s! the outlaw torn

ok, i actually woke up this morning and decided that i was finally going to update this blog. however, that has not been motivation enough in the past. but when i also received an invoice for $48 to renew my license on this domain for another year, that just about did it. i will admit it, i contemplated scrapping it all. my interactions with social media are at an all time high even without this blog, and i really do not have the time or intent to keep doing this, especially now that fall is here (football, hockey and soccer seasons).

between my Twitter feed, my Sabres hockey blog, the Sabres & Bills discussion boards, the Everton site, the Rock Access page and the myriad fantasy leagues i’m in, that is just about my threshold of social media interaction.. there’s not much else i have to say beyond that, at least in the public domain.

but.. i did pony up the cash and give this one more shot. next year this time if the blog remains this derelict, it’s done and gone.

having decided to keep the blog, i went through some saved drafts to see what i had on my mind, and came up with an absolute blank – you try to figure out what i was thinking of posting with these titles: Anna Vishnevskaya, the Northwest Passage, concerts & smorgasbords..’

so the survey folks did an interesting one this time, and looked at what shows people are watching, and compared that to which way they voted, and came up with some very interesting stats. now these are just stats, and there may be many different ways of spinning this, but they do seem quite reflective of the situation at hand.

i quote: “viewers who vote Republican and identify themselves as conservative are more likely than Democrats to love the biggest hits on TV”. the piece concludes with “We’ve learned Republicans like winners. The shows might be considered fluffy, but they’re generally programs that make people feel good.” and “We’ve learned Democrats are, depending on your perspective, discriminating viewers who prefer highly original, well-written series or are cynics who enjoy watching jerks.”

i kid you not, the November Rain is kicking in. interesting thing about the song, it was kicking around inside Axl’s head for over ten years before he finally wrote it. there was a lot of good songs kicking around inside that scrambled brain back then. even after the carnage of Appetite For Destruction there was still a lot of good stuff left in him.

the album Use Your Illusion I came into my hands when i hit teenage, and i hit it hard. i was a loner back then. come to think of it i’m still a loner. note, not ‘loaner’.. so keep your hands off my stash. it was angry and rebellious, wanted out and wanted nothing serious, it was heavy and ominous, kept you awake and cutting edge venomous. everything a teenage boy wants to hear. and it was damn good music too.

no matter how badass a kid you were at that age, you felt the presence of girls around you. there was something there you liked. and then there were always those girls, the ones that just made you feel gawky to be near. they would smile at you and you’d be wanting to act all tough and cool. it was really important to be cool, at all times. i wasn’t cool. in my head i thought i was but it wasn’t quite there. a couple of bananas short of the bunch. anyways, Don’t Cry was the cool ballad to be into, cos damn it was gooey but hard rock at the same time.
Give me a whisper.. And give me a sign..
Give me a kiss before you tell me goodbye

then before you know it you’re dating, you’ve no idea what you’re doing, but you’re feeling cool. but you’re so busy feeling misunderstood and so confused feeling damned good and then shit happens.. and you start thinking that’s what growing up means.. Dust N’ Bones
Sometimes these women are so easy.. Sometimes these women are so cold
Sometimes these women seem to rip you right in two.. Only if you let ‘em get to you

as usually happens at that age, forget about the five stages of grief, it’s all one stage.. anger! presenting the aptly named Back Off Bitch
Back off, back off bitch
Down in the gutter dyin’ in the ditch
You better back off, back off bitch
Face of an angel with the love of a witch
Back off, back off bitch

of course, then you discover the previous EP G N’ R Lies and hear You’re Crazy and I Used To Love Her and One In A Million and Nice Boys and Reckless Life and things quickly start spiraling out of control. but that’s a few years down the road still.

you do discover that getting into dad’s liquor cabinet is not that difficult and he doesn’t always keep track of the beers in the fridge. and this? it’s just fun for now, but it’s a Bad Obsession
But I can’t stop thinkin’ ’bout, doin’ it one more time
But I already left you, And you’re better off left behind

another hallmark of that age.. you never have any cash. damned stuff comes and goes and you don’t even realize. the album opened off with Right Next Door To Hell
But times are hard and thrills are cheaper
As your arms get shorter.. Your pockets get deeper

it’s a funny age, that time of teenage. you’re not the person you used to be, and not the person yet that you will be. some kids pull out of the dive, some spiral down deeper and deeper into a Coma
You got a one way ticket, On your last chance ride
Gotta one way ticket, To your suicide
Gotta one way ticket, An there’s no way out alive

It’s Blog Action Day 2010. Today, October 15th, thousands of bloggers from over 125 different countries will come together to write about water issues in their communities and around the world. For those of you who want to dig deeper into the often shocking, disheartening, yet hopeful issues around water, here’s a list of ideas for things to write about below.

The problem of scarce clean water:

Nearly 1 billion people lack access to clean water, which causes a litany of struggles, diseases and even death.

* 40 Billion Hours: African women walk over 40 billion hours each year carrying cisterns weighing up to 18 kilograms to gather water, which is usually still not safe to drink. More Info »
* 38,000 Children a Week: Every week, nearly 38,000 children under the age of 5 die from unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions. More Info »
* Wars Over Water: Many scholars attribute the conflict in Darfur at least in part to lack of access to water. A report commissioned by the UN found that in the 21st century, water scarcity will become one of the leading causes of conflict in Africa. More Info »
* A Human Right: In July, to address the water crisis, the United Nations declared access to clean water and sanitation a human right over. But we are far from implementing solutions to secure basic access to safe drinking water.

Water over-consumption in industrialized countries:

While the developing world faces a water crisis, those in industrialized countries consume far more than their fair share.

* Food Footprint: It takes 24 liters of water to produce one hamburger. That means it would take over 19.9 billion liters of water to make just one hamburger for every person in Europe. More Info »
* Technology Footprint: The shiny new iPhone in your pocket requires half a liter of water to charge. That may not seem like much, but with over 80 million active iPhones in the world, that’s 40 million liters to charge those alone. More Info »
* Fashion Footprint: That cotton t-shirt you’re wearing right now took 1,514 liters of water to produce, and your jeans required an extra 6,813 liters. More Info »
* Bottled Water Footprint: The US, Mexico and China lead the world in bottled water consumption, with people in the US drinking an average of 200 bottles of water per person each year. Over 17 million barrels of oil are needed to manufacture those water bottles, 86 percent of which will never be recycled. More Info »

Water and the environment:

The disregard for water resources in industrialized countries impacts more than humans – it causes environmental devastation.

* Waste Overflow: Every day, 2 million tons of human waste are disposed of in water sources. This not only negatively impacts the environment but also harms the health of surrounding communities. More Info »
* Polluted Oceans: Death and disease caused by polluted coastal waters costs the global economy $12.8 billion a year. More Info »
* Uninhabitable Rivers: Today, 40% of America’s rivers and 46% of America’s lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life. More Info »

Water solutions:

The good news is that there are great organizations working on solutions and new tools that empower people to do their part to address the water crisis.

* Building Wells: Organizations like Water.org and charity: water are leading the charge in bringing fresh water to communities in the developing world.
* Technology for Good: Do you want to measure how much water it took to make your favorite foods? There’s an app for that. More Info »
* Conservation Starts at Home: The average person uses 465 liters of water per day. Find out how much you use and challenge your readers to do that same. More Info »
* Keeping Rivers Clean: We can all take small steps to help keep pollution out of our rivers and streams, like correctly disposing of household wastes. More Info »
* Drop the Bottle: Communities around the world are taking steps to reduce water bottle waste by eliminating bottled water.More Info »

Today is going to be a truly inspiring day of action, as bloggers from around the world will join the global conversation about an issue that rarely gets the attention it deserves. We are very excited that you’ll be joining us and can’t wait to read your blog posts.

Thank you for all that you do!

Blog Action Day 2010 is going to raise awareness about water throughout the world. If you haven’t heard what this is all about, then click on the link and sign your blog up to join in!

the way Alice in Chains have been tearing up and down all over the world promoting Black Gives Way To Blue they’re probably going to go on a  pretty long hiatus after this tour, all the more reason to go catch them while they’re on the BlackDiamondSkye tour, with unlikely stagemates Deftones and Mastodon. Wednesday is going to be my fourth time watching them live, and strangely enough first time it’s going go to be in an arena. every time i’ve seen them it’s been a different experience, and this should follow along the same vein.

at Lupo’s in Providence it was an aging converted club with cavernous acoustics and on that fateful Halloween night, they played an amazing extended set that never seemed to end, and fates were dealt and relationships were sealed that night.

the next time was a throwback to the days when bands played iconic dive bars like the Roxy and Whiskey A Go-Go on Sunset Strip, this time it was in Boston at the Paradise Rock Club (fondly known as the ‘Dise) with an intimate yet screaming loud set previewing the new songs coming out soon – 600 raving fans, tiny room where the stage took half the space, close enough to the band to touch the setlist taped to the stage.. one of the most incredible nights of my life, especially getting to talk to the band after the show, memories that hang on the wall now..

then they were back earlier in the year, playing at the venerable yet rundown Orpheum in Boston again.. this was a crazy show because all the yuppies snapped up tickets and there was no sign at the door that said Idiots Stay Out, so alas the idiots were allowed in and throughout the show they talked to each other and texted each other and basically behaved like they were at any damn frat party and not a live gig by one of the better bands to have ever plumbed the depths of grunge. it was a great show nonetheless, got a good feeling for what the new material was going to be, and it’s pretty freakin’ good i’ll say, with ‘Acid Bubble’ being the latest single off that album, check out the interactive video!

and here we are again, in just about 24 hours, AiC rolls around again, and fondly we’ll remember Layne Staley and pay tribute to the man and his music, the virtuoso and his voice, the tortured soul and his haunted words.. RIP Layne.

my oh my, can it be.. i don’t believe my eyes.. it’s another post. yes, another post! not only do we get a second post in one month, it’s actually two posts in less than a week. must be a sign of that Armageddon they keep talking about in 2012.

so the latest avatar of this blog has a different look to it. none of the fire and flames and all of that. we’re giving a nod to the clear process of thought and the ice-cold way in a thought travels from conception in the depths of your brain to innovation by your nerve endings in your fingertips.

the reason why i’m fiddling with this blog is mainly academic since the course this semester in the never-ending Project Management degree is ‘Innovative Marketing Techniques’, and as everyone knows right now the internet is the be-all and end-all of all things innovative, supposedly. no i’m not selling this blog. nor am i going to use it as some sort of twisted proxy in a future straight-to-DVD remake of The Outlaw of Torn.

what i am doing though is developing a site for a local business called The Wholesome Cafe, that’s doing all the right things and going to go all the right places. since that development is also on WordPress, naturally then that The Awesome Blog’ becomes fodder for all these thought processes.

SEO? search engine optimization. more to follow, or not.

i’ll start off by being honest. way back when MTV changed the world of music, i was just into my teens. quick aside – so i hear now there’s an age called ‘tweens’. tweens? tweens?! what in fucking hell is a tween? i don’t know about kids nowadays. me? i was a baby, then i started walking.. then i was running after a soccer ball and falling out of trees.. and then suddenly there was class and there was the hating of girls, and then chasing after the same girls and then hating the same goddamned girls. and then suddenly there was lots of pressure cos you were a teen then you weren’t a teen anymore because you had to be an adult and then you discovered drinking and antagonized authority, you deified drugs and accepted apathy so that you didn’t have to be an adult, and there was still those goddamned girls.

ok, so i guess kids today are probably just like the kids we were, only that i feel that the human race today always looks for validation. this ever-present need to be accepted. so first they slap a name on it – ‘tween’, and then build a whole bloody marketing plan around it.. guess what, corporate america wins. the Man sticks it to you once again. your age group has a name now, you will be so much better understood and accepted for what you really are. NOT! oh yes, and China wins, not corporate america, because we are so deeply steeped in debt that China literally stitches the very fabric that this economy is supposedly made of.

sorry for the not-so-quick aside – i was talking about MTV. i lived in Nairobi. we had two channels on TV in the early 90s. the national one, and this other newly started one that you needed to buy a different tv aerial for. we couldn’t afford that shit. so i basically had one channel. the wrong one. but i had friends who would tape hours and hours of MTV for me which i would then watch. i was so deprived of contemporary western music of any form that Wilson Philips was kinda easy on the eyes and not that hard on the ears, and Rico Suave was mucho marveloso, and not such a pendejo.

i thought RHCP was an amazing band, and REM were what life is all about, but amongst all that chatter gathered from listening to BBC shortwave and what the MTV VJs talked about in semi-hushed asides to each other was some rumble about thrash metal. my ears pricked up at the mention of these words and my mind scrambled to piece together nuggets of information. and names of bands started popping up now and again. Metallica. Guns N’ Roses. and then there was some other, supposedly more extreme yet quirky and odd genre with hordes of dissatisfied kids who dared to raise their voices against The Man. grunge, they called it. Nirvana. Alice in Chains. Pearl Jam. Sound Garden. wow. so i looked harder. watched more MTV tapes. listened to more music shows on BBC. then i started hearing snippets of the music. the singsong chorus from ‘Lithium’. the fromdeepinside roar from ‘Dam That River’. the reallife story from ‘Jeremy’. fakepersecuteddeity story from ‘Jesus Christ Pose’. this was it. i had been waiting for this all my life.

anyways, i don’t listen to contemporary music any more. there’s too much of it. i don’t have the time to go through it and sift and find the good shit amongst all the bull shit. so i listen to most of the older bands that i was into, wait for their newer stuff, and as far as new bands go.. hey, if there’s some really good ones i have my ear to the ground, i’ll hear them coming up. so i don’t really watch music tv either, because that has a high concentration of the aforementioned bull shit.

but i did hear the other day that it’s MTV’s Video Music Awards time again. and that rang a bell, because 19 years ago Nirvana changed the world of rock which was sliding into a mind-numbingly putrid oblivion. yes, 19 years ago you saw the video for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, and you said to yourself, this.. this is the anthem to my life. this took all what i heard about grunge and brought it out into the open. this was the grail itself, and it was out there!

and now that eureka moment, sharply belying its distinctive name, gravely defying its iconic video, is turning nineteen itself. soon the song itself won’t contain any teen spirit within itself anymore. it already plays on VH1 Classics for chrissake!! whether or not the song will save another generation from teenage apathy we don’t know, but if this song changed your life as much as it did mine, here it is two more times, director’s cut and final version, edited by Kurt Cobain himself.

holy crap! we did an interview with the awesome one, and suddenly two months are gone, and yet no posts are forthcoming. shame, because lots happened in the two months and yet, nothing. in no particular order..

• Spain finally held their nerve and won a World Cup.
• BP finally put a fucking cap on the gusher. No one knows if they’ve finally gotten to the bottom of this.
• The Outlaw Torn finally got hitched.
• Summer finally came, with a heatwave and a vengeance. Who knew the Northeast could hit the 100s.
• The Buffalo Sabres finally got to the playoffs again, and got KO’ed by a mediocre Boston outfit.

had one fantastic annual trip down to NOLA with family and friends in tow, and then was in DC for July 4th weekend which was awesome too. can i complain bitterly why there are no more Nando’s in the country apart from in DC?? it is good to see the South African giant make inroads here, and if they keep making their amazing chicken and sauces (and unlimited fro-yo!) they will definitely be an unmitigated hit!

have been on an astronomy trip since watching the Hubble 3D movie – am ruminating buying a space telescope after seeing how cool Vip’s is. the downside of that skywatching escapade was finding out that mosquitoes will not be dissuaded in the dark by any amount of bugspray and insect-proof sunscreen. if i do get a telescope i will limit myself to what i can see out of the living room window. shame none of the neighbors are ogle-able though. oh well.

finally got both mountain bikes fixed and roadworthy, so we’ve been cycling a lot in the evenings. unfortunately it’s not the best time to be out in the bushes since the bugs are coming in to roost, but if you cycle fast enough you get by. we’re really lucky that the Nashua River Rail Trail begins virtually a stone’s throw away from home. scenic views, peaceful surroundings, no car traffic, all make for idyllic biking.

ok so this blog has seen a shakeup in the last couple of months. dedicated and loyal readers are feeling betrayed and confused about the changes and lack of communication. you have no idea what’s going on, where we’re headed and there’s no one reasonable to talk to. “is this what it feels like to be a young republican under the current GOP leadership?” you wonder aloud..

the hitherto flamboyant author of this blog was recently interviewed in a frank, ‘state-of-the-union’ style pow-wow over a polystyrene foam cup of office cafeteria coffee, the stark reality of the dark steaming brew swirling in the morning chill..

so there you have it, the awesome one is hale, hearty and simmering mad it appears. we await further posts with trepidation.