Archives for February 2006

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that these snapshots of the music I listened to are among my most popular posts. Here is a look at what I enjoyed this evening.

Grapefruit – Juicy Fruit
Jimmy Buffett
Where Did Our Love Go
The Supremes
Keeping The Faith
Billy Joel
Hey Jude
The Beatles
Molly Malone
Sinéad O’Connor
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
Asking For It
Hole
Celeste Aida (From Aida)
Richard Tucker
Hot Pants
James Brown
What Is And What Should Never Be
Led Zeppelin
Do You Wanna Hold Me?
Bow Wow Wow
Burning Down The House
Talking Heads
Mercy Street
Peter Gabriel
Mack The Knife
Ella Fitzgerald
The Devil Went Down To Georgia
The Charlie Daniels Band
Ball n’ Chain
Big Mama Thornton
Subdivisions
Rush
Galbi
Ofra Haza
London Calling
The Clash
Those Were the Days
The Three Tenors
Suspicious Minds
Elvis Presley

This was originally posted last December but I thought that it fits with the prior post and thought that I’d throw it up again.

Why do I blog. Why do I spend so much time sitting here at the computer staring a monitor that is filled with the fingerprints of tiny people. Why do I surf the net and engage in 21st century voyeurism.

The very simple reason is that I derive a tremendous sense of joy and satisfaction from using words to express my thoughts. I have a great love for the language and I appreciate those people who can use words to construct a mental image. I appreciate their ability and craftmanship and wonder how it is they can take my mind and send it on a journey out of my body and into another world.

For surely it is a bit escapist to sit at the keyboard and scroll down the pages and read about the lives and trials of others. And in a different way I find it comforting. I am part of a community of bloggers, a part of the overall blogosphere and at the same time I am also part of many other groups within the blogosphere.

I am able to reach out and click someone. I can see that there are others who are facing the same challenges I face or have already overcome them. I take strength in their words and I offer my own.

Here at the keyboard I commune with others and speak about my life. I offer my insecurities and my beliefs. I open my mind and try to learn about the world around me. I am always searching and seeking for new things to learn. I am an educational hedonist.

I have many refuges. There are places I seek during times of trouble and uncertainty. There are physical locations that feed and nurture my soul, places in Ojai and the Los Padres National Forest. There are areas around Malibu and beaches in Hawaii.

Around Jerusalem, in the Negev and near Joshua Tree. On top of Yosemite Falls and elsewhere. These are places that I seek because I find them to be relaxing. They help me find myself and reconnect.

The problem, the challenge is that often I cannot get to these places as easily as I can get to the keyboard. So I compromise and sit here where I share my thoughts. I offer my joy and release my pain.

I post and comment and speak, but I rarely read my work again, at least not in its entirety. I refer back to it because I know that it relates to current work, but I tend to post and pretend that it never existed because I am rarely satisfied with it.

But this is too important to ignore and too important to waste time by trying to be something I am not. This is where I show my humanity, my good and my bad, my strengths and my weaknesses.

This is where I blog.

Hell, I don’t know where this is going or what the hell I am going to say. I am just frustrated and going to rattle off at the mouth, er keyboard. Not that it makes a difference. Found out a while ago that some people had discovered this little corner of cyberspace. They know me and were not all that happy with what they read here.

My initial reaction to this was to tell them that if they didn’t like it they could go find a hot poker and see how far they could shove it up their tuchus before it became uncomfortable. In some ways I thought of it as serving a purpose because when they removed it I was confident that they would release whatever had crawled up their ass and died. That had to be a good thing, but some infections run deep.

I never did express my true feelings. They were given a taste, a small sample similar to the little piece of burrito they might provide you with at Costco. It wasn’t easy to restrain myself, to hold back. It is not my nature. I am a bull, a Taurus. I am Ferdinand the Bull. I want to sit underneath the cork tree and relax but people keep poking, prodding and pricking me. And sooner or later my easygoing temperament is going to be replaced by my sending my horns up your ass as I trample you. How many times must I ask you to respect my wishes. Obviously my wishes do not matter so I might as well say it in no uncertain terms.

OTOH, the beauty/ugliness of age is that in theory you mature and I must have because I didn’t say or do anything in particular. And while this might have been the better part of valor it infuriates me. I hate it. I hate having to watch what I say for fear of pissing someone off. I don’t look to offend but I am not in the habit of censoring myself with this kind of formality.

I am tired of this post, on to something else.

Earlier today I engaged in a hit-and-run post in which I asked who was Moshe Rabbeinu’s father. The impetus for this was in part a fragmented memory and in part the impact of having watched a movie with my son.

The two of us watched Prince of Egypt. The film has some issues but I wasn’t going to engage a five-year-old in a discussion of how the filmmakers might have taken some liberties with the movie.

Anyway, we watched a watered down version of the Exodus and it generated some tough questions. As the title of the post suggests one of the questions was in relation to divine punishment. It wasn’t the easiest topic to discuss as it really is quite involved.

There is the question of why people enslave others. That is a pretty serious talk in itself as it incorporates many elements such as prejudice. It actually ties in well with the M.L.K. discussion he and I had last month, but at the same time I try not to throw too many things at him at once.

So there we were with the question of what happened to the Egyptians who were in the Red Sea. He wanted to know what happened to them and why. And for a moment I was unsure of how to respond because I didn’t want to make G-d look bad.

That sounds kind of funny, doesn’t it. The atheists who read this probably got a kick out of that one. But it is true, I do believe and G-d and my personal belief is not a G-d of fire and brimstone.

Part of the question is why kill all of those Egyptians. Why not come up with some other miracle. You can part the Red Sea, surely you can make them go blind for a few minutes or make them take the wrong turn and end up in cleveland. Why kill.

I am not the first person to ask those questions and I have been part of discussions that dealt with that very topic, but they are a little too sophisticated for a five-year-old.

So we meandered around a bit and talked about how some people don’t like others and why it is important to judge people based upon what they do and how they behave. But I can’t say that we came to a conclusion that was satisfactory to me.

But I was rescued from this awkward place as we had to run to a birthday party. I still have to come up with some answers, but I have more time to do it.