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The Ayn Rand School of Parenting and Love-Making

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“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”
— Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist

Only two more blogs on Ayn Rand, I promise, that will be it. I love how Ayn Rand polarizes people. Folks either want to bed me for reading it, or they want to crucify me. I have on friend who reads it every year. Another would burn every copy. And to be honest, no one yet has asked me for coitus because I read Atlas Shrugged. It’s called hyperbole, son. Look into it.

So I had breakfast today with an Ayn Rand hater. He provided me with the quote that started this blog out. Yeah, love that. In some ways, Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged are similar. The men of Numenor were actually free market capitalists, but Sauron, read as Stalin, wanted to kill them. True story. But I think Atlas Shrugged has more in common with comic books than fantasy novels, though Atlas Shrugged has been described as science-fiction in some circles. I can see it. Reardon metal and John Galt’s perpetual motion machine and Martians, lots of Martians.

The universe, according to Ayn Rand, is a lonely, cold place and if you can’t compete, well, sorry. I will trod over your corpses on my way to fame, fortune and love. Do we really want to live in a world of jungle capitalism? The reality is that even if Ayn Rand was embraced by everyone, very few could it. We call them psychopaths. As tribal animals, we care about what happens to people we know. I’ve housed friends and I’ve offered money to friends because we live together in a society.

And you couldn’t raise kids using Ayn Rand’s philosophy. Well, I tried. With my two year old, I would say, “How come you don’t have a job yet? You’re a moocher and a looter. You’re worthless. You can’t compete. I disown you, looter.” Tears would follow. But if you can’t compete, well, you’re a moocher.

I find it’s funny that people are so enamored with Ayn Rand because really, it reads like an anti-communism tract and as we have seen, communism didn’t work out so well. So yeah, capitalism is the way to go, however, capitalism on its own is an ugly thing. The world would look like L.A. for one thing. And another, we saw how unregulated capitalism worked with companies like Enron and others. My friend says John Galt owes the American people 750,000,000,000 dollars. No, we need regulations.

So, yes, Ayn Rand has some interesting things in her work, but in the end, it’s a comic book. And I would hope we wouldn’t govern using a comic book.

On a personal note, as a writer and small businessman, I can’t write alone. I can’t sell and market alone. I need help. Does that make a moocher and a looter? Or does that make me a human being?

Saturday Music Club Reviews Part 3 – BBQ’d Foi Gras and Texas Deep Dubstep

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Le Vent Du Nord – Les Amants Du Saint-Laurent – You know, I’m thinking the world of art has been hit with a post-post modern sensibility in the fact that yes, everything has been done, even in popular art, and so, you can do whatever the hell you want because if it works, you’ll get an audience, and if it doesn’t, well, you’ll be alone in your MySpace account. However, even though you’re alone, you have art that is near to your heart and screw the rest of the world. This song is celtic Canadian homespun and I love it. This is music to listen to while you eat your BBQ’d foi gras and watch hockey. It’s a beauty, eh.

Daniel Lanois – Under a Stormy Sky – Okay, it’s French downhome music. You don’t get an apple pie. You get a tarte tatin. What is that? Google it, bastard, and you’ll see a picture but you won’t get the same culinary wonderment that is French cooking. But I like the mix of French, English, and 50’s guitar and that little bluegrass beat. Is that a steel guitar? Why yes, it is. Sign me up. Love that happy little lilting rift.

Clawfinger – Wonderful World – These guys. This is bliss. That stupid break in the music works for me and it shouldn’t. This song shouldn’t work. But again, they are so ardent. They commit fully. And you know, that’s hard to do because in the world of art, NO ONE BELIVES YOU HAVE ANY TALENT UNTIL YOU ARE POPULAR. And yeah, Clawfinger never hit it big, but I like their passion and their originality. And any song that ironically praises this sad old planet I gotta like.

DJ Fresh – Gold Dust (Flux Pavillion Remix) – Oh, this dubstep makes me believe in God again. And I love the lady singing it out across the top of that deep thud. Oh, it is so delicious. Ryan said he was like a teenager just discovering energy drinks, all amped up and nowhere to go, but he has a place to go, SMC, to spread the deep magic. It’s not dubstep, it’s deepstep. And it’s hard. Like oak, baby. Hard.

Emmylou Harris – Shenendoah – You know, I’m pretty sure Emmylou Harris could cover a Clawfinger song and it would still be amazing and touching and haunting. She is something else. And this song, it’s a classic, though I think the first time I heard it was on the Bruce Springsteen Seger Sessions. Wasn’t this on that record? I reckon so. This could go on the soundtrack of my epic steampunk sci-fi western novel. Yeah, I believe I shall put it on that. Thanks Jeff!

Freestylers – Cracks Flux Pavillion Remix – Love that break, “And the cracks begin to show”. You know the deep dubpstep sound is really electric guitary in a strange, electric guitar type of way. You know what I mean? No, really. They underscore the drama of the music, and I love dramatic music. God bless you, Jim steinman, where ever you are. Would love to hear a Jim Steinman dubstep song. Oh, Meatloaf meets the Freesylters. Oh, yeah, I have to ajust my pants now. Naughty, naughty.

The John Butler Trio – Revolution – You know, I once called the John Butler trio the future of the alt country movement. I said they were popular 16 Horsepower. Yeah, I was wrong. I can be wrong. I will strive to be wrong as often as possible. But I got all excited because their sound was so raw and alty-country-y. But you know, there is something passionless in their music. well, not in every song. Some songs have some fire, but in some of their songs, it’s like Data from Star Trek:The Next Generation when he paints. The music all works. It’s good, but it’s not going to fire me up and make me overthrow my country. Rush flirted with being so cerebral as not to have a soul, but in the end, the music did have passion. I’m not saying the John Butler Trio is bad. I like them. I like them a lot. They are infinitely listenable. Can you say that? Just did. But I will say that in order for them to really hit me, I need more heart and soul. I’ll keep the song, but fellas, I gotta fever, and the only cure? More cowbell. More heart. More Clawfinger!

The New Pornographers – Moves – Bottomline, I’m getting older, and I’m not hip no more. All the young people are using words like FAIL and PAWNED or POWNED or some such nonsense. Or even P*WNED. Goddamn kids not usin’ letter no more. This brings us to the New Pornographers and I gotta say, I like ’em. Very Cold Play-y but not a complete rip-off of U2. Ouch. I’m catty today. Meow, meow. I like the heavy guitar and the pianer and the general feel of the song. It’s new and old. But it exemplifies how I am slowly losing touch. Never even heard of this band and Rolling Stone magazine thinks they are best band ever. Rats.

David Lynch – Pinky’s Dream – I am a big fan of David Lynch. No, really, huge fan. I like his darkness, surrealness, cherry pie and coffeeness. And I liked this song. It’s very David Lynch and very all the things I just said. Even to the singer, some chick with a voice as sweet as splenda in my coffee. Surreal. And I like the feaux drama of the bridge. I don’t buy it. Am I laughing or am I crying? Maybe both. Maybe neither.

David Lynch – The Night Bell with Lightning – David Lynch did an album. This song is just Angelo Badalamante and I’m not even going to look it up. I mean, I like David Lynch and Angelo Badalamante whose name I have mispelled, but it all sounds the same. I already have the LOST HIGHWAY soundtrack. Don’t need another song which didn’t make the cut. Um, I’m liking the trippy guitar thrown in and tip-toeing tentatively through the song. Or gnashing. Or goin’ all Texas. I’m reading the PREACHER comic books, which are brilliant, dark, bleak, violent, heretical, blasphemous, and Texan. Don’t mess with Texas. Nope, the guitar couldn’t save the song for me. It has been deleted. One last thought, and I like this from Becky, “‘The Night Bell With Lightning’ is the sound my shadow makes at high noon.” I think that is so pretty.

Breathe Carolina – Blackout – Dang, some alt rock dubstep from Kize. I think I heard this song on the radio, that good 93.3 radio station that works my soul and heart into a frenzy, frenzy. I like that dub step little tricky riff, or can I use all those words together? It sounds like this: buzzybuzzybuzzbuzz. He’s only gettin’ started. Like the disco-ness of this song. Yeah, man, I’m tellin’ ya. This works for me. Probably my favorite submitted in November. Yeah. I won’t blackout. I promise.

Eating Is Murder

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I grew up weeping at rodeo’s. I cried when King Kong fell off the Empire State Building. My friend had a Doberman and I was sure the dog was starving because I could see its ribs and I insisted that my parents buy dog food for the poor animal. I couldn’t watch nature documentaries because in the end, the mama bunny would lose its babies to the coyotes. And I didn’t grow up in Greenwhich Village where my hippy liberal parents would have praised my sensitiveness. My dad would sometimes scratch his head in wonderment, but he was never mean and he never teased me. Much. But yeah, I was sensitive.

Maybe it’s because I’m a writer. I could imagine the tragedy playing out when the coyote ate the bunny, the lone rabbit, alone, missing her children, pining under a cold sky.

But I still ate meat. And I didn’t think much about the sorrow, the horror, the inhumanity that is the meat industry. If you eat meat, something had to die for you to do so, and someone else had to kill it and someone else had to butcher. You are eating flesh that was once alive, but is now dead and cooked.

Factory farming is wrong. It is a holocaust. It is unsustainable. And I’m sure there are people who could tour a factory farm and then eat at the next McDonald’s and not care. I am not one of those people. The reason why I flirt with being a vegan\vegetarian is that it is sustainable and nothing had to die for me to eat. Yes, broccoli did give its little broccoli life for me to eat, so yeah, part of life is killing other things to eat, but I would imagine the broccoli stalks around the one I harvest aren’t sad for the life of their fallen brethren. I’ve never heard an orphaned broccoli cry.

I went hunting this past week. I helped hunters shoot animals from hundreds of yards away. I helped them spread apart the legs, cut out the anus, disembowel the animal and then hung it up to bleed out. I helped kill a doe, who was still lactating, and a young buck, in his prime. Both are dead. I held the buck’s warm heart in my hands and watched the dark, dark blood drip across my skin. When I kill my first deer, next year, I will take a bite out of the heart because that is what my father did when he killed his first deer.

This is not a happy story. Killing, death, the sorrow of the hunt, these are hard stories to tell. And it’s a crime that we are a society of carnivores but only a fraction ever really understand the horror of killing to eat. If you find hunting deplorable, I would suggest you evaluate your consumption of meat.

And that’s why I’m hunting. I have eaten meat all my life other people have killed, and if I’m to eat meat, I need to be a part of the killing. Yes, I feel bad. Yes, I am still sensitive. Yes, when I saw a fawn on the road, lost, confused, because most likely, her mother had been shot, I felt terrible. But even with the trauma, that fawn is going to have a better life than the millions of animals now being processed through the holocaust engines of the factory farming industry. If I feel bad enough, maybe I’ll stop eating meat. Until that happens, I’m a hypocrite if I don’t at least kill and butcher one animal. Yes, it’s symbolic. No, I’m not saying everyone who eats meat needs to hunt. I’m saying I need to do this.

The irony is that all the meat we eat is ruining our health. Yes, I’ll quote the famous China Study, where the closer you can to eat a vegan diet, the more likely you are to avoid some of the major diseases we have. Raw vegan is the way to eat, but it’s a big commitment. Meat is easy, fills you up, tastes good, is a nice source of quick protein, but in the end, it’s a bloody business. But now I understand the story more, and like I said, it’s a hard story. A hard story to tell.