stirrings

I need to take this in a new direction if I want to keep it alive since I don't think the details of my life have enough energy to keep a daily writing regimen fueled. Either that or I don't have the motivation to milk the juice out of my daily life to fuel it. Tonight is one of those weird nights where I'm seized by a bigger idea or wider purpose and I feel compelled to capture it.

I definitely can't sleep. That's partly because I slept until almost 2:00 pm today. Currently in Maine with my grandparents and it's been unusually uneventful considering how jam-packed with activities weeks with my grandparents usually are up here. Went to trivia at a bar with Andrew and got second place, small place with a hodge-podge of working class looking guys and upper class older folk. Regardless, I can't stop thinking about this idea.

Next year is going to mark my return to Ann Arbor regardless of my acceptance at the University of Michigan, although I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for that. I decided that I don't want to go to State because that would be a compromise. I never wanted to go to State in the first place, and I don't want to be a martyr just because I have a bad financial situation. So, if I work like a slave and go to WCC next year so be it, I will be in and around Ann Arbor most of the time.

Ann Arbor is a young town that is really alive with energy, political energy in a way that few towns are in America right now. In the 60s, San Fransisco was a cultural hub but I sense that Ann Arbor might be a new one for this generation. Everything is becoming more and more liberal, there's a store that sells hallucinogenic drugs (albeit legal ones), and streetside protests aren't a thing of the past. If ever there was a subcultural hippie renaissance, it would be in Ann Arbor.

In the context of this cultural frame of mind, I was listening to music and thinking about how important it was in the 60s, as well as how important it was to me. Jake and I's ex-step brother Eric broke his iPod and it was like his life had ended. Some might call that materialism, but they miss the point- Eric needs the music, not the device. I could completely relate. Then I began thinking about what music means today, in this generation.

In the 60s Rolling Stone was started, one of the most influential magazines ever. I have a subscription today, and when I started reading it I was mostly just fascinated by the language the writers employed, and the wide array of musical recommendations it presented. Recently I've began to read Rolling Stone with a more discerning eye, and I'm extremely disheartened by the direction that the magazine is going.

Rolling Stone still employs writers with an uncanny knack for language and twists of phrase, but Rolling Stone as an entity is a bloated, unfocused and often lazy beast. Few issues are examined or clearly presented for readers. Riding on the receding foam of the political wave the magazine created in it's heyday, its writers and editors hide behind a far-left position without doing any real deconstruction of information for its readers. And they've been fellating Barack Obama's administration with every page not dedicated to music.

On the surface, I'm optimistic about Obama, but Rolling Stone's complete acceptance of his word at face value is thoughtless, at best. The government decides to nationalize banks and pours billions upon billions of tax dollars into the economic machine. Following suit, Rolling Stone brings in an army of liberal economists who make incredibly incendiary claims: "Adam Smith's invisible hand is invisible simply because it isn't there."

That's an extremely powerful statement. Rather than explore the implications of it, the writers mention that the economist in question won a Nobel Prize and neatly wrap the subject up. The opinion is handed to the readers on a silver platter. This kind of political discourse is completely killing real ideas and discussions, and keeps herding mindless American citizens into their partisan pens. I, for one, would like to see some evidence to back up some of these claims.

Everyday I become more and more of a conspiracy theorist. Obama is young, charismatic, and intelligent. He's relatable and he's a shrewd politician, but he's still a politician. McCain and Obama are both in government, and both made sacrifices to get where they got. Obama got farther, so chances are he made even more.

People forget about Obama's complete lack of effort to crank back government phone-tapping legislation. More examples are out there but the point is this: Obama is no longer a man, he is part of a political machine. This machine has trappings and machinations that existed before Obama, which he has inherited. Obama now serves hundreds of men behind a curtain, and many of these men are wealthy.

The more I turn the thought over in my mind, the more the need for a real cultural watchdog seems to arise. Somebody with drive needs to take to the streets, find kids who are disillusioned and interested in music, culture, and the world that they stand to inherit one day. Start spreading the word to the people again, go back to old forms of true patriotism.

Young generations aren't supposed to file silently into the future, placidly accepting government growth and privacy invasion that would make George Orwell turn over in his grave. We should be resisting the PATRIOT Act with every bone in our bodies. We should be profoundly disturbed by the notion that the government thinks that implanting microchips in people's arms to keep track of them at all times is a good idea.

Images keep flashing through my mind of a few kids in a cheap car, blasting loud music through the intersections in Ann Arbor, throwing handfuls of purple fliers out the windows. Passersby stop with interest and read the leaflets being dropped. They announce that a new publication will be taking sharp interest in music and politics again, a serious look at the forces behind our world that are shaping it outside of our control.

Nothing has changed since the 1960s except that the youth is better equipped than ever to spread their points of view and implement change. What has changed is that we are numb and indifferent to the world, and that is something that has to change from within. All it takes is one spark to start a fire, and more and more I sense that this spark might be on the horizon. Since nobody else is taking the step forward, more and more I wonder if I should try to ignite something myself.