitches.com/2007/11/06/done/#more-116

And to quote Schilling…

Now the only thing that’s left is this…

SIGN MIKE LOWELL!!!!!

This is my official Farewell, Adieu, Ciao! to Wordpress 1.5.1.2

As I wrote possibly my best blog post in a very long time (does only count as best?), I started going a little crazy with key commands and somehow navigated away from my page, ultimately deleting what I had just spent the last 30 minutes writing.

With no hope of getting it back with this non-automatically-draft-saving version of WP, I decided that it’s time to move on.

So I move in to the future with WP 2.2 . Thank you Eliot, my robot prince. I knew this day would someday come, and I’m so lucky to have you to help me through it.

Goodbye stone age blogging!

People people people, I love people. People tall, and people small, and people round and people sounds. People bums and people thumbs, and most of all I love people triumph!

The past 5 weeks have been super l33t in my book. Meeting people, teaching people, learning from people, and best of all, learning how people work. No…I don’t have it all figured out yet, certainly not. We float on, with minds alike and minds wandering to the North Pole and back. But the BODY people! What a beautiful thing.

One time early in my relationship with Els, I drove him past the big orange dinosaur on Route 1 in Saugus. It was where I went mini-golfing as a kid, and sometimes as a teenager too. There was a Dairy Barn inside, which to my remembrance, only served soft-serve ice cream. Batting cages…there were a few. I never dug though.

Most of my memories include my cousin Joseph, Nani, and sometimes Auntie Fran. “Magic days”, Nani would call them. When you tell people about the Route 1 mini golf course, they have no clue what you’re talking about…until you say, “You know, the one with the big orange T-Rex!”

A couple of days ago some good for nothing ratatats knocked down the dino! Read about it here, and see for yourself that faith that Diana Fay has that the dino will rise again.