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A Dose of the Real World
In a little over a week, there will be elections in the United States. Right now, the most attention related to those elections is on a media argument between a talk radio personality and a movie star.
Meanwhile, in Oaxaca, Mexico, striking teachers and other workers are fighting paramilitary and Federal forces in a street-to-street conflict. The officials have rifles, armored vehicles, and water cannons. The teachers have slingshots, rocks, and whatever they can get their hands on. The struggle has been going on for months. I don’t remember Katie Couric mentioning it, but it’s going on all the same.
On Friday, as he documented the clashes, William Bradley Roland, aka Brad Will, a journalist with IndyMedia, was shot and killed by a plainclothes paramilitary mercenary. He died en route to a Red Cross station. He was one of four killed that day.
The last video footage he captured is available to watch. It begins with several interviews, includes several minutes of the conflict, and ends with Brad Will shot in the chest. It’s not graphic at all, but it is disturbing. I watched it this morning. You should, too.
Why?
Because it’s important to remember that the events you see on your evening news are remote, but not removed, from your life. Because it’s important to recognize that journalists are dying to document the conflicts and struggles taking place all over the world.
Watch it, and be reminded that the freedoms we enjoy in the United States are exceptional, and rare. Watch it with the knowledge that our own freedoms will not be sustained without our awareness, and our vigilance. Watch it, and ask yourself how far away is fighting in the streets of our cities, as the Bush Administration sanctions torture and martial law.
Watch it because you won’t see it on the evening news. You may have never seen raw reporting like this, and you should.
Finally… watch it out of respect for a man who died following his convictions. Watch it in tribute to all journalists.
There are several ways to get the video on this page.
It’s also available on Google Video.
The Village Voice has coverage.
Forty Nine Days Worth of Music
To be precise, forty eight days, 16 hours, 48 minutes.
That’s 18,222 songs from some 3,291 albums. 65.2 gigabytes. It’s my CD collection, plus some MP3s from various online labels, bands, and artists.
It’s all on a USB hard drive now, and my CDs are in seven boxes (with some overflow) ready to be stored in the garage. I started this project in August, and finished yesterday.
Holy wow, that’s a lot of music. On the other hand, it’s only a month and a half. Of non-stop listening. And thanks to nifty things like Hamachi, I can listen to anything in my collection wherever there’s a broadband connection!
I still have a CD binder full of classical discs to burn, but the bulk of my collection is done. Wow..!
(better make a backup…)
Help Matt Selznick Spread The DIY Message: Buy A Shirt!
In just under a month, Matt Selznick will attend Podcamp West, a conference and workshop in San Francisco. Matt will be there with fellow Podcast Guild founding member Paul Puri to talk about that organization, and to speak on how the DIY Ethic can and should inform the medium of podcasting.
You can proclaim your own dedication to DIY, independent creative endeavors and help offset the travel and lodging expenses of this last conference of the year — buy one of the new shirts from MWS Media and Printfection.com:
Also available in women’s long-sleeved, ringer tee, and “plain white” tee.
The font for this design is derived from Matt Selznick’s own printing. The back features “mwsmedia.com” across the shoulders. It probably goes without saying, but you will look so cool wearing this shirt!
Plus, $9.00 from every sale — the entire profit — will go toward expenses for the Podcamp West trip. 33 shirts = hotel bill. 20 shirts = car rental and fuel. Look cool, help Matt… how can you go wrong?
Visit Matt Selznick Stuff at Printfection.com right now!
Engage transparent infomediaries
This gave me the biggest laugh I’ve had all week (I know, it’s only Wednesday.)
Children’s Day
Words: 10-11-1991
Music: 10-11-1991
What’s It All About?
This song is a scavenger hunt… a treasure map… of those years in my life in the late eighties that were full of music, parties, women, and transition.
I invite folks who were around Southern California in the mid- to late-eighties to take a stab at some of the references. Here’s a few of the personal ones:
- “Stickman,” “Dahlia,” “Hole,” and “I Told You” are all songs by the band Children’s Day, from their albums “A Message To Pretty” and “Hooky.” You can still order “Hooky” from Posh Boy, and the CD includes the complete “A Message To Pretty.” Despite being a generation old, their music holds up — a little “eighties goth dark,” perhaps, but still rocking. I hope those guys are still getting royalties after all these years..! I knew the members of the band; we swam in the same little pond, and their music is a soundtrack for a lot of my memories of that period.
- The bridge is pulled directly from my memory… three separate incidents, two different women. I’m saving the details for a book / screenplay… something, someday. Formative moments.
- Psychopathway was my first gigging band. Good times, bad times… again, wait for the book..?
- In early 1991, my bass guitar was stolen out of my truck, and caused a transition to acoustic guitar for a while. Meant I wasn’t in a band, or looking to be in one.
When I wrote this song, so close to the events it quasi-chronicles, I think it was with a sense of melancholy. These days, when I play it — and I still do — I feel a little fire, a little happiness, and more than anything, I feel grateful for that time.
The recording presented here is live, direct to digital, with no effects or post-production.
Lyrics:
Helen smiled and she said
Vodka rushing to her head
“Come one, come all, it’s time to play
This is your very own Children’s Day.”
Stickman, Dahlia, Safari Sam
Dig a hole and make a plan
I told you and I will tell you again
The music, it was different then…
Walking in the dark, wet
The bottle traded like a secret
Trying to escape the din
Whiskey love, Cadillac sin
In the canyon with Typhoid Mary
Coaxing pleasure, acting scary
This is not how I had planned it
You were crying, all hope abandoned…
Waking as if from a dream
Lovers changed as did the scene
We moved forward on a psychopathway
So far from our last
Children’s Day
Now if the bass had not been plundered
Would we still this spell be under
The Children’s Day
Will never tell
Somehow that seems just as well to me
Support Independent Music
The media files on this page are provided for your enjoyment — you can listen, and even download the MP3 files, and not pay a dime. I encourage you to share them with friends, provided no one changes or sells the files, and that you attribute them to me.
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