on greed and gluttony...

This subject from a fat guy who wants to win the lottery....

Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that I have some very mixed feelings about. I love the family get together, ( even though mine is very small in recent years ) and I love the food. Too much food though, and one truly feels compelled to "have a little of everything." Why? Simply put, out of politeness. In my family, each dish of the dinner is made from scratch by a professional chef who just happens to be my father. Occasionally there are additional dishes made with equal care and attention to detail from other family members, and to skip items, for anything other than moral standing ( meaning you can skip the meat if you're a vegetarian ) is to insult the cooks who have labored long and hard over each course of your meal. From the peeling of the potatoes, to the basting of the bird, from the cooking of the pumpkins to the kneading of the pie shells, it's all done for "You!" The afternoon sitting in the livingroom, the smells from the kitchen making the stomach growl in anticipation of the big meal. The table is set with the good Corelle ware, and silver. Dinner is served and The plates are loaded up. Take a little bit of everything, but some extra of your favorites, and my personal favorites are the dressing and the cranberries. ( whole cranberries cooked in a sweet jelly that is made with cherry brandy! yummy!) By the time the main meal is done it's gonna be a bit of work to have some dessert. But what's Turkey day without Punkin pie? It's tradition!

So why so many different foods for one dumbass holiday? If you can set a decent table and serve a complete meal, what more needs to be done? Why must we gorge to the point that we feel sick afterwards? ( thank you I haven't done this in a few years, I know what you were thinking!) Is this a holdover behavior from the days when it was truly possible to run out of food over a long winter and we were programmed to eat hearty when it was available so that we might fatten up for the hard weather? Or is it simply tradition to see who can gain the most "turkey weight"? I know many otherwise sensible people who will gorge on a thanksgiving meal until they can barely walk without pain. As a lifelong overeater, even I don't do that with anything other than lasagna. ( me and garfield!) I'm, of course, joking, I don't eat anything like that anymore, in fact it has been years since I ate so much of anything that I was in pain. Uncomfortable, yes, pain, no! SO the Gluttony precedes the greed of "Black Friday."

Do you know why it's called "Black Friday?" It's not about the feeling of doom that most retail employees feel for this day, rather it is about the color of ink that the management of retail store hope to be able to use in the ledgers at the end of the day. It is said ( and I really have trouble believing it) that while most retail establishments run in the red ( losing money) for the large part of the year, the 4 week stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas bring the books into the black ( showing a profit ). If this is indeed the truth then it's a poor business model that they have been following. To depend on 4 weeks out of a year to bring your yearly sales into the black is insane. But it sure explains why they started pushing Christmas in September. Sad.

So that brings me to the real greed part of this thing, because on Black Friday this year a Wal-mart employee was trampled to death trying to control the crowd pushing through the door at opening. The full story is here. In the story an employee is quoted as saying that the crowd took the doors off of their hinges. This is stupidity at it's worst. The story even tells how these very same customers were refusing to leave the store when police closed it because of the death! Where is the sense of these people? The worst has finally happened, and now we have to see what comes of it. I think that store could be a little more cautious when advertising a "door buster" sale! Too many people take this a little too literally, but unfortunately the retail management has no morals and will continue to advertise such sales in hope of getting every descretionary dollar available from the public, as well as as many indescretionary dollars as possible too. Retail management has proven that they know this is a dangerous practice:

Hank Mullany, president of Wal-Mart's northeast division, said the company took extraordinary safety precautions.

"We expected a large crowd this morning and added additional internal security, additional third-party security, additional store associates and we worked closely with the Nassau County police," he said in a statement.

"We also erected barricades. Despite all of our precautions, this unfortunate event occurred."

I am about this close to opting out of Christmas. It has become far too gimme, gimme, gimme and lost it's love. As a person who is cursed with a December birthday I have a love hate relationship with Christmas to begin with, and this kind of things just makes it worse.

Now a pet peeve that has been on my mind a lot lately, GRAMMAR! the following is correct, "In an emergency...", while this is incorrect, "In a emergency...". The following is correct, "It would be a historic event." The following is incorrect, "It would be an historic event." If the word following the article begins with a vowel the article "an" is used, if the following word begins with a consonant the article "a" is used. A very simple rule that I have seen screwed up repeatedly of late and it is driving me insane!! ( and that's just a short walk to begin with. )

How much do you like music?

Music is one of those things in life that everyone has some saome opinion about, what is good and what is bad and what even constitutes "music" To a Mongolian Throat Singer, they make music, but to just about everyone else they make noise. Rock music is broken down into categories and someone can love one and hate another, there is glam rock, hair band, hard rock, classic rock, heavy metal, and accoustic. How many other categories depends on the strict definition you choose, but they are all a form of "Rock n Roll" Sometimes we lke a genre but dislike a particular performer in that genre, Me I can barely stand Guns and Roses and Kid Rock. My little brother on the other hand loves them both to death and loves to argue with me about their merits. Now Don't get me wrong, I don't say that they are not quite accomplished at what they do and how well they do it, I just don't like them. From both a personal and professional stand I have my reasons. THe funny thing is that I like such a wide variety of music that some people consider me to be an authority on the stuff, but truthfully I am only a barely conversant dilettante compared to some people. The more I learn about music the more I realize that I don't know, but I do know what I like.

In recent years I have found that I like to hear new versions of old songs. On Saturday mornings in Rochester there is a radio show, ( actually 2 of them!) that play truly different music, and I have really come to look forward to these shows. The one show opens every week with a different artists version of the song "Good Morning Little School Girl" I have been listening to these shows for a couple years and I can't say that I have heard the same version of this song twice. I have heard faithful blues renditions, rocking ,rockabilly versions, some that sounded like a lullaby, reggae, hiphop, one was even an instrumental played only on piano. And what I have found is that they are all cool. No matter how different it sounds from the first version I ever heard, they are all the same song from somebody else's perspective. So with this in mind I have kept my ears open to find different and cool versions of old familiar songs. Jewel doing "Sweet Home Alabama", amazing cover of a song that she can't even sing live because she doesn't know the words!! Funny isn't it? Billo Kirchen and "Hot Rod Lincoln Live" an 8 minute rendition of a 2 minute song, well worth it! Commander Codi's, Live version of "Hot Rod Lincoln" , it is his song after all! One that most people know, Eric Clapton's Accoustic version of "Layla" the great Derrick and the Dominos song that was originally a screaming guitar anthem. Accoustic versions of lots of songs, covers by well known artists, tributes, lots of variety. I have been working on a small collection of covers of Hall of Fame songs by Hall of Fame Artists. It's pretty cool to do the research and find out the origins of the songs and how they got to where they are. I have also found out that some artists put their songs out and then get tired of doing them that way, so they rewrite them and make them totally different songs. Not always better, but usually way better.

Music is what we want it to be, and some of us can make it. It's all about what you want to hear, and what you let yourself hear. Change can be good, and it may even open your mind.

No doubt!

Got me a shout out of the radidio Today!! I was doin' my thing in the new Wease Chatroom and low he asked who was in there and Lissow (new male sidekick) read off some names and Guess what? Shipping troll was right there in the list!!! cool or what? Nothing like supporting the stuff you enjoy!

Why am I excited about a radio geek?

Yes, I'm happy to have Wease back on the air. Why? Because he is the iconic voice of Rochester for me. There are many other voices that could fit that bill, and I am sure that other people have this feeling about Dave Kane, or Dino, or Tom George, or Terri Clifford, or any hundred other radio personalities that we have come to know and love.

The truth is that unless we actually spend time with them, we really don't know these voices by anything else than what they say to us on any given day. If we listen long enough we have the chance to put together a cohesive memory of them as we imagine them, which depending upon how they do their job could be very close to correct, or simply a manifestation of their on-air persona. As listeners, we have no idea which is which. Sadly some people go for the persona, rather than actually finding out about the person. The truth is that I only know Wease anecdotally. I have listened to him on the radio for nearly 20 years, and I have seen him at various functions, and even spoken with him on the air on occasion, but I know that I don't know him. What I do know though, is this, he seems to live his life on the air, we the listeners, have listened as he has raised his children, fought with his various wives, courted and married the lovely and emotional Doreen. We have heard him argue politics, religion, and education. He has related in graphic detail his military history, as well as his half-dozen other occupations. We know how he used to moon his mother and wrap paper reams for his father the printer (and bookie!). We know about his RV experience, and his Harley years. We know about his cancer and all the treatments that he dealt with to get him past it. We listened as he has mentored and sent on to glory and fame, Stephanie Miller and Opie ( of Opie and Anthony), and lord knows how many others, BJ Shay, Rich Genzler, (sp?) there was a chick between The One Whose Name We May Not Mention, and Stephanie, but I can't for the life of me remember her name. He brought us Tom Mule, and Lumpy, and Billy D'Torre. He has hooked us on different music, like Lucinda Williams, Kelly Hunt, Cross Canadian Ragweed, and countless other bands and performers. Comedians of every flavor come to Rochester and sit in with Wease. Other stations are left hanging while they sit in the studio and shuck & jive with our Brother Wease. Bobby Slayton, Thea Vidal, the late Sam Kinison. If you can name the comedian you can just about guarantee that they have sat in with Wease. He dissed Pauly Shore!! How sweet was that!!

I discovered Wease by accident in the late 80's. I live in the gray area centered between 2 amazingly diverse cities,Buffalo and Rochester, NY, and within radio reach of Toronto, Canada. I have choices when it comes to radio listening, and as a kid I was good at exercising that choice. There was never any guessing what I would be listening to from one day to the next. French- Canadian Pop? yup. AM country station? yup. Rock-n-Roll? yup. Top 40 pop? yup. I listened to it all, from the sappy ballads to heavy metal, I just enjoyed the music. Sometime in the mid 80's my favorite Buffalo rock radio station went off the air and I was searching for a new favorite. I tried a couple stations but didn't care for their particular mix, which sounds odd since I listened to such a wide variety, but the truth is that I know what I want when I am looking for it! So anyway I found WCMF. They were great and I loved 'em, but in the mornings it seemed that the DJ talked a lot more than he played the music, and truthfully I always enjoyed what he was saying. I was still in high school at this time so I didn't have the opportunity to listen for hours at a time, but I began to tune it each day on my way to school. Then when I finally graduated I had a commute to work each day and in that hour I listened. I began to like the talk and not like the wait when the music was playing, I wanted to hear more of the stories and life of this raspy voice that filled my car every morning. Then I moved.

I moved to South Florida and was surround by a whole different radio environment, now I had salsa stations side by side with redneck country stations, and rock stations, and dance stations, and Spanish language stations and Cubano stations. Musically, I was in heaven, but as for a personality that really hooked me? Nope, the best I could do was Herman and McBean in the Morning. HACKS!! Third rate compared to my hometown hero, Wease! Fortunately my sojourn in S. Florida was short lived as I was hard pressed to find employment that would allow me to have both an apartment and food.

Back home I was happy to find the familiar voice ringing in my radio. I spent a few years working different jobs but the one constant was that I could count on being able to hear Wease while I worked, Painting houses, fixing RVs, delivering parts, or anything else that I did. Then I moved again. This time it was still in NY but way up north on the St. Regis Reservation. I was working in an Indian Casino. It was a fun job, but it didn't last, that was the year that Northern NY Blew up! I never met so many State Police in my life, and they are all pretty good guys over all. The chicks in uniform are HOT!! I don't know what it is about them broads with guns but man they trip my trigger! (intended!) SO I was in a Radio Wasteland, I was lucky to get a few local AM stations and one or two Canadian stations that reached us from Montreal. No contest, I missed Wease! Finally the time came when I headed south again and got back into the proper radio range!

Then I got the job at the bar. I worked until 2 am. Getting up early wasn't easy, but I did it. Not to listen to the radio, but because I was only working 2 nights a week at the bar so I still needed a day job to pay the bills, but while I was twisting a wrench on washing machines I could listen to Wease. Then I got to be full time at the bar. and I was happy to sleep every day until 11 am. You think that getting out of work every day, all wound up at 2 am, you could go right to sleep? Not likely. I was Happy if I was in bed by 4 am. So there was a 2 year stretch when I almost never got to hear Wease. Then I switched to the day shift at the bar, which meant that I didn't have to be at work until Noon! Yeah! Now I was up by 7 am everyday and listening until the end of the show. I was back! I was happy for a while until a certain argumentative know-it-all female sidekick started to get on my nerves. Had to turn off Wease. It was a few years until SHE was gone, then I came back.

The Sally Carpenter years had begun! YES!! I was happy because she was cool, and not judgmental, and SMART. I like smart, and the show was better than ever. The ratings were soaring and the show was smart, funny, topical, and relevant more than ever before. CBS owned the station and things were good. For the listeners at least.

Entercom ruined Rochester Radio. They bought the fastest car in town and slashed the tires and yanked the motor out. They took a station that was as close to perfect as modern radio can be and ruined it. Fired the midday guy, the evening guy, and the fill-in guy. Then they tossed their option on the morning guy. The new show lacked the edge of the original. Tommy and Bill tried to fill those huge shoes, but the corporate brass didn't give them the tools to do the job. Sally is in Philly doing the show by phone. No good. I tried, I really did, but I knew it wasn't what I wanted. Then the word came out that it would be back.

A new station, a new crew, and Wease is back on the air. Monday morning he returns for real. With a video feed, and a chat room. Truly, an interactive radio experience. There was a short run through on Saturday night, for two hours the world returned to almost normal. Of course the new crew was mostly quiet because the phones were nuts with everyone calling in good wishes for Wease. But they will come out of their shells soon. Lilly, and Jamie and the rest of the crew. Ditullio is back , Marshall Fine, Doug Emblege on the radio. Rochester will once again feel like home. or at least sound like it, when I can tune in that raspy, liberal, bastard, the world sounds just a little bit Righter.

Rochester radio returns to What is't supposed to be!!

GOOD GOD IT"S FINALLY Here !!! Brother Wease is BACK on the air. Can't wait to hear that familiar rasp once again! I don't know how I survived the political season without him! Jumpin' up and down with anticipation.

At what cost, freedom?

I am an American, for good or for bad, It is where I was born and the language that I speak. I happen to understand and speak a few extra languages too, but my primary language is American English. And here I am implementing my 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech. BUT with every right that we are granted or promised, we must also promise to use these rights with some responsibility. As the 1st Amendment guarantees freedom of speech and the freedom of the press, it is not meant to allow one to cause a stampede by screaming "fire!" in a crowded theater. This is a common example, and one that most people seem to understand. But let's look at this freedom from a different angle, where do we draw the line at the "right to know?"

In the last couple of decades the "investigative reporter" has become the great enlightener of our generation. They have exposed corruption and scandal in every quarter of government and business. They depend on the whistle blower and the confidential informant to get their stories and facts. They have done lots of good over the years, but at the same time, they may be responsible for much harm too. When exposing national security concerns to the public, is it truly wise to stress over and over again which ports are most susceptible to terrorist attack, or wouldn't it be more prudent to say simply that "certain ports" are still vulnerable? Let the bad guys do their own homework, and quit giving them easy directions. When I lived in Florida, the port of the city that I lived in was considered to be one of the easiest terrorist targets in the US. The local paper even published a study that they had carried out themselves Detailing the weaknesses of this port. Including the best targets, the police response times, the security holes and the best forms of attack. Why isn't this considered to be treason? "Here is your target, the best way to attack it, and the tools you need to do it!" Now it is truly my belief that one must be willing to sacrifice a certain amount of security in order to preserve freedom, but at the same time it seems that to simply hand out information to our enemies is foolish and irresponsible.

My personal favorite is the 2nd Amendment and the right to "...bear arms..." . This is a point of serious argument, both the pros and the cons, but the truth is that these debates can easily be argued as points of responsibility. The NRA (National Rifle Association for those who may not know) is a great argument for both sides of the fence. They are adamant that guns are everybody's right and there should never be a reason to give them up. They are against registration, or a gun census, and any restrictive legislation. To some extent I can agree with some of these points, but not all. What is the harm in a gun census? Unless you have something to hide, or you wish to do something illegal, you should have no reason to be afraid of your local law enforcement agency knowing how many guns you have in your home. Of course we all know that one or two can always be reported stolen, and kept in reserve when the "jackbooted thugs" come to collect your weapons. In Great Britain it is now illegal to keep a gun in a private home, they must be kept at a gun club, or a hunt club (or so I have read I can't say that this is truly a fact). But there are still illegal guns out in the streets. Not nearly as many as in the United States, but they are out there. I own shoot and carry pistols, rifles, and shotguns. In NY state in order to purchase a pistol one must have a "pistol Permit" and each county has different standards. My permit is a "carry/posses on premises" permit, and I am allowed by law to carry my pistol(s) anywhere that they are not expressly prohibited, and I generally do. Generally, but not always, and with consideration to where I am and who will be there. I exercise responsibility. I don't carry when there will be lots of children around, I don't carry when I will be drinking alcohol. I don't carry an exposed weapon into a convenience store. I have educated my nephews about guns, but when they are around I keep my guns out of reach and unloaded or even better, locked up. Why, because I wish to be responsible. I enjoy my freedoms and I wish to keep them and allow them to be passed on to following generations.

Guns and cars, 2 things that are more American than just about anything, while the liberals cry over and over how guns are killing so many people, they seem to barely take notice of the numbers racked up on America's highways.

Motor vehicles accidents account for more deaths than all natural disasters combined. In fact in the United States your chances of being injured in an motor vehicle accident is better than one in a thousand, in any one year.

If you wish to do the math, crime stats for murder can be found here. Yes, when weapons are involved Guns are the biggest offender, but they have to be employed by somebody, and most often are used With the intent to kill! Automobiles are killers by accident, by poor training and inexperience, by inattention, by bad weather, and who knows how many other reasons. But who ever heard of bad weather being the reason for a gun death? ( ok, ok, maybe a hunting accident, but be realistic...) Yet there is no big movement to outlaw Cars. ( Which BTW are NOT A Constitutional right! )

Many freedoms come with a cost, I will look at others in the future, but these 2 are on the surface recently.

my favorite architecture part 1

When I was a kid, my grandparents owned an old farm in southern New York State, and on this farm were these two old barns. They are long gone, nothing more than bumps in the ground where they once stood, but the impression that they left on me persists. In the years since they were in my life, I have found that the old gambrel roofed barns capture both my attention and my imagination. They have a romantic quality in their appearance. when you drive down any country road north of the Mason Dixon, and east of the Mississippi, it is likely that you will see one of these barns either up close to the road you are traveling, or perhaps peeking out of the woods or over the fields. They dot the landscape reminding us that our country was built on the back of the family farm. As the family farm has died out, the barns are dieing too. But there are still many of them out there.

Over the years these old building have been adapted or lost, many have come to be landmarks for people trying to find their way to a friend's house, or remember their way to get to grandma's house. Some of these barns are still in use, maybe not for their original purpose, but for someone's workshop or garage. Many still get used to park the family's toys, the RV or the family
tractor. In some cases they are rented out for hay storage, or for a big corporate farmer to keep equipment near the local fields. But then, there are the cool cases where the old building has been remodeled completely inside to a real new use, such as a showroom for a furniture store, or the offices of a car dealership. Of course the landscape around them has changed along the way too, and that is the real interesting part sometimes.

I always find some surprises as I look around for these pieces of history. Each one, while similar in design, had it's own personality. different windows, pitches, peaks, and door arrangements are just a few of the individualities readily apparent to the casual viewer. Many times the form fit the function, often these barns were built in such a way that the front side was on high ground and the back side faced a hollow. This allowed for the easy entry of wagons loaded with hay into the storage area that was always the upper levels. While the hollow at the rear was perfect for pushing hay out into the feedlot for the livestock. In later years there was often one or two silos to accompany the barns, and it was not unusual for there to be a pair of barns, one for the work animals, usually horses, and one for the rest of the stock, the cows, sheep, chickens and goats. Often the Barns were the first buildings on the property, because they were the most important back in the old days. Once there was a place to work, then the house could be built.

One of the interesting things that I often notice is how these majestic behemoths have been incorporated into modern buildings. When a farm has grown rather than died, the original building has always remained in good shape, barring some disaster such as a fire or a tornado. So when the time comes to enlarge, the builders simply add on to the existing structure. I have had the opportunity to wander through some modern farms where the original Barn stands amid the additions it's gambreled peak rising like a lone mountain above the enameled metal of the newer additions. The ladders still attached to the beams in the hay loft so that the brave may climb to the highest window or loading door, and look out over all of the expansive roof. While below one is tested to find the original structure of hand-hewn beams that are now stripped of their planking to provide open space to move the herds or equipment. The rough cut supports standing side by side with the pressure treated lumber of today.

Look around if you can, and see the differences before they become too rare to compare. They are falling down everywhere, some already decayed to no more than a stone foundation. Their roofs are falling in, and their walls are bowing out, awaiting that fatal windstorm that will finally end their life. But what have they seen, and how many of them will last another century? Many of these grand buildings have seen more than a century already, and with care they may yet see another or even two more centuries. What history will they hold in that time, how many faces will they see? How many generations will have the chance to climb their supports, and swing from their ropes? How many sunsets and sunrises will be seen from their highest windows. How many children will be conceived in their hay lofts? As Americans we have a tendency to forget the past and only look to the future, but the past is often worth looking at, because it holds the keys to the future. There was a reason that our great grandparents built those buildings to last. Perhaps we will understand before it is too late and the last timberframe falls into a vine covered heap. Perhaps...

To be continued....