Racing In The Street

I've always been a music fan and I've always loved playing music. In my life, I've had the ability to listen to music in almost every format devised: on the radio hidden under my pillow at night; old 78's from my parents; 45's I saved up my paper route money to buy; bulky 8-track casssetes that inevitably split my favorite songs between various sections; over 400 LP's that still sit on shelves in my basement; the homemade mix cassette tapes that in college had to be made for any new romantic attraction or keg party; CD's--the format I resisted until no one released LP's anymore; and now I mostly listen to the over 5,000 tunes I've ripped into MP-3 files from my CD collection (and the collections of friends and the library!)

I think the only two formats that I didn't buy into were reel-to-reel tapes and Sony's mini-disc. My cousins had the reel-to reels and I was impressed by the amount of music they held, but my parents would never have allowed me to spend that much on a tape player. Sony's ill-fated attempt to create a digital tape to replace CD's in much the same way cassetes improved on LP's is why Sony, the original innovator in personal music devices and CD's, is nowhere to be seen during Apple's run with iTunes and the iPod.

I, of course, have also invested in the newest technology to play all these formats: transistor radios that always ended up smashed to bits; lo-fi record players with the turntable arm that allowed you to play several records in a row (or just one side over and over again--my mom's nightmare); a summer wasted on an inherited 8 track player with "quadrophonic" sound (I never understood that one as I I don't have four ears); My deluxe component stereo system, an entire summer job's wages invested in a receiver/cassette player and turntable set-up from the long-lost Gordon Electronics on Erie Boulevard. This system sits in my basement, still working. It's volume and tenacity has pissed off my parents, several college and post-grad roommates and now my wife. I have owned several Walkman tape players that went from Soviet TV-sized to streamlined, and added an expensive 5-disc CD player to my stereo, as well as the inevitable Discman.

I went through this breakdown of my music listening history for one reason. I still can't believe that a player the size of a credit card can put over 3,000 tunes in my shirt pocket. I've always been an Apple computer person so I was hipped to the iPod and the iTunes software application early on--I'm still amazed at how much damn use I get out of the iPod. (and I still haven't upgraded to the video iPod. That may happen soon, when the economics of downloading The Daily Show and the Colbert Report start to beat out cable fees.) My feeling may have been influenced by my recent 10 day stay in the hospital--many of which were spent confined to bed. Along with visits and phone calls from family and friends, my iPod kept me sane.

In November of last year, in retaliation for the death of a comrade by an improvised explosive device, a Marine squad murdered 24 innocent people--many were women and children trying to shield their male relatives from gunfire. Remember the town, Haditha. It looks like this is the case that will finally get the attention of the American public--our "boys" in Iraq are engaged in combat: deadly, mean and often inhuman.

When our military gets bogged down in conflicts with no demonstrable way to win, often fighting insurgents using guerilla tactics, we face this fact: stressed out soldiers take out their frustrations on innocent non-combatants in murderous and vile ways.

This Memorial Day, say a prayer for the innocents of Haditha slaughtered by American soldiers in a barbaric afternoon of hatred and blood lust. Our military is put in a no win situation: a war they can't win, a foe that can't really identify and stress and depression from the loss of comrades. Haditha is probably only the tip of the iceberg.

Haditha makes it impossible for me to pretend that Memorial Day is anything but hypocritical. The draft dodgers and other chicken hawks in power place our troops into the kind of moral morasse in which there are no winners--just dead innocents and newly minted murderers.

Remember Haditha when you sanction the use of your tax dollars for use by our military. This mission was allegedly undertaken to free a country from dictatorship and establish democracy throughout the region.

We’ve been subjected to breathless pro and con commentary on the expansion of the Carousel Mall for several years. The Syracuse Newspapers has editorialized and endorsed solely on how to promote this development. The broadcast media put together a working group and a commercial touting the benefits of the development. Bob Congel, head of Pyramid Development, has put forth his own multi-media push, combining scare ads featuring Osama Bin Laden, North Korean-style brainwashed cheerleaders in Destiny jackets applauding Dear Leader at public events, piles of steel girders outside the site, political lobbying, contributions and his own public threats to cancel the project.

The entire catalyst for this project is Pyramid’s desire to avoid paying property taxes. After exhausting their original 15 year agreement for exemption from property taxes, Pyramid convinced the County and city into exempting the mall for an additional 30 years of taxes, as well as to have the city bond for public improvments to the mall area--in return for unspecified expansions to the mall that have at times included an aquarium, an indoor version of the Erie Canal, golf courses, hotels, ski slopes: an amazing experience that would become anywhere from the first to the fourth largest shopping mall in the world and attract people from all over the Northeast to our town. To qualify for this deal Pyramid Development had to prove it had financing in place to expand the mall by 800,000 ft. of retail shopping space.

When the Driscoll Administration attempted to put some meat on the bones of this proposal, a court ruled that the terms of the original deal had been met (despite the fact that a very large piece of Pyramid’s financing was bonding by the quasi-governmental Syracuse Industrial Development Agency). The much-touted “new” agreement supposedly guarantees two more stages of development past the expansion of retail space. In addition, the city and county agreed to extend their agreement on percentages of expected sales tax revenues to the year 2022, while Pyramid will frontload some of the expected sales tax revenue to give the city some dough to balance its budget and pay for the increased public services it will have to provide to the mall area.

Phew. I’m glad that’s settled.

However, it’s a sad day for our region. In the modern version of the United State’s service and information economy, Syracuse has chosen to become the fast-food worker. Welcome to Syracuse! Would you like some fries with your Happy Meal? We have wasted thousands of hours and millions of dollars to develop a slick, soulless cathedral to consumption. The jobs it produces will be minimum wage and low skill, making it impossible for workers to buy a house or pay for a college education. Workers better hope the mall is big enough that they can get two or three of these McJobs.

What are the ripple effects to our community? A very threat is the collapse of small businesses and neighborhoods bypassed by the DestiNY hordes. Since there are no concrete plans, we have no idea what the place will look like. My hope is actually perverse. Just build the new retail space. If there are no new hotels, restaurants and other entertainment attractions, people will be forced to leave the mall. If everything is under one roof, sayanara Armory Square, Little Italy et. al. Syracuse will become like Atlantic City, a huge complex surrounded by a ghost town of vacant properties and parking lots.

Instead of spending this kind of effort on the types of industries that have potential in our area--health care, environmental protection and software engineering--we settle for the industry with the least benefit to our area. Walt Shepperd of the Syracuse New Times many years ago came up with the perfect question about our region’s economy, one we have ignored at our own peril: “Can we all survive by selling each other cheeseburgers?”

On the Listen Up blog from the Post Standard's Mark Bialczak is this iten about cover songs.

Ever go see a band in a bar? Ever hear them play an insipid cover of a song that sucked when the original band did it years ago? Should bands be barred from playing songs like “Celebration” by Kool & The Gang? Most purist rock fans I know would rather go to the opera than listen to a cover band. Then there are the drunk bar patrons who ONLY want to hear what they already know, as if the band were just a fancy jukebox.

Here’s a perfect lament on the strain on bands to play to the least common denominator bar patron by John Eddie, called “Play Some Skynyrd”:

“Here’s a song about my daddy/here’s a song about my past
Here’s a part where I open up my heart/Here’s a line where I tear off my mask
Then a voice in the back stops me in my tracks/brings me crashing back when they say

Play some Skynyrd, play some Petty, play some Seger, play some Dead
Who the hell is John Eddie?/That’s what the redneck said
If you want to stick around/you’ve got to play some Skynyrd.”

I’ve never been like my music police friends--while any band worth seeing plays mostly originals, I think a couple of well-chosen covers might give an insight into the band’s influences or even give them a chance to stretch their playing by tackling something radically different from their style.

Hence, my favorite covers:

1) Summertime Blues--The Who originally by Eddie Cochran

2) Oye Como Va--Santana originally by Tito Puente

3) Black Magic Woman--Santana originally by Fleetwood Mac

4) Take Me To The River--Talking Heads originally by Al Green

5) Hurt--Johnny Cash originally by Nine Inch Nails

6) Trapped--Bruce Springsteen originally by Jimmy Cliff

7) Knowing Me, Knowing You--Marshall Crenshaw originally by Abba

8) The Man Who Sold The World--Nirvana originally by David Bowie

9) Little Wing--Stevie Ray Vaughan originally by Jimi Hendrix

10) Respect--Aretha Franklin originally by Otis Redding

In a
recent speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Hillary Clinton got all cranky and whaled on "kids these days." According to N.Y.'s junior senator, kids don't appreciate the value of hard work and that modern technology like iPods, cable TV and the internet have created a kids with a need for instant gratification.

Well, I'm not a kid anymore, but these kind of blasts continue to piss me off. Please shoot me if I ever become the kind of middle-age person that makes gross generalizations about entire generations.

In response, 5 reasons my iPod is more valuable to me than my very junior U.S. Senator from NY State:

5) My iPod didn't singlehandedly screw our nation's chances at universal health insurance.

4) My iPod's only job is to serve me, it's not using me as a springboard to becoming a Tivo.

3) My iPod didn't tell me years ago that "it takes a village to raise a child" only to complain now that the village raised a bunch of spoiled brats.

2) My iPod treats me like an adult, playing anything I load. My iPod doesn't lecture me about morals and decency.

1) My iPod didn't vote in favor of the War In Iraq

I've just returned home after spending 10 days in the hospital fighting a pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis, a rather large blood clot in my lungs and two smaller clots in my legs. There were symptoms that I had downplayed for weeks: pain in my legs, reduced ability to catch my breath, cough, fever. I have increased risk factors: weight, circulation issues, family history. I went on a long car trip to Arizona in November--four days each way with little time to stretch my legs.

I'm lucky to still be around. I did not pay attention to my symptoms. Two weeks ago I thought I had bronchitis, so I got some antibiotics and then went to Washington, D.C. for a grassroots conference featuring more car travel and running around at several protests.


From the Web MD site hyperlinked above:
"Unexpected death from a massive PE is second only to the sudden cardiac death. Approximately 10% of patients who develop PE die within the first hour, and 30% die subsequently from recurrent embolism. The diagnosis of PE is missed in approximately 400,000 patients in the United States per year, approximately 100,000 deaths could be prevented with proper diagnosis and treatment."


I'm not out of the woods yet, I'm facing months (if not years) of blood-thinner medicine, regular blood tests, complete vetting of all new foods and medicines for compatiblity with my blood thinners, a none-too-soon diet and excercise regimen. However, I do have many people to thank:

1) My wife. She forced me to take my symptoms seriously and was there by my side for this entire ordeal.

2) The on-call doctor at CNY Family Care who sent me for a CAT scan.

3) The doctors, nurses, assistants, tech staff, orderlies--every person I ran across--at St. Josephs. They work incredibly hard, long hours full of stress and unpleasant situations. Not once did I ever see anyone be anything but professional and compassionate to their patients (even the phlebotomists who had to take blood samples from me at 3 A.M.)

4) My family and friends who visited and called--keeping my spirits up.

I will be unable to thank the one person who helped me the most. My sister Elizabeth died from an undiagnosed pulmonary embolism two years ago, she was only 36 years old. I was 10 years older than my sister, my only sibling. I was the protective older brother, and as such I always knew better and never failed to let her know my thoughts on all subjects far and wide. To her credit, she still loved me. Our last conversation was about my health and her concern about the combination of my weight and circulation problems. Blood tests will determine if I have a genetic predisposition to forming blood clots. I already know one genetic fact. Even after her death, my sister's love and concern reached out and saved her hard-headed brother's life.

This weekend, the community group I work for attended the 35th annual National People's Action conference in Washington, D.C. The N.P.A. conference brings together grassroots neighborhood activists from across the country. The issues we collectively work on are as diverse as the conference attendees--predatory financial loans, increased school funding, lack of adequate health care, affordable housing, fighting the expansion of factory farms, immigrant rights and utility costs. The N.P.A. family is black, white, latin@ & asian. We are young, middle age and old. We are rural and urban. We are male and female, gay and straight. We live in neighborhoods whose only real wealth lies in the strength, perseverence and courage of its residents.

For 35 years, N.P.A. has fought for justice--and have celebrated numerous victories. Most importantly, N.P.A. is responsible for the creation of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a law that requires banks receiving government insurance for their deposits make loans in all the neighborhoods they serve. This law, and its companion Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), has resulted in over $1 trillion worth of mortgage loans in underserved neighborhoods since its passage in 1975.

The N.P.A. conference is an experience. Neighborhood leaders are able to get together informally with other activists to share information on organizing strategy. Workshops are also held by neighborhood leaders to publicize work they have done on an issue or to perhaps negotiate agreements with government and business officials on policy changes beneficial to low income neighborhoods. This year saw the Mortgage Bankers Association agree to work with N.P.A. groups fighting predatory lenders, modern day loan sharks out to steal the equity built up in our homes.

However, there are always government and business officials that refuse to talk with us--either at our conference or in a separate private meeting. These slights are not taken lightly. Hundreds of neighborhood folks jump on yellow school buses and go to the officials' homes in swanky D.C. area neighborhoods on the Sunday afternoon of the conference. This year, the headline in the Washington Post read: 'Protesters Swarm HHS Chief's Home.' The Chief referred to in the headline is Michael Leavitt, the cabinet Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

If the folks who want to ignore us do not get the message on Sunday afternoon, we go to their place of employment on Monday morning. This year, hundreds of N.P.A. activists ran up nine floors of a D.C. office building to demand that the American Petroleum Institute (A.P.I.) meet with us. A.P.I., the lobbying arm of Big Oil, refused to come to the N.P.A. conference to discuss the high costs of heating oil and natural gas, as well as the pitifully small contributions by big oil companies to weatherization programs in low income communities. After an hour of chanting, whistles and tense negotiations, a meeting was agreed to and will be held within the next 30 days.

The concert in Saratoga, NY by Bruce Springsteen and his now 20 piece folk band, on tour in suport of their new album "We Shall Overcome", has been moved to Monday June 19th at 8 P.M.

Oh, that scream you heard at about 10 A.M. this morning was when I found out that I scored two tickets inside the amphitheatre!

Many thanks to my high-tech ticket agents Kelly & Chris--who helped me negotiate the whims of Ticketbastard!