Something Everyone Today should watch:

He says it all. Spread this around to anyone you think should watch.

Concert at the Co-op

Here's a glimpse of Momo and the Coop's debut of "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap. This third thursday show was a great succcess, other great music from LC students Anna and Kelsey and myself doing my songwriter thing.

Rally Against Prop 8 in PDX

Today was such an inspiring day. I felt like our last class ending with the rants of my fellow classmates tide nicely to the extremely relevant protest/rally happening today. So many LGBT supporters grabbed the loud speaker phone and reminded all of us angry about proposition 8 that there is hope for our future and for the rights of all citizens to be granted. Lots of speakers asked the queer community to COME OUT, so that all of the people we interact with will become potential supporters for the rights of the queer community. Having been in relationships with women, and knowing that I could potentially want to marry a woman someday, I know that I support gay marriage, but I think its important that others recognize this right and do not vote against two committed individuals joining in the bond of marriage.

I liked what a lot of speakers talked about--recognizing the religious communities, the christians and others who DO support gays and gay marriage, rather than spreading a message of hatred from the queer community back to the religious community. we need to support one another and work together. And until full rights are granted to the queer community, we are not standing together as a nation, we are dividing ourselves. I have complete hope, just like I did for Obama becoming president, that our country is turning the corner, that by the time I am 25 gay people will be allowed to get married, but its going to take a lot of work and a lot of educating others. And its going to take me being more open about my own sexuality for the sake of the rights of others... despite how hard that can be, it really IS important. These speakers really motivated me, I have lots of ideas about how to educate and spread the word. I'm excited for being a part of another huge civil rights accomplishment--granting the right to marry to all individuals in the US!

Get Angry.

Angry? What have I got to be angry about? Well… there are a lot of things probably. I’m just not typically an angry person. When I’m upset or hurt I usually cry, I don’t usually get angry, because I understand the other side too much. But there are a lot of things I’m angry about. I’m angry that American society fails to acknowledge the importance of community. Of working together and putting more emphasis on relationships with people. I’m angry that after nine-eleven I sat and listened to George Bush with a broken heart, and heard him say we’re going to start the war on terror, a phrase that doesn’t even make sense grammatically, but that’s not why it angered me. It angered me because that was the first time I had ever felt what it felt like to feel unsafe in America, and it made me never want any other person or family to have to feel that unsafe. I wanted to hear a president that was going to use the time of great difficulty to call people to help one another. Because my freshmen-in-high-school self really wanted to show that I cared. I wanted a message of hope and of love and support. I wanted to hear what I could do to help. Instead I heard a man’s voice telling the world that my country and my American people who were broken and afraid that day, were going to do things I had previously never understood the impact of, and still cannot. I am angry that a year later I sat in my software applications class with a TV on broadcasting live video of the US bombing Baghdad with conservative students cheering, saying “Go USA!” And thinking of what a horrible disconnected people we are, to be able to cheer at the death of innocent families like our own, in a competitive sport-fan-for-America sort of way. Like we were watching football.

I’m angry that when I finally got down to New Orleans, a year after Hurricane Katrina hit, there were still towns without electricity and people without homes. Another opportunity for our president to call on the people to help fellow Americans, resorted in some sorry poorly executed government efforts. Houses provided by FEMA costing the government much more than it would to have fellow American’s helping rebuild homes. And while I was there, cooking with donated food from grocery stores for Americorps members and some of the hurricane victims, I learned of the budget cut for Americorps, and saw half the group that was doing some good work for that part of New Orleans have to leave. Knowing that no budget was being cut for the war on terror. And I was angry.

But when I heard Obama give his acceptance speech, I could feel the energy in the room. We all know our country is in deep shit right now, but with Obama as president we’re all going to have an opportunity to help make it better. We finally elected someone whose heart seems to be about bettering the people of our nation and of the world. Someone who cares about creating peace rather than settling for unnecessary violence, creating trust rather than relying on fear to rule the nation that effects so much of the world. I have hope that in times of need, like right now, our country finally recognizes the importance of working together and relying more on one another than on money and power. This is my hope for the future, and it is a hope I think my President Elect supports. A hope that believes if we each contribute and help one another out, this world will be full of much more happiness and love than depression and hate. It takes a president who believes in his people for those people to act to create a positive change. I have hope that our willingness to act has not been extinguished in the past eight years of bad advice given to us by our former president, but that our motivation has been waiting for the right day to bloom into action, and that day has come.

Taking Music Back--It's happening all around.

In the last two weeks, I discovered how freeing and wonderful it is to try to freestyle, not really worrying about rhyming or anything in particular except just keeping a string of words flowing from your mouth. It works best when you stop thinking completely and just let it roll.

Since Julia and I did this in my living room and then freestyled in front of the class, I've found myself taking out my notebook before I go to bed and doing a free-write/freestyle to just see whats going on in my head, because there's a whole bunch going on there! It was amazing to see Obama win the election and hear his speech. The ending "Yes We Can" part of the speech was like music to my ears. There really is a rhythm we can tap into when we're writing or speaking that just changes everything.

I really enjoyed our readings by Henry Partch and John Cage. Both of these men show that what you are curious about in life is really important, and when you follow it you will discover things the mainstream will never touch because its too "weird" or different... but its so interesting. And I just feel like there are so many curiosities I want to explore in my lifetime. This gives me hope that such a life of exploration is possible. Henry Partch also inspired me to mess around with tuning my guitar in new ways to see how it sounds and not always conforming to the intervals our ears have been trained to accept as correct. There's all kinds of music out there. And I'm starting to hear it every where I go.