Danger baby, Motorbike Zen and the last week of pregnancy

We think it may be. The due date is August 1 and we're anxiously awaiting our first meeting with the boy.

I have a new project, borne out of discussions with overprotective friends, worried about all the things Beck and I might do with the baby (like take him on the bus or take him on the bicycle using a child safety seat) that they certainly would not and consider dangerous. Danger Baby. We'll be photoshopping and staging seemily dangerous photos of our son in all manner of peril.

Baby with knives, baby bungee jumping, baby climbing the Empire State Building. Look for our new Danger Baby Web site coming this fall.

The Motorsickle
I removed and drained the gas tank tank today. It was, surprisingly, not bolted down - it just sits there, wedged on top, partially beneath the seat. I disconnected the petcock valve (pictured)
That's not mine, but it's a similar petcock valve. This shifts the fuel off and switches between the main and reserve tanks (These are really the same thing, it's just that switching to reserve siphons gas from a lower level of the tank). Motorcycles (many of them) don't have gas gauges and what you do is, you just run out of gas from the main tank and then switch to the reserve, which gives you about 40 miles of road to find a gas station.

I'm trying to do this operation on the bike with a lot of love. I find machines respond well when you don't half ass it.

- Steve

On the mend - also, anyone have a tarp?

So, after Friday's foot surgery I was once finally able to ride a bike again last night and tgoday. I missed being on two wheels. Heck, I missed being on two feet!

Long and short: I dropped a wooden privacy fence panel on my foot a month ago (!!) and, unbeknownst to me, a piece or pieces of wood became stuck in my foot.

Two weeks ago, painful wound sorta on the mend, I picked at my foot and out came a top-of-Lincoln's-head-on-a-penny size chuck 'o' pine. I heal some more, but my scar is more like a drum than a healing scar - the membrane has a litte cave behind it. What's that wedging it open? More wood or fibrous scar tissue. A utility-knife-session later I still don't know, but there's an end-of-my-little-finger sized lump there, on top of my foot.

One foot doctor won't touch it. Too deep and if he messes up, I'm messed up. Second doctor sticks me like he's kitting with three shots of lydacane and cuts a trench on top of my foot, digging out all the fibrous tissue he can. Seven stitches later, he still doesn't know if there's a foreign body in there.

Weekend finds me in bed, on my back, foot in the air. Hurt like hell and I couldn't walk. I can now (yeah!) On Friday it's back to Doc number 2, who will check me out and maybe go back in. I hope not.

The antibiotic spiked my blood pressure, too and I had to knock it off.

Also, anyone have a tarp I can borrow? My motorcycle is in the rain.

- Steve

Some thoughts this morning...

I think, following up on a post I wrote some weeks back, about some folks having an inability to imagine any (positive at least) future, that realizing that a positive outcome, that things will go well in the future may be about realizing that it's not *you* who will have to live the future - at least not the present tense you.

Raising a child is conceivable now (pun intented) whereas it wasn't a year ago. Past me, the me of several years ago couldn't have handled owning a house or working as a freelancer. Present me can. It's not the me of today who has to figure out how to live in SF. The present me only has to prepare the way for the future me, who'll have the skills to do what has to be done.

It's a lot easier to swallow that way, isn't it?

+Biking+
I rode 19 miles so far this week. To and from downtown on Monday (7m round trip) and all the way from Norwood to my mom's house yesterday (12.5 miles). I travelled the 12.5 miles in about two hours or at an average of 6mph - not crazy fast, but steady and I was able to move up the hills without stopping. I usually have to walk up the steep hills like Gilbert and through Eden Park, at least part way, but this time I moved with relative ease.

- Steve

What Materazzi said to Zidane (allegedly)

According to Wiki News it was an anti Muslim slur - Zidane is Muslim.

Headbutting incident

He was sent off for violent conduct after headbutting Italy's goalscorer, Marco Materazzi, in the chest in the 110th minute. The game ended in a 1-1 draw and Italy won the championship after a penalty kick shootout.

Both Zidane and Materazzi refused to comment on the incident. Zidane's agent Alain Migliaccio said, "[Zidane] told me Materazzi said something very serious to him but he wouldn't tell me what."[13] Reportedly, the deaf forensic lip-reader Jessica Rees was employed to analyze the video sequences with the help of an Italian translator. According to these reports, Materazzi spoke in Italian - a language understood by Zidane due to his time spent with Juventus F.C. - and first told him: "Hold on, wait, that one's not for a nigger like you." As the players walked forward, Materazzi allegedly said: "We all know you are the son of a terrorist whore." Then, just before the headbutt, he was seen saying: "So just fuck off." [14] [15] According to Brazilian TV Rede Globo, a lip-reader claimed that Materazzi twice called Zidane's sister a prostitute.[16] Earlier claims about Materazzi having called his opponent a "dirty terrorist" have been denied by Materazzi, who reportedly said: "It is absolutely not true, I did not call him a terrorist. I'm ignorant. I don't even know what the word means." [17][13]

On July 10, 2006, Zidane was awarded the Golden Ball for the best player in the 2006 World Cup. The winner was selected in a poll of journalists covering the tournament which began half time of the championship game, prior to the headbutting incident. Zidane won the contest with 2012 points, ahead of second place finisher Fabio Cannavaro, who polled 1977 points. Although the polling continued until midnight, most votes were cast prior to the headbutting incident.[18][19]

A three-integer system?

I've been reading a book on mathematics and have been trying to get a new grasp on numbers. I know math and some algebra and physics, of course, but all that really means is that I know how to drive this car called, "math."

I don't know how to take it apart and put it back together again. I'm an operator, not an architect.

In pursuit of this goal I'm trying to learn a three or six integer system, rather than our ten integer system (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, 10,11 and so on)

A three integer system would count like this:

1, 2, 10, 11, 12, 20, 21, 22, 100, 101, 102, 110...and so on.

The math would give different results, but, fundamentally, I believe, reduce to the same thing in binary code.

So that's what I'm on to now. Different counting. Has anyone reading this tried that?

- Steve

Motorcycle Diary, Installment two

This is a much better pic of the bike (from a Honda Advertisement)

I also found the uber-alliance cool site about an electric conversion Scrambler.

Motorcycle Diary, installment one

Ok, so we've had the Scrambler now for about two weeks and she finally turned over today.

The bike is a 1973 Honda CL350 Scrambler with 25,000 miles.

It's in good shape for a 33 year old bike, though it didn't run when we bought it. The owner cited bad gas in the engine, turned to varnish and gumming up the works. I began to clean it yesterday and today, with some help from Rich, I got the throttle unstuck.

She turned over and roared loudly. It'll be a whle before she purrs, but it's really thrilling to hear the engine for the first time.

The electrical system and starter seem to be in good shape. I'll follow with pix and descriptions of the probable carb rebuild we'll be doing.

- Steve

"Did you call this number?" Some annoying things about caller ID

This morning at 7:45 (!!?) some cat calls us up asking if we called his phone.

Whacked Caller ID Dude (WCID): "Uh...oh, I'm sorry."

Me: "That's ok, hello." (I think I was pretty congenial for quarter till 8)

WCID: "Yes, did you call this phone?"

Me: "I haven't called anyone this morning."

WCID: "No, this was last - yesterday."

Me: "I call a lot of people. Who is this?"

WCID: "My name is Joe Cossick (sp?)"

Me: "Uh huh, yeah, I don't know you."

WCID: "This number was on my caller ID. Did you call my phone."

Me: "This is silly. Goodbye" CLICK

Dude needs better things to do with his time.

- Steve

AMC 2006: Truth to power, then what?

The Allied Media Conference had its second keynote on Friday evening. (We had the keynote address that morning, so having two keynote is a little weird, but, okay...) The theme was “From Truth to Power: because being right is not enough.” The panelists, author Jeff Chang, Radio Rootz founder Deepa Fernandes and cinematographer Jackie Salloum focused on indie media's role is organizing for social justice.

Solloum spoke about her film, Sling Shot: Hip-Hop, a documentary about her trip to Gaza to meet the first Hip-Hop MCs in the region. Twenty minutes away, in Palestine, the Palestinean MCs were unaware their counterparts. Her film chronicles the lives of the Palestinean performers as they go to their first show – they look extremely American in numbered sports jerseys and shorts – and the context in which they live, in a country divided by a separation wall, stopped by Israeli soldiers demanding ID.

“Who controls our news, how powerful that is in the very fight for our lives,” Fernandes says. “We need to build a social movement with that at the center...How do we go beyond just speaking to ourselves? How do we get out there?”

She remarks that there is a revolutionary, ground-level media movement spreading in Venezuala. She says there is media-centered organizing going on in Venezuala's poorest neighborhoods.

She continues, speaking about the coup that temporarily deposed Hugo Chavez, saying that during the coup in the 1990s, the state television showed cooking shows and other light fare. This reminded me of how Cincinnati's local mainstream media betrayed the city by running regular programming during the riots. It disgusted me to see sit-coms running as conflict raced through the streets.

She says that the poor worked to get the street level news out by using cell phones, pirate radio and text messaging.

“People realized that controlling the media was at the center of winning a greater battle,” Fernandes says.

Chang says that many people he meets across the country are angered at the way Hip-Hop is portrayed by mainstream media.

“People feel very disempowered...isolated,” he says.

As a kid growing up in Hawaii he heard Rapper's Delight and describes the experience as empowering and as a revela tion. It connected him to the lives of inner city black kids he'd never seen. That's part of Hip-Hop's transactional cultural exchange.

Chang says, just as Hip-Hop's roots have grown and empowered listeners, its commercial branches have become twisted and gnarled.

“We have people like 50 Cent selling his get rich or die philosophy...he's the McDonalds of Hip-Hop...people (have been) turned into consumers...if you're down with 50 you wear a certain type of clothes.”

Chang says media like that has caused the people of the United States have become culturally isolated and to have lost their imagination.

“What does it look like if we win,” he asks. He says that, through Hip-Hop, we won – a marginalized art form became mainstream, but, almost overnight, it was also lost, and mainstreamed, co-opted.

Chang says that media activists need to consider what it will look like if we win and how we can keep a win from being co-opted.

AMC 2006: Reaching Kids

Cincinnati's Gavin Leonard was part of the panel discussion, Reaching Kids: Youth-Driven Programming. Leonard is the director of Elementz, a hip-hop youth arts center in the West End.

Leonard operated the Copwatch program from 2001-2003, which recruited members of the public to monitor and record malfeasance by local police. Copwatch transformed into Elementz, which opened in 2005, Leonard says, as a way to build trust and relationships with area youth.

“Our goal is to work with young people who either live in or come to Downtown,” Leonard says.

Hip-hop dance class, DJ classes and graffiti art are some of the classes that are available at Elementz.

Leonard says Elementz budget is tripling and is proud that the organization has crossed over from talking about what young people might need, to actually meeting them as peers.

A lot of people want to address the issues of kids, he says, but, “most of these people aren't really connected to what young people are doing."

“The thing you have to assume is that young people probably don't trust you and don't trust your programs,” Leonard says. “Respect is the concept we work from. Respect yourself, respect others and respect the space.”

Leonard says that surveying the youth in the Downtown basin was important to developing the program. His team would walk the community, speak to kids at local schools and even ride the bus and solicit opinions on what the program might look like. The idea was to be responsive to the needs of local youth, he says.

Continuing that line of feedback communication is critically important to the program's success. Elementz also has young people on its advisory board, he says.

“You've really got to work from where people are at, not where you're at,” Leonard says.

That could mean going, geographically to where young people are, he says, giving, obversely, the example of groups trying to address the problem of high school drop outs at high schools, instead of on the streets, where you're more likely to find drop-outs. Working from the perspective of the people that you're serving is another example, he says, using their music, culture and lingo, not your own.

Leonard, who is white, works with kids who are almost entirely African-American. He says it's important to address a certain level of racism, classism and sexism. Also, part of Elementz organizational plan is his exit strategy as executive director.

One man in the audience mentioned that the race issue – white or privledged black program coordinators working with young people of color - is often the elephant in the room that no one talks about. He said that black kids he's worked with have often resented taking direction from whites and have felt a cultural disconnect.

AMC 2006: DIY Publishing

Coverage from sessions at the 2006 Allied Media Conference

Representatives from the newspapers Critical Moment, out of Detroit and the NYC Indypendent presented a session on the basics of publishing a newspaper.

Arun Gupta of the Indypendent describes five areas of focus when starting a publication: target audience, content and design, financing, distribution, and structure.

I've been developing a Wiki book on DIY publishing since last year. You can read and contribute to the book here.
“Is it for the general public or is it for activists,” Gupta asks. It could have a niche focus, such as queer or environmental issues. He says, insofar as content, the Indy is reader driven, not writer driven – this means that, “...you're always asking...what is the audience looking for?”

“Design cannot be emphasized enough,” Gupta says. He says that four-color process helps the paper be visually appealing and that clear images and words help the reader – or potential reader – know what's inside, quickly.

Gupta says he prefers photos for the cover rather than graphics. A clean, clear image helps, he says.

Gupta mentions that the Indypendent has recently launched a new publication, IndyKids. He says you have to decide if you're going to have a newsy publication or cultural, with a first person point of view (POV) or a more traditional style.

Gupta says that you should publish articles that have a shelf life that is 1.5 times as long as your distribution cycle. (eg: A monthly paper should run articles that are good for six weeks.)

Donations were discussed as a major revenue stream for small, upstart papers. Gupta suggests that people wanting to use this sort of revenue stream should study direct mail solicitations. He says 1-2 percent is considered an excellent return on a direct mail solicitation, though, once when the Indypendent had Naomi Klein write an appeal letter for them, they had a 12 percent return – more than $10,000 from 3,000 solicitations sent.

Posters – a US map of our domestic weapons of mass destruction – and t-shirts have also been major revenue streams. 5,000 posters sold delivered $30,000 in revenue, Gupta says.

Free versus paid subscriptions: Both have their advantages, he says. Free distribution means the Indypendent reaches a wide audience. “We didn't want to be gettoized,” Gupta says.

On structure of the organization, Gupta says you must have clearly defined roles.

Max Sussman says that his publication is two-and-a-half years old. They publish every two months and Critical Moment is free.

Sussman says his project has an open submissions policy. He describes the process of collecting content as a kind of mixed bag – some is assigned by the collectives – they have two, one in Detroit and another in Ann Arbor – and other content comes in unsolicited.

“One of the things we've started to do more recently is to put on more events,” Sussman says. “We think that really increases our visibility.”

Sussman says they've hosted speaking engagements with featured writers. Music show fundraisers are also helpful, he says. “We do dance parties,” Gupta adds.
Sussman says they raise money through ads, primarily, but are developing plans for donor streams. The paper carries an ongoing, 20 percent debt, he says, that's shouldered by cash infusions from members of the collective.

“Our ads go through our editorial policy,” Sussman says. If an ad is outside of their values or if ads are blatently offensive, without a purpose, they ask the advertiser to redesign the ad. He gives as an example an ad that read something like, “Fuck the War – Shop at my store,” saying that the Critical Moment collective objected on the basis that 1) shopping at this proprietor's store clearly would not end the war and 2) that the large word “FUCK” was used without a real purpose – just for shock value.

Gupta says the Indypendent does not use a union print shop because of the costs involved. He says that his team has threatened to drop their printer to negotiate a better deal.

Ad sales is a major hurdle for Critical Moment. Sussman says the paper has no paid ad reps at this time and garnering advertising is a difficult task. Gupta says that they try and focus their ad sales on indie culture producers in New York such as poetry and music events. One member of the audience suggested publishers focus on wealthy non-profits towards the end of their fiscal season.

Both newspapers operate as collectives – this means there's a lot of work that is shared and members wear many hats.

Sussman says they judge their success as a publication by how many copies are left at newsstands at the end of a cycle. Gupta also discusses a story that they ran on an Iraq War vet who became homeless. The Indypendent broke the story and it was later picked up by major dailies and CBS.

“They're never going to credit you,” NYC says. “But they use the same sources...”

My story on the Allied Media Con is now live

Here it is.

Blogging suspended til I get home

Damn. Damn. Damn.

I dropped my shiny new three pound vaio laptop right on the wifi. and the wifi is out. Sucks. Though I suppose it's a blessing that I lost no data (my story is on it and I can continue writing. But no more live blogging for a bit.

Steve

AMC 2006: Marketing, minors and the military

Coverage from sessions at the 2006 Allied Media Conference

I caught just the tail end of this fascinating session.

The Pittsburgh Organizing Group (POG) presented information on how the US Military hooks new recruits.

I found out about JAMRS, (Joint Advertising Marketing and Research Studies) the Department of Defense marketing database used to collect information on potential recruits.The Army has also released a free, high quality video game – it cost the US $16 million to produce – that glorifies combat and ignores the costs of war.

“There's no reality here,” POG member Bridget Colvin says.

She also presented information on myfuture.com which offers a free career aptitude test to students and then, after the test there is an inducement for students to take the ASVAB, Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. This tests only a student's current proficiencies, not what they're interested in exploring or what they might be good at with training.

Colvin also presented several other examples of pseudo-news stories that ended with requests for personal information, for information on friends and promoted the fitness, opportunities for travel and adventure and college money that can be gained through the military.

There were also reports among the audience of military marketing at movie theaters, offering free itunes songs and DVDs for kids willing to watch military promotional films.

I reported on the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center's Counter-Recruitment drives in Cincinnati earlier this year. Similar

“There is no job worse than the military,” Jeremy Shenk member says. “The pay sucks, you're on call 24-hours a day, they can shoot you – technically – if you try and quit.”

“We're anti-militarism,” Colvin says. “How voluntary is an army where you don't have all the information before you join.”

One of the POG members mentioned, after the session, the the Justice Department has bee spying on them as POG is considered a threat to national security.

AMC 2006: Unplug Clear Channel

Ongoing coverage of the 2006 Allied Media Conference

Clear Channel was the subject of the lunchtime keynote. The conference was starting to fill in at this point – I'd guess that there are about 350 people here now. The attendance typically crests at 800. I know this because this is the fourth time I've been to this Con. This is also the 8th year for the event, which always been here in Bowling Green. It's moving to Detroit next year, which makes me a little sad – I'm saying goodbye to this sleepy little town, but also very excited at getting to know the Motor City, Patti Smith's Dead City.

Taishi Duchicela of Oakland's Youth Media Council presented her arguments that Clear Channel has wrecked local Hip Hop radio stations in the Bay Area, by holding pro-war rallies (as they have in Cincinnati and elsewhere), dropping almost all local musician, and promoting ultra-right politics.

“All they talk about is war and immigration and they are very, very vulgar,” she says, adding that the make money off of Hip-Hop to pay for their racist, sexist agenda.

“That, to us is not right,” Duchicela says.

She plays audio clips from Clear Channel broadcasts, including one broadcaster suggesting that aborting black babies would help ease crime in the U.S.

The YMC's response has been to develop an organizing campaign, Unplug Clear Channel. They have protested in front Bay Area radio stations and have challenged broadcast licenses.

“We own the airwaves...we also have a say in what kind of programming goes out over those airwaves,” she says.

Clear Channel, she says, has been very reluctant to speak with the YMC. She says her organization is developing a list of standards that they believe radio stations and steering document describing what they believe a model station should look like.

Part of the struggle is getting people to care about media policy and to communicate, especially to young people, why it's important.


Pop Culture, Hip-Hop and Media Literacy
Bowling Green State University Professor Awad Ibrahim played a Jennifer Lopez video and asked the audience in this session to dissect the messages the music and images conveyed. He said, as a teacher, his job was to try and speak with his students about pop culture and their music – even if he finds it repugnant.

The song and the video presented was “Love Don't Cost a Thing,” a piece filled with contributions – the vocal about her “love” was punctuated with close ups of her body. The vocals also regarded female empowerment which, apparently, JLO gets by taking off her clothes. It's a song that says that money doesn't matter while showing Lopez driving a sports car, living in a mansion, etc.

“The visual aspect hits the boys more than the girls,” Ibrahim says. “It's really interesting when you enter the space of gender. The boys do not see anything except her butt.”

He asks the audience to listen to the music separately from listening to the video to show the divide between one message and the other.

This session continues the day's theme of scholarly deconstruction. Ibrahim stresses that it's important not to judge the students' taste.

Allied Media Conference: Preach to the choir, not the kids

It's the first full day of sessions at the Allied Media Conference and there are 3-5 different sessions going on at any given time. There's a lot to choose from.

ACME's (Action Coalition for Media Education)Bob McCannon discussed media literacy and education in his session, “Process is more important than content.” McCannon says that the fastest way to alienate students, or the public for that matter, is to tell them how much their media sucks – that it's sexually exploitative, materialistic, crass, fluff-rich and content-poor. He said that makes his students feel guilty at best, angry at worst. Either way, it's a turn-off.

McCannon, who teaches college courses on media,says introducing critical thinking exercises is key to getting people to become educated about what they're being sold. And by, “sold,” I mean the concrete, as in the material goods that are being marketed in their media and metaphorically, as in, “the bill of goods they're trying to sell,” as in the brand identities that they're selling.

In this session, McCannon shows a film clip from a Sean Connery movie in which he plays a Vietnam vet who is a drunk, has post-traumatic stress syndrome and is redeemed by a scholarly, inner-city black kid. He says these elements – all visible in a 14 second clip – are counter to most of the images that are conveyed by the pop-media-industrial complex. 14 seconds, he says, is far longer than the attention span that's ingrained by MTV's .5 second scenes.

Several marketing examples were presented for discussion:
Seventeen Magazine – One cover advertised ways to boost sex appeal and asked, “Does your personality SUCK?” - covering the bases of both depression and obsession with body image. The magaine's covers are decided by formula, he says, as is the content – stories are decided on the basis of who is advertising. More clothing ads equals more stories on clothing.
President Bush on stage with a Bush impersonator – McCannon says this was an engineered by the administration to make Bush look softer and more like a regular guy.

“We never say the media are mad and we never say the media are good...the media are always good and bad,” McCannon says.

Allied Media Conference Trip: Evening, day one

Well, we made it to the conference after a harrowing journey; the winds drove the rain in sheets, making it almost impossible to see at times. We also passed three tractor trailers in a row that were blown over by the force. It was incredible and kind of scary.

Anyway, we made it and I got a shower at the Unitarian Church and am leeching wifi at Panera in downtown Bowling Green.

- Steve

Allied Media Conference Trip: Noon, day one

Still in Columbus and I'll be departing for Bowling Green at around 3p.m.

Aaron MacCaughey, of the Columbus based band Sheldon Marsh drove by, saw me and picked me up. No, he whttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=8072549asn't looking for the city's ugliest streetwalker, we knew each other already. Aaron is part of the Landing Place community in Columbus.

Landing Place or "LP" is a small, Christian (I'm starting to prefer Xtian as shorthand) community where about 40 people get together weekly for small house churching. A smaller set of LP folks live communally. My wife, Becky, and I are members of the Vineyard Central community in Cincinnati, which is a similar kind of church.

Aaron and I met up with Jason Gilliland, the band's drummer. They were discussing how much they hate the band lingo that's so prevalent today - "BGV" for Backgrounnd Vocalist or "VOX." Aaron is the band's VOX, "and BGVs, too," Jason says.

Allied Media Conference Trip: Morning, day one

It's a steamy Columbus morniing and I'm here, on a friend's porch, blogging during my 5-hour layover. I didn't fly, but hitched a ride with Media Bridges Educational Coordinator Sara Mahle.

While here, I've been learning to use Skype's free telephone service and have been dialing up friends using my laptop. Pretty cool - I can sniff out open wifi and phone home, all without a lot of hassle. The service is surprisingly good - better than my last cellphone, which I threw into the river in 2001. All calls are free through December, 2006 and it's a mighty good hook, I must say.

The Allied Media Conference kicks off tonight and I'll be blogging from the field.

Media: First, kill all the adverbs

This 2001 snippit from Fresh Air's linguist Geoff Nunberg hammers home the manipulative toungue twists in our media.

As he says in his report, "Don't romance me, just pour the drink."

According to craigslist, this is a common menace

This has had me nearly crying with laughter.

Gay rights: Modern day slavery

This is the civil rights issue of our day.

I urge you to read Citybeat Editor John Fox's condemnation of gay discrimination, my piece, called Josh's Two Moms and this compelling story of a gay man learning to accept himself as he is.

Also, I believe that, if you take an honest inventory of yourself and the gays and lesbians you know, you'll recognize that the bile conservatives hold for them does not bear the weight of experience. They were born this way, just as you were born heterosexual. You didn't make a choice to be fascinated with the opposite sex or to fall for your spouse, you just were, are and did.

That gays are destroying straight marriage is a cheshire cat, a straw man, born to fall. It's not the truth.

Moreover, they should be welcomed into the body of Christ. We, as a church, should invite gays and lesbians, letting them know that they're welcome for communion, too, and that Vineyard will be a place of non-discrimination. Different ideas? That's great, argue them - in a polite way - but recognize that Jesus loves gays just as much as he does you.

And, if after all this, you still believe what they're doing is wrong, that's okay - if it is a sin, it's no different from any other sin, and you tolerate and love all those other sinners, right? That's all they want - to be let alone to live without a hassle. (I'll step off my soap box now)

This is gay pride month. The Pride parade, which is family friendly, is on Sunday, June 11th. The Rally and Parade begin in Clifton's Burnet Woods at 11am. The Rally preceeds the Parade which steps off promptly at 1pm and finishes at Hoffner Park - that's on Hamilton Avenue in Northside, just south of Chase.

Take your spouse and your kids. It's a great, free festival and you dont have to be gay to attend.

May the night call down peace

That's a line from our closing prayer at housechurch. It's taken on new significance these days for me and Becky. The days and the work are long, though the rewards and opportunities are plentiful. I long for the night as I haven't before and welcome the silence and the dark.

As a kid, it was different; At that time I'd sleep with the radio on to drown out the thoughts I didn't want to think. I did that for a long time - til I was maybe twenty, I think.

As I sorted out my issues and healed, there was less and less to drown out. I'm glad for that.

An aquaintance of mine, Joan, died this week, I just found out from Jason. She may have been murdered. It's under investigation, Jason tells me. She wasn't very old, maybe 30.

Jason is coming in for the funeral. Good to see him, but so sad is the circumstance.

On being an anarchist

Below is my line by line refutation of some annoying comments sent to me in a chain letter.

I'm a stranger, I am no American.

I recognize that my feelings are something outside of myself that I'll never truly understand.

I will not own a firearm. It's good for nothing but killing and I'll have nothing to do with it.

Minorities are traditionally victimized in this world and their rights must be defended or no one has any.

I believe the world is one of plurality, not some immaculate monoculture. Speak to me in whatever toungue you have and we'll learn from each other.

God is personal and it's important not to foist our beliefs on others or idoloze our beliefs in thinking that they are perfect and the only way. It's when we do this that we are the most wrong.

I'm trying to give up on the idea of heroes and look for the good in all.

I recognize that the rich are so at the expense of the poor.

There is no America. Only a collective delusion. No nations, no borders, no flags.. I refute their legitimacy, their necessity and their existance. One world, one people.

I think you should worry about your own house, not Jackson's.

I think the cops have no right to shoot anyone. Which part of "thou shalt not kill" is misunderstood?

I believe we should all give up our cars. Then there will be no more traffic stops. And I'll be damned if some Nazi is going to demand my papers when I'm on foot.

I want to be recognized through my relationships, not a picture. God has nothing to do with money and the voting process is flawed, not the voters.

Illegal is a matter of perception. Flags are symbols of a society I don't recognize. I won't worship cloth.

I guess that makes me an anarchist. Maybe you're one, too.

Abu Ghraib images

Here is, in case we've forgotten, some images of our atrocities in Iraq.

Journalist Russ Kick hosts these and many other examples of suppressed and hard-to-find data at his site, The Memory Hole.

Is the US Military targeting civilians?

Have you read about this?

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060603/NEWS07/606030335/1009

If they are, there really is no difference between what we're doing and 911.

I'm really troubled by two things in particular:
Where is this video of the slain children?
Why is there not more independent investigation?

I'll echo what Hannah over at the Citybeat blog has to say on the matter:

I happened to catch a piece of morning deejay commentary on my way to work. Granted, it was 97.3 - not exactly high-brow political discussion, but I literally trembled at their dangerously one-sided take on this issue. They thought it in poor taste to so much as investigate soldiers' misuse of power in wartime (I personally don't want dust-settled mentality to rob offenders of the punishment they deserve - I say what better time than the present?). The radio personalities are also afraid that "these types of witch hunts" cause soldiers to hesitate before they shoot. Imagine that - a given choice to kill or not to kill. That's a luxury not afforded to unarmed civilians. I'm at a loss.

2:22 PM

Another story in the can; new laptop

So I just finished my story on gay families - or non-traditional families or families with same-sex couples at head of household.

Whatever you call them, they - the lesbian couple I interviewed - they're parents to a little boy named Josh a just want to be moms and, god bless them, to be left alone.

I'll link to it when it's up at Citybeat.

Also I've got a new computer (new to me, anyway)

It's a Sony Vaio sub notebook that I picked up on Craigslist It's only 3 lbs and has a 600mhz Celeron and a 10gig hard drive on board. Perfect for on the go Net and word processing and it was only $150! awesome!

Steve

What are you reading?

I devour books. I dive in through their shimmering surface and stay under as long as I can.

In the past couple of weeks I've completed:

John Christopher's Tripods Books 1-4


I've read and reread this series since I was very young - maybe 20 times. I just picked up a full set to share with our kid on the way.

I've read parts of Einstein's Dreams - this was the book that Becky and I read together in the dawn of our life together and of the day, on my old rooftop.

and Prisoners of Age

We found this book at an Alcatraz Prison photo exhibit.

So what are you reading these days?

Hung with Mom tonight

Becky and I hung out with my Mom this evening. No TV - just talking and that was really nice.

As some of you may know, we gave up our television set about four years ago and have no regrets. We often watch it at Mom's, so this was a nice change.

My Mom had her DNA sampled and is getting it tested for geneology research. It was interesting to speak with her about it.

Beck and I spoke about the possibilities of giving up our car and going all bike and bus. Maybe next April. We'll see. It'd be nice to have one for occaisional use, but I suspect, like a TV, that the only way to sharply curb our dependence is to eliminate it completely from our lives.

I don't want to be a slave to some damn car. I want to be off the oil habit.

Paint on my hands = Instant Gratification

Today we followed through with a neighborhood service project, painting over graffiti and picking up litter.

I worked with Jeremiah Griswold, a Norwood native, and we painted over three graffiti tags here on Norwood. Aaron Klinefelter came along, too, removing a tag from marble with acetone.

On the whole, it was a pretty rewarding experience. Painting over blight is an instant gratification as service work goes. I felt good about it and it was short and sweet.

I enjoyed getting to know Jeremiah, too. He's a youth pastor from Mason (I think) and wants to do an outreach to the kids in Norwood. He's married and has three kids. Former sk8r, btw.

Friday night at the Brown House

What a fun day this has been!

I started off with a bit of desk work at home - honestly I slacked on most of it, but I was off to a meeting with Tim Swallow of Cincy World Cinema. We had lunch at Andy's Mediterannean Grill and a great conversation to boot.

I rode my bike from Norwood down to Eden park and then jetted down to Citybeat after lunch. There really are few things better than racing down a long hill in the Spring, sun beaming, bike moving so fast that the frame shakes.

Citybeat was all about developing the Summer Hot Guide listings - events for the hundred hot days of summer, which I took home to develop this weekend.

Tonight was dinner at the Brown House with the Rains, Bill, Angela and her sister Phyllis. And now Beck and I are watching School of Rock with Bill, Kevin and Izaac.

Steve

It seeks to destroy

The disease seeks to make monsters of us, too

It seeks to make complicit those it cannot make monsters

It seeks to alienate all the rest

And I don't know if the last step may be inevitable

serendipity is the opposite of control

Ok, so I was planning on writing about how I bought professional grade paintbrushes for once in my life and, as a result of having the right tools, I've learned the art of ninja-painting. Working without a net -- I painted - no, I cut in, at the edge of the molding, over a carpet - without a dropcloth or paint guide. And it looks really good...

But, that's not where today's rabbit trail led me. Bread crumbs and all to that actor goofin' on Morpheus as in, "What is the (problem)? Control." And, yeah, that's just what it is.

You see Cameron called me today. Cameron, whose name has never graced this page before, is a friend of sorts of Molly. Quick update in case I didn't blog on this before -- Molly used again about a month ago, was discovered or admitted to it(depending on the version you believe) and was booted from the program. Unofficially.

They called the cops.

So she ran. Or rode, rather, away on her bike and ended up here and there for a couple of weeks before, thanks be to God, she was finally arrested. And she'd been using H twice a day. And she has a heart problem. And her disease led her to try and drag Rich down too...

Anyway, Cameron is this guy. They dated or something, years ago and he has a thing for her and he sent her a cell phone when she was in the program that she later was booted from -- you follow so far? Cell phones aren't allowed, but, "I have to have it," she says - it's a phone from this guy and she needs it to call her fiance, Rich, to feel sane and so on. Of course this thing isn't about her many layers of poison, it's about the onion that belongs to me, so I'll jet through the backdrop and get to the drama part of our show.

Ok, so Cameron gives her the phone. He sends her money when she's on the streets. He asks her to come on down to New Orleans to be with him and Beck and I tell her - or told her, I should say - just how fucking awful a set of choices this really is - and yet she does it anyway and now she's been locked up a week and Cameron calls here. He's asking if we're holding some money for her and I tell him no and he asks if we ever did and I say yes. (I'm not very forthcoming with him)

And I told him in the very shortest way I could spin on the fly, about how she was here, stopped by, I mean, on Election Day - May 2 and how I asked her how much she had on her - we didn't know, mind you, that she'd been tapping her rig again (as they say in the parlance of the streets - or at least my reasonable fascimile) and she tells us, "$70" and I tell her she should leave $60 here and she agrees, admitting that she feels safer without it. And she does this, but comes back two days later saying she wants it all and I told her no and she cursed and got angry and said she couldn't trust me and Becky any more. She later apologized for this. And I was proud that we had stood our ground, and hadn't enabled her.

Back to the call. Cameron asks what we did with the cash and that it was his and I'm like, all of a sudden,just jumping him with how cruddy an idea it is to give a junkie a cell that she used to call her dealer and cash to buy dope and he says to me, "No offense, but I didn't call here to get a lecture," and I'm patting myself on the back for not begining with, "Look, Motherf..." because that's just how white I am and I tell him, "I'm not saying you caused her relapse! I'm telling you what you need to know if you don't want to enable" and he's like, "Look, she was going to get the money one way or another" and I peg him as defensive when it's really me and I can hear the Julius, later, in my head as I replay this conversation asking me, "Does he look like a bitch? Then why are you tryin' to f him like one? Say what one more time!"

Yeah.

I tell him how I'm damn near a pro at rehab and how we may never talk again and...We conclude the call and said little else. And I pat myself on the back for not saying MF! Because, of course, Cameron was right. Yeah, he's limerant obsessive and codependent as all get out and probably sick a few dozen other ways, but I didn't fool him. Of course I was saying that she's in jail now because he fed the addiction's fire. And I'm mad, not for Molly's sake or for his, but for my own selfish motives. I wanted to fix that addiction because then it would prove that I'm smarter than that deamon and I wanted to be that arnarchist/sub pro rehab tech who can fix it all and shit. You down with what I mean? Because to fix it is to thumb my nose at death and remain in control. Control is what it's about and, at least in this case, I was the one who was sick and it's there for me to see. That's why I was rash and didn't handle it better.

And, no, I'm not beating up on myself, it's just that I recognized this and needed to write it down. It was the same control/rashness I had the other day, when things didn't go the way I wanted to on a personal/business call and I say,"We'll have to talk about this later," bitterly, to punt the ball I can't seem to kick. And then, I had hang time and made a choice to get angry - and after this infinite pause I slammed my fist down in anger...because I couldn't control that situation.

Before I finished writing this, Mary Faith calls and after grinning (I can hear this through the phone) about Becky and the baby (an I am, too, at this point) she tells me...about Haloween some years ago...and Stella was born and Stellas father left the hospital to go to his friends house and announce the birth of his daughter and a man opens the door and is wearing a pumpkin on his head (a real one, she says) and Stella's father blurts out the good news to this, the first person he sees and the man removes the pumpkin and it's Stella's uncle who dad hasn't seen in some time, And it's wonderful. And so, you can see that serendipity is the opposite of control. ;)

Sappy Cards

Sappy Cards are just too cool. We found them at the Allied Media Conference?

Anyone want to go to the AMC in June?

Lazy Saturday

Becky and I took today off.

We spent much of the morning with Aaron Klinefelter, hangnig and talking (Aaron and Beck did this) and playing Grand Theft Auto Vice City. (me)

Klinefelter came over and had Saag Paneer with us - Indian spinich/cream sauce and rice with cheese. This time we made it fast with milk and cheddar cheese and the texture was thick and the taste mild. (Those of you who have eaten at our house know it's normally very spicy, though not at at Ken Oster level.)

We slept during the afternoon and I read The City of Gold and Lead.

Carolee's here now and we're hanging out again, drinking Mango Lassi which Beck and I made this evening.

The fruits of my labor

I'm working on my assignmnt for Citybeat today on my frony porch, on my laptop, in bare feet. That's what keeps me freelancing, right there.

I had a dream last night that there were high chain link fences all around the city and I was outside and had to present an ID to get back in. Not much more to that. Just kind of 1984ish.

I just called and complained about the driving of a company truck down my street. The speed limit is 25 and it's not at all uncommon to see trucks plowing down the street at up to 40mph! Today a guy in a company truck, from the company down the street, decides to drive backwards, fast, for like a quarter block. Simply unacceptable. I called. The boss thanked me. We'll see what good it does.

Meditations on loss

My thoughts are also turning to some of those hurting.

Nate Livingston's blog is the scene of a lot of dialogue on the Kabaka Oba shooting. There were some commentors who don't care about Oba or the violence in OTR and have a "let it burn" philosophy. I responded over at his site, "To the last Anon, advising people to stay out of OTR and leave it to the "miscreants and the morally destitute"

Wow, you're a fool. Do you really believe you are disconnected from the lives of the poor and the broken? Where do you think your suburban neighbors go to buy drugs and rent flesh? Do you really think the suburban shell can thrive if the city's heart decays?

The drug supply is only there to meet the demand of a suburban market. The guns are only there because of the culture of violence that our nation has embraced.

Take some responsibility. As you're firing up the grill behind your white picket fence you're ignoring your role in healing the city's collective illness."

The Palmers

Amy Palmer's entries are also ones to meditate on. She's posting on her grief and the recent loss of her husband, Mark. I don't really know the Palmer family, but I know a lot of people who love them. I have to say that even as someone who is a stranger in many ways to her, I really feel for what she's going through.

The birds are up and so am I

It's just past five in the morning (or two am San Francisco time) and I just got out of the shower and am dressed. I forgot my towel, but it wasn't as much of a pain since it's pretty warm right now. (our days are almost hitting 80 degrees)

I mentioned SF because last night I dreamed of our new friends there and I suppose they're dreaming now. I don't recall the content, but I think I'll call a couple of them today and make contact.

I finished my 2005 financials and I have to get 2004, 2003 and 2002 done now and the taxes. This is a hole I'll not soon dig for myself again.

Steve

The disease of addiction

Beck and I attended family night tonight at the WRAP House - the residential treatment program that Molly's in - and that was a major theme. A lady spoke about her son Casey, who died because of his Heroine addiction. She said that it's just not treated as a serious disease and implied that this contributed to his death. I agree.

I wonder if the family member I mentioned with the aloholism regards it as an illness. I bet he thinks of himself as a failure because of it. Maybe I'll call him tomorrow.

Left of Eden

This is my article on the religious left in Cincinnati. I'd welcome any feedback.

Here it is, at Citybeat.

House Church installment

It's Tuesday and House Church is here (or at least I am here at HC). I'm live blogging again which helps me focus on what's happening.

"My goal is to raise the bar every time we do it," says Klinefelter, of his Via Crucis project. This is Aaron's experiential way of the cross exhibition where the stations of the cross are done by 14 different artists. There were like 7 churches and many individuals involved in this, by the way, so I'm sure Aaron will cringe as I label it "Aaron's project."

We had a lot of food here tonight, including White Castles. Eric is singing some weird song about eating a lot tonight.

Where did you see god this week?

Leslie: Called some company and was put on hold for awhile and got a very frustrated operator. "I said, god's in control and she said yes he is." (after almost getting nasty with the operator) "I came that close," she said.

Klinefelter: "I certainly noticed god on Sunday night...It was just cool to see so many diff't people come together and, in some shape or form, experiencing Christ's presence." Klinefelter related that the last person there, a fellow named Matthew, heard about the event from a friend who got an email about Via Crucis and he was going to go to a BarBQ and then he found that the people at the BarBQ were going to go to. "...these random connections...just neat...people converging. That was really cool, a god thing."

Eric said it was magic.

Patricia, a neighbor, said that her dad passed away several years ago. He taught philosophy of education, existentialism and was a deacon at his church. After he died she wondered if god really existed. Patricia saw a van hit a little girl and her dad appeared all of a sudden asking her why she was crying. He had two lawn chairs. He said, "Don't cry. She's with us." She tells us that her father said that there was nothing to fear in the Lord's hands. "He was telling me he was still alive, with god...this was strange..." She said on another evening she was laying in bed and a beam of light came in her window and Jesus Christ appeared with her dad - they passed their hands over her body. "All of a sudden I opened my eyes and I saw Christ there beside me...I could feel him taking his hand...I could feel them touching my life."

"He will embrace you if you ask him to," she said.

A new person, Maria just joined us. She was curating during Via Crucis.

Liz: Really bad about waking in the morning. "It's on the border between laughable and ridiculous." This week, she's gotten up on time every day (two days).

Picturing God's Kingdom
That's the discussion theme this week. I didn't read this time. I don't very often, so I'm seldom well prepared and make up for my lack of knowledge with my wits.

So what are the meanings behind parables and myths in the bible? Leslie said that there were some references – like salt losing its saltiness – that confused her. This made her want to read more.

Angela mentions that some biblical stories seem hard to understand because we have become so separated from the earth.

How do we pass on stories to people (children) whose lives are divorced from nature.

“The kingdom of god is like a microchip,” Angela jokes.

What are the times when you were able to convey some small part of what god is?

Angela says that she's communicated god by not mentioning god or Jesus, loaded words, she says. In stories.

Maybe (this is me speaking now) there are just a few roads to failure – that it won't work – but a multitude of ways that it can work – when it's supposed to. The “it” I'm talking about is a relationship or a project or a journey – anything that leads us to crisis.

Aaron described hermeneutics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics -as the way to understand this stuff.

Russ says people often get caught up in the Christian affectations and need to focus on their attitude and behavior. “The congregation is very important, but when those individuals walk away they had better act as they've been taught...”

-30-

Exquisite pain, minor resolution and the bag 'o' religious gear

I just got over a three day headache today. In and out it crashed like waves, exposing jagged rocks, like they talked about in the book, Misery. I woke up at three AM this morning, it was sharp then and inescapable through sleep and I wrote a bit and surfed the Net. I was able to tone down the pain around six and as I was going to sleep I wondered if I could reimagine the pain and choose the way my brain interpreted the signals from my straining blood vessels. Could I choose to believe it was pleasure? If I did, would it become that? Like a cool breeze passing over my face instead of a slow electric draw, clenching my skull? I described it, at another time as being exquisite pain. I'll let you read that if you ask.

Minor resolution
An important phone call came today from the person I conflicted with last week. I wrote about it and they responded on this blog a couple of days ago. This person said they wanted, as I do, to have space but retain civility so this doesn't affect our mutual friends. I respect this person for that. We agreed to disagree.

Religious gear
I've gathered all my churchy stuff into my zipper bag - The bible, the qoran and a couple of analytical texts are all together for tonight at house church and elsewhere.

- Steve

Bush is a shameful, terrible president

and I hope he is impeached. He deserves prison.

I heard him on the radio and it makes me sick to listen to his voice.

I just don't think this can be said too often. I just hope the movement reaches a critical mass.

How we felt when we saw the baby

I wanted to jump back to the day last week when we went for the sonogram:

It was a really emotional time. I spoke with Matt Murray today at St. E's and he told me that, a lot like the way we were sorta cool and collected before the wedding and then, at the event, just in awe of the mystical/emotional/amazing gravity of it all, that the birth would be the same way.

I think he's right. The sonogram made me cry and Beck, too. It was really moving to see our son's face for the first time. The ultrasound has a very scifi kind of feel, revealing the outer shape of the baby and slices of his flesh and beneath the skin. I imagined that this was the way a fourth dimensional being would see us - like a god's eye view.

Anyway, it was pretty incredible. We saw our son for the first time. The name Abby Delores doesn't work anymore, of course.

The past week and the next

Yeah, I'm really tired right now, so my titles aren't that creative. I'll work on it in the near future.

Today is Sunday and I'm at the Brown House. It's sunny, but kinda cold. The house is alive with people. That's really cool to see.

The SPJ Convention
The Society of Professional Journalists annual Region Four Convention was yesterday. Beck and I went to the reception on Friday night at the Freedom Center. It was our first time there and it was very nice. I've heard a bit of criticism about it and, while it was video heavy, I did learn some things. We just checked it out as a sideline to our event, so I'd like to make a day of it and really explore their exhibits. I was glad to see that the Center connected the struggle of blacks to queer liberation and women's lib.

Saturday was the convention. I moderated a panel on Media Reform and Indie Media. It went pretty well. Always get speakers that are more competant than yourself, is my motto. John Fox, editor of Citybeat, George Nemeth of Brewed Fresh Daily and Sara Mahle from Media Bridges spoke on my panel.

Beck attended too and said she thought the discussion was really good. We attended a presentation by a writer from the New York Times on covering disasters, too. It was pretty moving - photos and stories from the first few days in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Kari Wethington and Andrew Warner did some podcasting for SPJ. I'll post the links when they're up.

Willing to put up with less these days
I don't want to say that we have less patience because of the baby coming, but we certainly have a lower bullshit threshold.

We're trying to use barriers wisely and kindly against people with recurring issues who are not addressing their problems. I had an argument with a friend that made me feel really bad a couple of days ago and I realized that it's just not where I want to be; not for myself, Becky or the baby. So I'm going to cool it with a couple of relationships that have been earmarked with anger. I just don't have the time for people who aren't willing to work on their issues.

Have you ever felt like you were in some kind of Groundhog Day (the movie) cycle with someone where it kept going sour on a cyclical basis? That's how I've felt.

Speeders
The bastards speeding down my street piss me off more and more the closer I get to having my baby breathe the air. Yeah, I need to find a solution to these issues. The city responded quickly to my call a couple of weeks ago and put speed limit signs on the street. It's a start.

The new week
Here's some stuff I need to complete this week:
Financial Record roundup and year-end books
Taxes
Getting rid of the blue couch (wanna buy it?)
Finishing the drywall repair in the hallway
Laying down the stone in the backyard
Work on the dining guide stories

That's all for now. Steve.

It's a boy.

So the name Abby Delores is scrapped. That's ok. The important thing is that it's healthy and looks cute. He's presently 1 lb, 10 oz and we're very excited.

The Gospel of Judas

NPR reports that National Geographic has discovered a gospel of Judas.

Read the report here - it's very interesting.

This was discovered in '83 and is going to be released soon. I'd be interested to know what people think about it and other Apocrypha. I'm curious to read it. I'm always more anxious to see the suppressed stuff than the mainstream, of course.

My story on the Religious Left, tentatively entitled "Left of Eden" comes out next week in Citybeat, btw.

I need vegetables ~ Ghosts in the Machine

Leafy green ones would do really well for me.

My cuticles are red and broken because I've neglected to eat my daily allotment over the past week. I went to Findlay Market today to get some and wouldn't you know they had no (bananas...yes we have no bananas today) or other fruit or vegetables! Arrgh! Kenny Havens told me that, despite the fact that the market is open seven days, you still have only the weekends - Friday through Sunday.

Also, Becky thinks we have a ghost. I know we have the dog, Ghost, but she means a spectre.

We've been hearing loud, clear footsteps in the house at 6am, midnight and then 1:30 am – it sounds like cloppity-clop – like a person in loose shoes – and it's not our tenant.

I'm still seeking material explanations on this and will keep you posted.

I also made my way to a Catholic supply store today – St. Francis Bookstore, I think it's called. They have a lot of stuff – Catholic gear – very inexpensive. I picked up a new Jerusalem Cross for $6.50 – you may recall that I lost mine, the one I've had for ten years or so, during me expedition to the Camp Katrina. They also had some really cool crosses for the wall. I saw some that folks around Vineyard would dig.

Beck's talking with everyone here at house church about the ghost. I think the consensus is that our new leather couch is haunted. We bought a big ass leather couch – hunter green and over stuffed. So thick it blocks my wifi connection! This replaces the wool sectional/hair magnet we've had for some time. If you've had the misfortune of sleeping on this blue wool retro piece, you'll understand when I say that we were ready for something more comfortable.

The blue bomber has been in my family for 35 years or so – my grandma bought it at a yard sale and had it recovered in 1972. The couch was built sometime in the 50's. Ghost slept on it for a long time and left a lot of hair to clean.

Tuesday Housechurch
Sunny day. Beautiful out and darn nice inside.

Eric said he wasn't able to make rent this month and is feeling kind of screwed by this guy her's working for. Eric says he's being payed too little and the boss is in obvious financial trouble. It sounds like he's being taken advantage of by this guy.

Eric says he's had discussions about faith with this guy and that's made it hard for him to insist on being treated better by this boss.

Folks here advised him to insist on payment before proceeding with the work relationship. That's my feeling, too.

Bill, this new Brown House resident from Oregon, is here tonight. He has hair like my neighbor Josh. Ringlets of hair. Julie introduced Bill and everybody said hi.

Our ultrasound is tomorrow morning. We'll find out if this is a she or he.

Julie's lesson
Julies says that people have said they wanted structured teachings in HC and she's got this packet on Mark that we're going over tonight.

Julie says that Mark wrote for a gentile audience and may be a source for other Gospels.

“He came in an unexpected way,” she says. “He came as a suffering servant.”

She read from another text, “Try to love the questions themselves...live the questions...perhaps you may...live into the answer.”

Christ is seen as this divine answer man, but he asked just as many questions, she says.

Julie says it's easy to become a prisoner to legalistic ways and the law.

“It's too one dimensional for Christ,” she says. “It also leaves us out of the picture, which makes us laborers instead of co-laborers with God.”

'What if you have to live into the questions?” she asks.

Lesson one was Exodus 20:8-11
This was about keeping the Sabbath holy by not working and focusing on God.

So Mark's Gospel talks about the apostles technically breaking the Sabbath by gathering food. Somebody questions this and Jesus tells them that the Sabbath was made to serve God, not for God's people to serve the Sabbath. The main idea seems to be, if you're doing good on the Sabbath, it's cool.

She says the truth of how we are supposed to act on the Sabbath has changed from the Pharisees to the time of Jesus. Jesus in this passage seems to be denying that you can do nothing on the Sabbath and that, really, you're either doing evil or good.

The theme, consensus says, is that the Sabbath is set aside to honor God.

Russ is sitting next to me. His glasses make him look like that sports announcer Harry Kari (sp?)

Becky says that maybe Jesus was saying, “Don't get caught up in the semantics of the Sabbath.”

Julie reads from Tilden Edwards, who wrote that we as a society have moved away from draconian laws that prosecuted people for going on a recreational walk. The author says that, with this needed freedom, we've also lost some valuable rhythm to our lives... “a cathedral in time.”

Leslie says her family tried to observe the Sabbath by resting. Russ says nothing was open on the Sabbath. He says one drugstore was open in his little town, but nothing was operating except th pharmacy. Russ says this made Sunday a natural day for visits with friends and relatives.

“We were dull and boring,” Leslie whispers my way.

Worshipping on Sunday morning is a time out of time, Julie says, a connection across space with others worshipping on that day and across time with the entire history (and future?) of the church.

Beck says that Sundays for us are observed (I wouldn't have said that, though I think she's right by default) – this community has influenced us to hang about, talk, chill, eat on that day and that's become a part of our regular rhythm.

Say, I realized, I could podcast this HC – would anyone like me to do that? Would that be obtrusive?

(To be read in the voice of Patti Smith, breathless and halting like in the song Rock'n'Roll Nigger: I jump in my mind to that Mexican restaurant on 24th St, midway between Mission and Florida Streets in San Francisco -- the rhythm quickens now, beats folding ito each other --- and it was night and Beck and I were there, eating much too much after that long, 23 mile ride around the peninsula , eating much too much for our bellies at that late hour, later still by the jetlag, and we didn't finish and this kid comes up asking us for what's left on our plates so properly, saying, “I don't mean to be obtrusive, but may I finish that? If you're just going to throw it away? I hope I'm not being obtrusive.” And I'd never heard it said without an “un” on the front and that just shows you how little I, fed, cared about it, compared to a squatter kid with an empty belly.

But then, I had the money to by the food and he didn't. That's why he had to worry about it and I didn't.)

Cathedral in time, Julie continues. “I think that finding a rhythm is important,” Julie says. “...whatever you're doing to honor God.”

Back in Business

My old beater laptop rides again. My secondary system, a 366mhz P2 IBM Thinkpad - which is very well built system that I highly recommend - lost contact with the world a couple of weeks ago when the computer's wifi card died.

I purchased another - a D-Link (it was cheap, but I hate this company) - and the new card wouldn't work. I decided to do a complete wipe of the drive to see if that was then problem, downloaded a pirate copy of Windows 98 from Bittorrent and reinstalled. Still no luck with the wifi card.

It turns out that the folks at D-Link branded this card as being compatible with Win 98 - and it is, but only if you go through a rather extreme proceedure in MS DOS mode that involves renaming a root file. Shysters is my name for the D-Link people. It works really well now, but only if you're a geek willing to put in the time. And, while I feel a sense of accomplishment about it, there's no excuse for that company's shoddy excuse for a Win 98 driver.

I also downloaded Open Office, Firefox and Audacity, which are all freeware and open source. If I knew how to make Linux work with this wifi card I'd be all over it. I might even swap my trusty mac osx desktop for Linux one day.

The next computer?

gives you a good idea of what the next computer might look like. Very cool use of touch screen.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Sunday morning out of focus

I'm getting over a brief flu thing today. The stuff I'm coughing up is clear now. It was yellow yesterday.

Someone named Mary Kate was doing the sermon at church today, though I was not really able to focus because I still feel a bit bad - nervous energy from the caffine in the Excedrin I needed to quell the headache, a little nauseous.

She was talking about hands - what Jesus did with his, what we're doing with ours. I'll link to someone who has a clearer description if I see it online.

I have a lot of work to do today on the Best of stuff. It's due tomorrow.

Tuesday night house church

The Klinefelters are here tonight. It's a nice time to be around people we love.

Chad and the Canipe Family are, obviously, a focus tonight. This is also a very loose session; Eric has questioned Colin Powell's pronunciation of his first name being, as he says, that his last name sounds like "Bowel." So loose that we're talking about dog names - Cory's name used to be Marquette and she came with the house. So loose that I'm blogging, live.

Other comments include Angela talking about the "Quick Wok" restaurant on "Long Drive" and Tracy wanting to end her sentences with the word "semi-colon" instead of "period" - more on this below.

"I want to give us an opportunity to process a bit...and share some stories," Thurman says.

Chad's Podcast
This is our conversational centerpiece tonight. It's his first and (only?) audio blog entry about the church, Poema, he and Renee intended to start.

Here it is.

He and Renee moved here, to Norwood, to build Poema.

In the podcast, Chad said that he wanted a dialogue and that the journey of faith he wanted to walk in was one that begins with questions. And, boy, has this community got 'em tonight.

Good news, btw, Palmer is doing better - check Kevin's site for stuff about him.

Poema, Chad says in the podcast, means masterpiece or workmanship - and "...that's what we're about, being God's masterpiece, his work of art."

Chad asked listeners suspend any disbelief and consider the idea that "...God created. He is the master artist...he has a plan and a purpose for your life..."

Chad said that our purpose was deemed and intended by our creator and that we should try to discern what that purpose is(I'm extrapolating a bit - correct me if you think I'm off on this one.)

Chad spoke about disasters, Like Hurricane Katrina, which had just happened at the time he recorded this. He said no matter what happens in our lives, God can use even the bad things that happen - tragedies - for his purpose and make something good out of it. This kind of foretold the situation we are in now.

"Thanks for listening. It looks like I've gone a bit longer than I expected."

Sara Klinefelter said, "Here is Chad comforting us..."

Everyone felt that the recording spoke to them.

"What part of Chad's mission are we called to carry forth?" Kevin asked.

Julie Gross spoke about how open Chad was to discussing his faith ecumenically, such as with a Hindu friend at Fifth Third.

"It's ordinary and extraordinary at the same time," she said. "I think that part of his vision is something to carry forward."

Aaron said that Chad was visionary and died before his ideas came to pass - that being the vision for the city. "You don't hear that at seminary," Klinefelter said. "Chad's thing was being known as the best neighbors you could have."

"I sense that that nugget is something that's going to be coming," Aaron said. "It seemed very significant."

Angela brought up the communion of saints. "Chad talked about email him or call him," she said. "And you still can."

For myself, I was struck by the depth and detail of planning Chad had done. You have to understand how meek and understated Chad was in person. I had no idea about this at the time.

Along the lines of the communion thing Angela mentioned, that thing that happened the day he died seemed significant. Our answering machine started playing all of its messages just before 7 am, the morning and approximate time that Chad died. I also felt strongly that Chad would die a week before it happened. The podcast is maybe the message (recorded) that he wanted us to listen to(?}

Kevin said that he and Tracy as well as the Canipe family also felt that Chad was going to die several days before it happened.

Klinefelter (Aaron) said he had an experience on Thursday (the day before Chad died) and that he understands the idea of speaking with the saints better. That the plane between this world and the next is much thinner that we often believe. I gather that the communion of saints stuff is verboten or taboo or something in evangelical faiths(?)

Klinefelter said he went to the hospital on Thursday night and felt very discouraged, disconnected and defeated. "It kept going down, down, down," he said. He said he listened to scripture on the way to the hospital to seek comfort. He just wanted God to say something. "The sense of...deep and abiding peace (the Canipe family) had...I received so much form them in terms of encouragement...I felt like other people in our community needed to know that."

Klinefelter came to the Brown House looking to share..."after I left here that night, driving home, I had a very real sense that I was talking to Chad. I don't even know how to explain it. Not that he was there with me..."

Aaron said he communicated to Chad,"don't be discouraged. God's got it."

It was like I was having a conversation with chad and it was like he was saying, 'Thanks for saying that, but I've got to go...I can't fight in this physical body, I've got to go.' I remember driving home thinking he's not going to survive...but that he was okay with that...it's time to go and it's like just letting me know, it's okay."

Tracy said he died, "...very gracefully, very quickly and well...even the position he was laying...was like he was laying back, watching a football game, was peaceful."

"Just as a comfort to you all, he did really well," Tracy said. "I don't think he suffered."

Kevin said he thought Chad could hear things even though he was in a medically inuced coma, and he was spoken to by many for the days he was in the hospital.

Julie said this means the Kingdom is not far away, period. (Tracy would have said ...far away, semicolon." That's the context of the joke from earlier.)

"Those who believe in me will never die (experience death)," Kevin quoted.

"I have this kind of working theory...somewhat based in hope...that there is this kind of seemless time when you're entering...this transitional time where you're literally being greeted by people who are going to help you...(and yet you're still connected to the material world)," Kevin said.

Sara said when her mom died she had this amazing understanding of the term, "Born Again." That she had this literal vision of her mom being born again, going through the birth canal. "It was like labor," Sara said. "She kept saying she had to go."

She kept crying out, 'God help me.'" Sara said. "I just had never felt the presence of God so full."

"You just have this amazing new life in a different form," she said. "I've never thought of born again Christian the same way again...now it's even more real."

Sara said she prayed, "God breathe life into Chad. Breathe life into him again...that's all I could pray and it was like a joyous song...and that God was going to breathe life into Chad...and whatever that would look like...I really had the faith that God was breathing life into him like he had never known...he was at the feet of God...can you just imagine?"

Aaron said he felt a piece of himself, and the community was gone with Chad. "That's not like a bad thing, as in 'Woe is me,' it's just the reality of it...he made up a part of who I am and when he leaves this place to the other side of the veil, theres a piece of me that lacks..."

Thurman said," When you said that, I thought, 'A piece of me went with Chad and Chad is at the feet of God.'"

I don't feel so much closer to Chad as I do closer to God," Kevin said. "When (some of Kevin's friends went to India) I felt like part of me was in India."

"This was a tragedy but now a lot of people are reexamining their lives," Kevin said. "...I'm very comfortable dying now in a way I wasn't before this."

"We're a fairly young community," Aaron said. "...death is a part of life. It's like we know now of a whole other country that we didn't know of before...I can say, with confidence that we, as a community, can get around in that country."

Aaron compared this to orienteering. Julie compared this to becoming fluent in the language of heaven. Becky spoke of her uncle Stewart's death and how connected she felt to him.

"We've been talking for the past few weeks," Aaron said, "We've been talking about healing and...what happened? ...I see what happened to Chad as part of the same conversation as to what does healing look like...his healing came as going beyond the veil...I think what we've experienced has been healing for us as a community in a way that Chad healing physically (could not have)...You always lose something when you got to war you always gain something when you go to war...it has hurt like hell...but that has also brought about healing (to the community)."

Aaron said that he thinks something is happening, very deep down in our community, that Chad's death won for us.

"If we continue to talk out and feel this...we're going to know him as we never have," Sara said. "...if we keep opening it up and feeling, then we can keep growing."

There was much more laughter than crying tonight. And, as Chad said, God is near.

As a child

That's the name of an album by my friend, Eric Falstrom. Eric has a hell of a sound and, I thought today, is on target with this album title, naming what is really a primal drive.

I was taliking to Kevin and Tracy Rains daughter, Zoe, today about just this thing: As a child, you're in a hurry to grow up and, when you grow up, if you have any sense, you spend your whole time trying to be a kid again - or wishing you were.

Zoe said she cried today at school about Chad. I think a lot of people did.

Awake before anyone else

Or at least I think I am.

It was 4 in the morning when I woke up today. I guess I can make it to morning prayers today.

So I wake up this early - I haven't slept through the night in half a year - because of this machine I use, the CPAP - basically an air compressor that keeps my airway from closing up at night. The thing dries me out since I don't use the humidifier on it. I choose not to use it because if I did I would have to wash the breathing assembly (a little barrel with two soft nozzles that fit into my nose) and the hose with antibacterial soap every day. This would be to avoid things like Legionnaire's Disease which thrive in moist environments. I;m just not disciplined enough to do this , so I live with the dryness.

This limitation is small compared to the gain; I've had only five hours of sleep and yet I feel more rested than I did before when my sleep apnea disrupted my sleep.

Beck and I have this joke, "Thanks, CPAP, it's incredible," making fun of the awful video the local clinic uses to pimp this thing. Ask us about it sometime.

Chad's viewing was last night. I was glad to be able to go, even though I normally avoid these things. I told Beck this was the first one I've gone to where it hasn't felt like an obligation. I'm glad it wasn't in a funeral home. Those places feel like dollhouses.

Ghost is awake with me. Chewing on an old water bottle.

So, in a last gasp of early morning indulgence, here's what I'd like to get done today. (I have no printer now as mine recently konked out - anybody want to sell a used Mac printer?)

- email Julie Boehm about the poverty documentary project
- Finish up the top ten list stuff for John Fox, my editor on the Best of Cincinnati project
- get the books out from under the sofa
- make arrangements to borrow a van and add a bookcase to the living room
- clear off space on my computer - I have less than a gig free on an 80 gig system!
- clean the bathroom
- make arrangements to find a new printer
- email Angela with the writers project info
- add my blog info to the signature on my email
- clean the backyard and measure for pavers - we're paving the little back yard we have.
- do four loads of laundry
...that's this day's peek into the glamorous life of a freelance writer.

-Steve

Child Rearing and Chad's Funeral

That's where my mind has been for the past 24 hours.

We visited Molly yesterday at the Kenton County Detention Center, a real jewel of the American justice system, I hear - not.

She was in good spirits and we got a long visit with her yesterday. Beck and I have confidence that she'll make it and stay sober this time.

After visiting Molly we bought something like six pounds of spinich for $2 from Findlay Market. I highly recommend you check out this urban farmers market. The prices are so low I think we could buy product and resell it here in Norwood at profit and still undercut the grocery significantly.

After that we had so much spinich, we needed to give some away and we went to the red building and gave some to, among others, Krystal Dawson. Brandon is away working with Over the Rhine in New Zealand and she's been alone with Avian. Anyway, she asked us to dinner.

At dinner we spoke with Krystal about their parenting method, which we didn't know much about before last night. It turns out they are focusing their parenting on trying to raise avian to respect authority that acts out of love, not out of fear. (these are my words, not theirs, and my very limited understanding of this method, called Adlerian Psychology or the Positive Parenting menthod) This is a method to create a child that is neurosis free, and has only egalitarian relationships. I'll blog on this more later...

So anyway, we had a lovely evening with Krystal and Avian and had a really neat conversation about this stuff. Beck and I talked a lot about how we might raise our midget.

Today - this morning - was Chad's funeral. It was a beautiful service and a lot of folks stood up to talk about his life. I particularly liked Chad's dad's story of how, when Chad was a kid, he got stuck with the dog in an icy garage and scrawled "help" on the garage door window.

We're at the Brown House now, hanging with Tracey, Jeremy, Sandy Brock and a few other folks.

I'm still working on the Best of Cincinnati text.

More later...

Past tenses and tensions

I woke up this morning with a headache as my wife predicted.

It isn't the skullsplitter variety - a description that never fails to make Becky wince - it's just a simple tension headache caused by a shot of Jagermeister. "It's just one drink," I told her. And, of course, she was right. One was enough.

and in this episode of "This Old Anarchist"
I think I am begining to understand why the "obey" thing is worked into the common wedding vows. It wasn't in our vows, but that's beside the point. It doesn't have to mean some sort of sick, psuedo-parental thing where spouses act out their respective neurosis (what's the plural here?) on one another - it can just mean, "Listen and try to respect what your spouse has to say before having the kneejerk response to fight them on stuff. They may have a damn good reason to say whetever they're saying."

So wow, how 'bout that.

The Big Chill
Our friend, Chad Canipe, died on Friday, March 9. He left behind two sons - ages seven and three (Colin and Aidan - I think Aidan is three) and a wife, Rene. There's a memorial site being developed at http://www.CanipeMemorial.com. I'm sure they'll be accepting donations for the family at the site and I can attest, if they do, it's for a good cause: to support the grieving family of a kind and very decent man.

I still am having a difficult time accepting that he's gone and, paradoxically, am finding my memories of Chad to be fleeting. I can recall events and conversations, which I'll relate later in this letter, but not his voice or face all that clearly. Just a tinge of his soft, slightly raspy way of speaking is left and just a smile or so remains in my memory. I can't recall how he frowned (perhaps this speaks well of him) or what his serious look looked like.

There was a radio show I heard once that described the reactions to death in other cultures and they spoke of a particular (African?) culture that viewed it - death - as being of two types: The recent dead, who still live in the minds of those who knew them and the long dead who are recalled only in stories or not at all.

My friend Quintina, like Chad, is among the recent dead. Quin died in - wasn't it January? - That's already begun to slip - and she, like Chad, was only about 35. It was sudden and it was a shock. My friend, Adam, who, along with his wife, Laura, played a large part in our wedding, his favorite movie was The Big Chill, which is about a group of friends who reuinite after many years at the death of one in their clique. I don't think Quin's death acted on my loose group of high school friends as it happened in the film, but then, in some ways it did. It was a geologic occurrence, shaking us to our core and forcing us to confront our own mortality.

Quin, by the way, laughed so hard at one of my stories that she threw up. John Waters said once that to him, if he could make an audience member vomit, it was like a standing ovation. Thanks, so much, Quin. I've never been paid a better compliment when telling my stories of urban decay.

Chad's death may be the first death in Vineyard Central - could that be? Maybe. That seems harder than the second will be. Kevin Rains, my friend and pastor will be doing the memorial service.

the year of magical thinking
When time has passed and those close to Chad can sit down to read it, I hope they, especially Rene, check out Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. This is a memoir by Didion - a journalist/author - on the first year of her life without her husband. Didion is an athiest, though the book is really about how we grieve. There is an engaging abstract of what one will find - a 25 minute interview by Terry Gross. Quoting the Fresh Air site, "In her memoir, Didion contemplates how the rituals of daily life are fundamentally altered when her life's companion is taken from her. Her impressions, both sharply observed and utterly reasonable, form a picture of an intelligent woman grappling with her past and future."

Memories of Chad
Chad and I were not close, but I have always known him to be a gentleman, a devoted husband and father and a loving friend. Here are just a few notes that will act as a simple buttressing of wonderful stories that will no doubt be told about Chad.

His kindness: He went out of his way to hook me up with a job at 5/3 which I decided, ultimately, not to interview for. He looked for ways he could extend a little grace into others lives.

His love of his family was alway clear to me. The way he cared for his family was always clear in his soft spoken, gentle and soothing manner towards them.

His faith: Clearly stronger than my own, he was convicted on the love and authority of God.

His damned free weights: Were a pain in the ass to move downstairs to his basement. But, they reinforced my understanding of his sense of humor. The man could take a joke and always had a laugh ready for my sarcasm.

You'll be missed, Chad.

Steve

PS: My headache is gone now. And Chad's blog keeps going, as his spokesperson and testimony of what his life was about. Once you get past his unnatural obsession with the Steelers ( ;) ), you'll find a very deep soul imprinted its mark on those pages.

Here's the letter we sent to the relative with the problem:

XXXXXX,

Thank you for your letter. We appreciate the sentiments you expressed, but we believe that you miss the point, and what was the problem that evening.

When you expressed that you did not like the music playing and went into the bathroom I was already changing the station. When you came out with TP in your ears I had already changed it to a station playing XXXXX. Maybe you didn't like that either.

Regardless, your behavior was very rude. Instead of asking us, "Would you please turn the music off or change the channel?" you made snide comments, stuffed TP in your ears and then started singing at the top of your lungs.

And even these behaviors are not the point.

You acted this way because you were drunk. You were drinking in the car and brought beer into our home.

Beck and I have decided to establish that we do not want to be around you when you have had any amount of alcohol. If you've decided to drink, please call and cancel any plans with us. We don't intend to go through this again.

For the record, you may not drink in our home and we do not want to see you if you have had any alcohol.

We love you and want to maintain a relationship with you. To do this, we cannot accept your drinking in our presence. You are not your normal and pleasant self when you drink, you become a person we do not want to be around.


Steve and Becky

I'm finally seeing eye to eye with the Taxman

Not that we agree on anything, of course. I would like to see the entire tax system as we know it collapsed and replaced with a national sales tax. It's just that I'm finally doing my taxes - I owe returns for 2002-2005 and, I was told by the IRS rep on the phone, "We've been looking for 2003."

So, I'm right on time, as late comers go, anyway.

I have 30 days to get these in, I was told. I'll update you on the progress.

Today is Saturday and I started off with a writer's meeting, myself, Ken Oster and Angela Pancella. Ken, you may recall, is a dear friend of mine who looks like Ghandi with ZZTops' beard. He doesn't speak much, due to his disability, but if he did, he'd surely have one of the most riotous mouths around. His blog is here

Angela is new to the Vineyard Central Community. She's from St.ouis and moved here to develop her writing career. Recently, she did some work for me on Citybeat's Swizzle bar guide and she crafted an excellent story on local drag nights. The Dock's Friday night lipstick review is a lot of fun, by the way.

So today I'm trying to wrap up some loose ends with regards to the week's work, sending Citybeat ideas for the Best of Cincinnati issue and getting a new query out to a San Francisco publication (more on that later). I need to ramp up my work and get a lot of things going and done, relationships built before the baby comes.

We're due in August, in case you don't know. If it's a girl, we're thinking the name would be Abbey Delores. We'll see, if it's a boy.

The baby is sharpening our focus in a lot of ways. We both feel a sense of purpose, like we have to hurry and prepare the way for this little person. This means things like getting back taxes done so daddy doesn't have to do jail time (this is a joke, by the way. They don't jail you when they owe YOU money. Still, I want to get it done), getting chores around the house in order, completed on a regular basis, getting healthier and refusing to tolerate any bullshit. What I mean by this is, bad behavior, by friends and relatives, drunkeness and disorderly conduct is not going to happen in front of our child. Or in our home. It has to be a place of sanctity, not lawlessness.

My disdain for authority hasn't waned, by the way, it's just that you can do whatever you want...OUTSIDE of our home. (and I don't mean in the front yard) This came into play with a relative yesterday. He left after about 15 minutes.

Our car also broke down yesterday. I pushed while Becky steered and we moved it, by gravity and muscle power more than a mile from the Montgomery Rd. Exit off of I-71 north to Ashland and Montgomery - Here's the map if you'd like to marvel at the chore.

Most of this was downhill and a nice teacher from Woodward HS, Kwesi and his wife Phyllis stopped to help. It wasn't that bad and I laughed my head off (as I'm sure others did, too, when I fell (almost!) under the car.

I pushed the car and got it moving and was running along side of it, opening the door, trying to jump in. I had the door open and grabbed the handle above the passenger window and tried and fell down on my ass. Yikes! Beck thought I was a goner. (though it wasn't the first time. I'll tell you about the train on our honeymoon later...getting your show stuck in the path of an oncoming freight train is no fun. She would have been a widow and only married less than a week!

If anybody wants to help replace the fuel pump, let me know. ;)

Beck's out walking with Angela in French Park, Eric Falstrom's favorite. I'm here at the brown house typing away.

Not much more to report for now.

Steve

Start by killing your TV

Watched the Corporation today... www.thecorporation.com

a movie about the way the pervasive corporate culture came to be.

Apalling, hard not to watch, like a train wreck. Thanks to Scott Ross for loaning the video.

We've been tv free for 3 years now, btw.

Steve