I may just leave things in this state and keep the current content archived.

Let’s talk sense about this.

1. You can’t just “move to Canada” or Sweden or France or the U.K. or anywhere, really. Unless you’re independently wealthy and/or retired it just doesn’t work that way. You have to go through an immigration process and it’s long and painful. It can easily take years for even an experienced professional with a job offer to get through the thicket of bureaucracy that any well-run country erects for immigrants.

2. You can’t run from Imperial America. Canada is an especially laughable choice here; when we sneeze, they get a cold. The long arm of U.S. power extends to every place in the world, certainly to every place you could stand living. Go up there and watch things get worse here if you want. At some point an apologetic Mountie will arrive to explain that you’re being deported back because of a joint security agreement.
3. Foreign countries, surprisingly, are different. The peculiar luxuries, freedoms, and opportunities of our country will not be present there. Things cost a lot more, the weather is different, and the justice system may shock you. If you’re not already an experienced traveler who enjoys surprises and strangeness, it’s entirely possible you’ll hate everywhere but home.
4. Cowardice is not rewarded, either in respect or in results. Stay and fight for what you believe. Whether you are a libertarian who despises Ashcroft’s new police state, a liberal who rejects warmongering and theocracy, or a core leftist despairing at corporate America, there is work to be done here. Defeatism is a self-fulfilling apocalypse.

In sum, don’t leave unless you have another good reason to do so and a plan for achieving it. The wealth and privilege and freedoms you have as your birthright carry with them the obligation to serve your country in its time of need. Be a citizen first for a change. If you leave here, your new home will demand no less of you.

The experiment was a success. The boy went to a prestigious college, where he was a star player. He then proceeded to the National Football League, headed for a glorious career.

Then, of course, the entire project collapsed. Drug addiction with its attendant legal and publicity problems arrived, and the NFL career blew up. The kid went through rehab and came back, and relapsed. And relapsed. And relapsed again. And left sports. He tried to be a rock ‘n’ roll singer at one point, and made a stab here and there at being famous for a living.

A couple of weeks ago, at the age of 35, he was once again busted for speed and syringes and is currently doing 90 days in the local county lockup.

I hear through the grapevine that his father is trying again, with another baby, by a new and improved mother. On his sports training company’s website there is no mention of his son.

I think I can safely say there’s something to annoy everyone on this one. The list includes:

1. Flyboys: Theme Song (surf punk at its simplest and most raw)
2. Chuck D./Herb Alpert: By the Time I Get to Arizona. Gunderphonic mashup of “Whipped Cream” and Public Enemy.
3. Ferdinand: Guarantees. Great song by now-extinct band that were friends of mine, but also good. They put this song on the album at least partly because I yelled at them to do so.
4. Hervé Villechaize: Why Do We Hurt Each Other So. The pervotated mini-weirdo from Fantasy Island sings a charming song about togetherness, backed by a childrens choir. May cause seizures.
5. Neko Case: Thrice All American. One of at least two songs about Tacoma by my favorite singer. Ms. Case puts more confessional emotion in each note than anyone alive.

6. Snoop Dogg: Dogg Food ‘n’ Drank. From D.J. Drank’s Greatest Hits, a samizdat collection of banned St. Ides commercials starring the best of West Coast 90s rap.
7. Spoon: Don’t Let it Get You Down. There are a thousand Beatles-ish indie pop bands with great hooks. This is the good one.
8. Talking Heads: Houses in Motion. Live, from The Name of this Band is Talking Heads, which just finally came out on CD. Thank you Rhino and Gary Stewart! A more spare and ethereal sound than the later Stop Making Sense live record.
9. Eagles of Death Metal: Miss Alissa. Don’t let the name fool you. They’re pure glam, somewhere between Prince and the Sweet. Every tube-topped girlfriend on her boyfriend’s shoulder at the show will love it, and so do I.
10. Tomahawk: God Hates a Coward. Mike Patton is an evil, evil man. He’s done annoyance rock, circus music, experimental noise, and here we have some heavy-ass metal.
11. Turbonegro: Wipe It Till It Bleeds. Someone called them the Village People of Punk. Someone is right. Also, they’re Norwegian, which may excuse or at least explain their attitude problem.
12. 3 Mustaphas 3: Soba Song. These guys are Englishmen who play East European and Middle Eastern dance music. So, of course, they wrote a country song about Japanese noodles. What is your problem with that?
13. Khaled: Arabian Song. I don’t pretend to know anything about North African pop music, but this guy rules. Melodic, lilting, and poised between pop music and trad folk. So pretty!
14. Death Cab for Cutie: Death of an Interior Decorator. All the little girls like them, but don’t hate them for it. Sophisticated songwriting and very pleasant guitar work. They’re less limp-wristed live, too.
15. Brian Eno: Backwater. Before and After Science is one of Eno’s real rock albums, you know, with songs that you remember on it. You’ll be humming “Backwater” for a while. Plus everyone likes a shipwreck song.
16. Avengers: Paint it, Black. Classic San Francisco Punk. Like Exene to the south, Penelope went back and forth between fat and thin. Unlike Exene, Penelope couldn’t write songs. So I chose the Stones cover for this comp. Now she’s a folksinger, or something.
17. Big Boys: What’s the Word. Like all Texas bands, the Big Boys were larger than life. Like most good punk bands, they were very political. And like just about every good party band, they played funk. And there you have it.

The Internet is in danger of turning into CB Radio at this point, all Vietnamese bandit cabs and truckers with 100 watt footwarmer amps. Bleah!

death_valley_storm, originally uploaded by conradh.

You can’t see the 40 mph wind or the cold. But it was worth it. What a beautiful place.