tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36050717827934201962023-11-16T08:55:08.191-08:00Seuss ex MachinaWho else is going to save you?Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-30707505604260047952009-09-18T09:26:00.001-07:002009-09-18T09:39:13.892-07:00Everyone say "Aye Matey!"Yes, I lost my zeal for posting, I also lost all sense of ownership regarding time. None of it belongs to me really, I'm a graduate student, therefore am owned by the University. I wanted to get this quick post in however, because when I'm a teacher and am stressed and burned out, I want to be able to reset to the mindset that I now occupy.<div><br /></div><div>Last spring, I shattered my preconceptions of what a junior high band looks like. I watched Clyde Quick interact with 7th, 8th and 9th graders and draw out of them musicianship I didn't think possible. Not only music, but behavior. He worked the kids so that they shared his enthusiasm for music and that overrode their egocentric little circuits to the point that they wanted to learn as much as they could about music.</div><div><br /></div><div>When working at DHS, I never once thought that elementary music would interest me. The lack of musical maturity in the students was always a turn off. I realized that they all had to start somewhere, but I was only interested in working with the end result. Now I'm teaching general music in 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade classrooms and am completely enamored with my students and the concept of general music and am ready to champion the cause wherever I go - even if I have to do it myself. It's only the 4th week of school, I have 11 more to go with these kids, but I'm only looking forward to it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Today I got to conduct a combined band of 6th 7th and 8th graders and again my preconceptions of beginning band were shattered. The students were engaged, they listened intently, and gave me what I asked for. I have to learn to let these preconceived notions go and believe that children are capable of doing anything as long as they are provided the right scaffolding to get there.</div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-71357576675685327262009-06-23T12:26:00.000-07:002009-06-23T12:34:03.805-07:00Sacred<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;"><i>This is something I wrote a few weeks ago and posted to facebook. I'm tired of seeing my last post here be right after picnic day.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJdGa3KalAaWSeUF3ui2k2jnmo5xtOefq98sm7QDk1mo3_N7aQzw8BS4pJiek_zQmWgMerNmTlHd2iQq6rQcyBcCGSMfG-fYZgQ0uDsAAuSzYXK8J1HdzsiJ2xl9PHPg3403eyplXHlf0/s1600-h/n11512164_30413784_7719.jpg"><br /></a></i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 14px; font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">This past week I was sequestered at National Camp School for the Western Region of the BSA (affectionately known by the staff at my camp as "camp camp"). The school trains camp staff in all the different aspects, from camp and program directors to aquatics and shooting sports.<br /><br />I am now a certified BSA Climbing Director - which sounds awfully spiffy until you realize it's really no different than what I've been doing for the past 5 years, only instead I get to do all the site inspections myself an sign off on my own stuff (I still am subject to inspection from an annual "visitation team," however). Oh, and I get to train staff... which my camp can't support beyond Mike and myself, but it was a lot of fun, and will take a bunch of hassle out of my summers for the next five years.<br /><br />I was thrown in a patrol with 13 other college aged kids (21 is the minimum age for a director) based on our program. We spent the week wading through powerpoint presentations and trying to stay awake as they piled on the mandatory standards and regulations, alternating with time spent out on the granite, setting protection and building anchors. We were in the high desert, somewhere between Temecula and the Salton Sea and I had expected it to be sweltering, but instead the temperatures lurked in the sixties and dropped into the forties at night. Although we weren't caught unprepared, I was certainly surprised by the weather. Whatever free time my patrol had was spent in the camp's dining commons, trying to warm ourselves in the shadow of the artificial rock wall, sipping inordinate amounts of coffee and benignly taunting our patrol's one LDS kid in a caffeinated blur. Beyond that, we were only expected to act in a sufficiently dorky fashion, putting together skits and songs for campfire and developing rivalries between programs and patrols.<br /><br />The camp we stayed at was on a reservation, leased from a tribe. After driving through ten miles of what they insisted was a road, through nothing but scrub and dirt, the camp opened up into a meadow and valley floor filled with oak trees. The valley, "Lost Valley" was most impressive at night, when the wind died and huge banks of what could only be described as slasher-movie grade fog rolled in. The moon cut through the clouds and illuminated the far side of the valley, mountains seemingly caught above and below two sets of clouds.<br /><br />Both the program and the site were impressive, but what left the greatest impression on me over the week was a story told by one of the staff, as the fog banks rolled in one evening and we headed inside the dining commons for our "campfire:"<br /><br />The tale's teller recalled a conversation he had had long ago with a Cupeño woman, one of the Native Americans from the reservation. She had been born in 1890 and up through the great depression had travelled with her tribe to this valley (which they called </span><i style="font-family:'lucida sans', 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Wiatava</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, "the valley of the live oaks") every summer to collect acorns and grind them to meal against the rocks. The work had been deemed women's work, and it was a social activity. These summers were where she learned stories and songs, and the majority of her heritage, sitting around with the other women, grinding the acorns in bowls in the granite, worn over generations of this activity. She was being interviewed because the tribe was in negotiations to lease the land of the valley, and opinions varied as to whether this should or should not be done.<br /><br />Those against leasing the land cited that it was Sacred, and the tale's teller was confused. He asked if there were rites conducted in the summers here in the valley or if spirits lived there. The old woman sighed and smiled. Apparently there is no similar word for her feelings in English other that Sacred. It was not something mystical or religious, but the importance of the land was great. She tried to explain: The valley was important to her when she was there, but it was more important to her when she wasn't there. This was where she grew up and the memories of it where part of what made her who she was. To her and to many others, the valley was sacred.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 14px; font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: normal; font-family:Georgia, -webkit-fantasy;font-size:16px;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJdGa3KalAaWSeUF3ui2k2jnmo5xtOefq98sm7QDk1mo3_N7aQzw8BS4pJiek_zQmWgMerNmTlHd2iQq6rQcyBcCGSMfG-fYZgQ0uDsAAuSzYXK8J1HdzsiJ2xl9PHPg3403eyplXHlf0/s1600-h/n11512164_30413784_7719.jpg" style="text-decoration: none; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJdGa3KalAaWSeUF3ui2k2jnmo5xtOefq98sm7QDk1mo3_N7aQzw8BS4pJiek_zQmWgMerNmTlHd2iQq6rQcyBcCGSMfG-fYZgQ0uDsAAuSzYXK8J1HdzsiJ2xl9PHPg3403eyplXHlf0/s320/n11512164_30413784_7719.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350607766008753826" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 220px; " /></a></span></span></span><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 14px; font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I smiled when I heard this story because I knew exactly what she had meant. I had used the word to describe Cody before, but had never heard the word defined so perfectly.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, -webkit-fantasy;color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 14px;font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">After spending seven years there as a scout, and another 6 as an adult, I've been heading into Cody each summer for over half of my life. Cody is an institution, steeped in tradition. The camp breeds a culture that keeps the kids coming back until they age out at 18. - and adults coming back long after their sons have gone off to college. Cody was where I developed friendships that had a definite impact on how I define myself. Beyond the institution however, the land itself commands reverence. Cody Lake and the three tiny cabins that make up the camp is a place that has shaped who I am. It is a place that I carry with me and it is a place to which I will return long after my affiliation with the troop or camp fades.</span></span></span></div></div></div></div></div></div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-83165026446532746552009-04-21T12:22:00.000-07:002009-04-21T13:17:49.138-07:00Far and wide many have tried, none have done it better.One of my classes has spent the last few weeks on a very important aspect of being a band director, that of building and sustaining a marching program. Something the school where I teach lacks. I marched for four years in college, but both in the music department at UCD, and at CSUS where I'm taking credential classes, it's a part of my past that I admit only sheepishly, seeing as the organization that I marched with, the <a href="http://camb.ucdavis.edu/camb/about/index.php">California Aggie Marching Band(uh)</a> is somewhat scorned by the music faculty and the band program at CSUS (which marches corps style) for their lack of... precision.<div><br /></div><div>Granted, my experiences in marching don't come close to what is expected of a high school marching band - the CAMB is a show band; loud, boisterous and full of energy. They don't play standard literature, only arrangements done by bandsmen themselves, mostly of popular music, though the level of music is far above what I've come to expect from high school students. The shows are charted by the student drum major and I have to say in six years I've yet to see one french curve. What I'm trying to say is that I'm surrounded now by people who march in drum corps and percussion ensembles and stress the importance of discipline and precision and the corps style of marching, and everything I'm learning contradicts my image of what a Marching Band should be. I talked to my instructor after class one day, and in mentioning my marching history, he laughed and joked that he would make sure to provide me with extra resources to help me "undo" my previous predispositions of band.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, as I'm slowly being conditioned, I spent this weekend at Picnic Day, the one day of the year that the Aggie Band lives for. The day they get to stand up and say, "Guess what, we're for real." Their parade show this year was tight and precise, surprisingly so, considering their fanfare was in 10/8 (3-2-2-3) followed by arrangements of Styx, Rush, and Boston. Normally I'm shamed into acknowledging that words like "phrasing," "blend," "balance" or "dynamics" have no place in the band - and it's true for the most part (when I want my students to pull out all the stops with dynamics, I say "Band-uh Loud" and they know what I mean) - but on Saturday, I felt pride for the first time in a long time, being an alumnus of the organization.</div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-62573729602020560552009-03-24T23:39:00.000-07:002009-03-25T01:02:35.728-07:00Audition Season<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">This post is part of a blog project on student teaching hosted at </span><a href="http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/student-teaching-spring-2009/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">So You Want to Teach</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">.</span><div><br /></div>With 7 weeks 'til our next concert, I'm spending my time this week away from the podium. Mostly I've been prepping packets of audition material for next year's Symphonic and Jazz bands. <div><br /></div><div>March is a long a trying month for the music department at DHS - a school where seemingly everyone who tries makes the football team, but tryouts for the auditioned ensembles require two, sometimes three callbacks - no matter the program. Whether Choir, Orchestra or Band, it's pretty crazy if you think about it. </div><div><br /></div><div>There's only one high school in a town of 63,000 - one standard Jazz "Stage Band," one 32 voice Madrigal Choir, only 4 clarinet spots in the DHS Symphony, and only 12 available in the Symphonic band (we have to fight for French Horns, however). The whole school's schedule is planned around making sure the kids who get into those programs can take their other classes, and therefore the administration needs to know who they'll be well in advance. The process is intense, even students in the ensembles have to re-audition and by their senior year, a lot of kids are used to disappointment and the effort required to maintain the standard of excellence.<div><br /></div><div>However, this year I'm finding I have to deal with the students facing a level of disappointment for which they're not prepared: UC admissions, or rather lack thereof. I was lucky enough to work with this same band last year as a Paraeducator, and it seems like half of the Band's seniors went to UC Berkeley, and the other half to UCLA, with a few stragglers to Columbia, NYU or Puget Sound. This year, with cutbacks in admissions and hikes in fees, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">one</span></span> person out of about 70 got into UCLA. Berkeley is sitting on their admissions still, but that outlook is grim. This fact was brought to light when their teacher excitedly mentioned that we were going to stop by the UCLA campus on our trip to San Diego in May and asked how many got in. One student tentatively raised his hand to nervous laughter from the rest of the group. I've even had kids come up to me bummed about not getting into UCD, their hometown "backup school." </div><div><br /></div><div>These kids are bred overachievers, 5 or 6 AP classes on their plates, SAT scores above 2000 (they're out of 2400 now?). They're special, or at least have been told so all their lives by parents who all have Bachelor's degrees, many from UCs themselves. Now it's crashing down around them and the kids don't really know what to do, and I have no idea what to say to them. <br /><div><br /></div><div>To counteract the anxiety we're digging through new music to play on our trip. I'm learning that finding literature that's perfectly fit for a particular ensemble is one of the most important parts of being a music educator. However, the Symphonic Band my teacher has spoils him, and me by proxy. We're scheduled to play on the deck of the U.S.S. Midway in San Diego and my teacher is pulling out all the stops. Although it would be a little too blatant to dig out Midway March again (we played it last year on our trip to Victoria BC.), the director is grabbing all the "shiny" he can and dropping his own cash on scores to the Hal Leonard "John Williams Signature Series" - basically arrangements for professionals, not rearranged for younger bands. They're really just transcriptions of Williams' symphonic music to wind band parts, signed off by the composer, and the premiered by the U.S. Marine Band. </div><div><br /></div><div>The music we choose is not just a festival set, but also enough to put on hour long "Pops concerts" around town while we're there and then come back and perform in the park in downtown Davis during the farmer's market to thank the community for their support.</div><div><br /></div><div>The students have locked in <a href="http://www.halleonard.com/audio/04002283.mp3">Raider's March</a> - the main title to Indiana Jones but the big problem we're facing is having to decide between the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbHw8DBCXQ8">1984</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zaEOuagWqQ&NR=1">1996</a> Olympic Fanfares to kick off the set. This year we have an incredibly strong trumpet section. 10 kids - 7 of which are powerhouses and 3 are, well, third trumpets by definition. But selecting music like this requires a director to play towards the ensembles' strengths, and this year it's brass.</div><div><br /></div><div>I don't know how he manages to pull it off time and time again, but their teacher has the ability to trick his students - baiting them with amazing music, and then saying something like "You know, I just don't know if you guys are up to this... " enlisting jeers and pleading from his kids to give it a shot, challenging them and forcing them to push themselves. This time though, I think he really means to cut "Summon the Heroes" the 1996 theme. Some worry or another about not being able to handle the articulation required of the piece. This kind of tears at me inside because it's absolutely gorgeous and our 1st chair trumpet player <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC5dzqBDD0o&feature=related">nailed the solo</a> today. Music is supposed to evoke emotion and this piece does just that - not just fanfare, excitement and flourish, but something much more. </div></div></div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-33179204681023854682009-03-20T00:08:00.000-07:002009-03-20T16:21:33.225-07:00One Month Later<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">This post is part of a blog project on student teaching hosted at </span><a href="http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/student-teaching-spring-2009/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">So You Want to Teach</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">.</span><div><br /></div>It's done. <div><br /></div><div>It's done, and both my students and I came out the other side feeling a sense of accomplishment. I was able to rehearse a grade four piece (I Am, by Andrew Boysen Jr.) to festival readiness with a non-auditioned high school ensemble in four weeks. </div><div><br /></div><div>Performing arts programs are really a special learning experience. There's an immediate sense of accomplishment gained from performances. In high school, my parents never once cared about my english assignments or my history papers, much less my Trigonometry homework, but they made it to every orchestra concert. MENC sanctioned competitions are even better, with groups earning rankings and a sense of prestige amongst their peers; improving themselves with each performance and clinic. What's more, this builds a sense of group cohesion I found lacking in my other classes, due to the individual responsibility of each student to the ensemble.</div><div><br /></div><div>Tonight was our "Adjudication Concert" which is a tradition that has arisen out of a compromise between budget concerns and the need for validation of the band program. DJUSD doesn't have school busses. They rely on the City and the University bus system to get kids to and from school. There are special lines just for the kids, the district pays the city, the city pays the university, and everyone's happy. Except when it comes to field trips. </div><div><br /></div><div>Chartering a couple of Unitrans busses to Sacramento costs several hundred dollars, which when added to festival fees tops $1000 - more than double the band program's annual budget. So instead of heading to the CMEA Golden Empire Festival, we invite one of their judges to come to us. Instead of 15 minutes in front of three judges, some scribbled notes and barely decipherable taped recordings, we have one esteemed director come work with all three bands for the entire day, and return to see the concert that evening, giving comments in front of parents on everything that we worked on and improved.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's an awesome arrangement, and it's really helpful. It's also a tad nerve-wracking - especially when on Tuesday during my last rehearsal with my students, my bari soloist was having problems subdividing and missing his entrances, and all the brass couldn't figure out phrasing and breath. Even though we'd worked these problem sections four weeks running. </div><div><br /></div><div>I've watched my role as a conductor change over the past month. This piece wasn't difficult by the standards that the kids were used to, but it required a lot of difficult entrances and some serious counting issues (rhythms in four against my beat pattern of three for example) and I realized as much as I strive to bring intensity and artistry to the music, what's increasingly important is that I don't just give abrupt gestures to cue my students, but provide them with confidence, welcoming them in to their entrances. They can count, they know they're right, but still, I look up from my score and see eyes pleading me to confirm that they're right. Most of the time all I have to do is smile at them and they play beautiful music, but I have to cue them.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, to cue them, I have to be absolutely certain that we're all on the same page. </div><div><br /></div><div>This afternoon I couldn't have asked for a better performance from my students, we did a mock concert for our adjudicator (my teacher never once called him a "judge") and he had comments a-plenty but what stuck most were those about air stream and intonation. My trombones were trying too hard to play softly and were a wee bit flat. </div><div><br /></div><div>This evening, they did just as well, but I almost fell apart. We were well into the piece and approaching an important juncture in the music. There's a canonic fast section that gives way to a series of metrical changes punctuated with a syncopated bass line. That probably doesn't mean a whole lot, but it's at 2:45 on an 8 minute recording, so about a third of the way on <a href="http://kjos.vo.llnwd.net/o28/audio/mp3/wb135.mp3">this recording</a>. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>My score is like a security blanket, it makes me feel safe. As long as I have the music in front of me, I don't need it. I went to turn the page, and I knew what was supposed to be on the next one, except it wasn't there - I had turned too many pages. I felt the bottom of my stomach fall away and part of my brain started screaming a stream of expletives. </div><div><br /></div><div>Another part of my brain however, just counted: [...&4&] [12-12-123] [1.2.] [1.2.3.] My hands cuing half the band to come in on the "and of 3" beating a bar of 7/8 followed by 2/4 and then 3/4. It was like something out of an exercise from a conducting class but the rest of me was frozen in terror. My parents noticed it, my teacher noticed it, my conducting lost all expression for about a minute but the kids somehow didn't notice, or rather, care. It was their confidence in my ability to lead them that kept me in the game. I was a little shaken for the rest of the piece, I missed some cues, but they all got their entrances, even the Bari Sax soloist that had trouble earlier this week. </div><div><br /></div><div>I've mentioned before my terrible performance anxiety, and the thought of choking as a conductor - with all my students counting on me - is terrifying. At that moment I was paralyzed with fear, but I had cultivated enough trust with the band that they assumed I knew exactly what I was doing - the same expectation I have of them when they head onto the stage. It's that interdependency on each other, and on me - that sort of trust that really brings the ensemble together and makes it more than another class. </div><div><br /></div><div>Just another experience confirming that the one place I know where I belong is at the podium in front of my students.</div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-63506305614403358382009-01-29T22:49:00.000-08:002009-02-01T12:44:27.086-08:00What do you mean lesson plan? I just direct a band.<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">This post is part of a blog project on student teaching hosted at <a href="http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/student-teaching-spring-2009/">So You Want to Teach.</a></span></div><div><br /></div>My director is going to be out tomorrow - this is when all the effort put into obtaining that pesky sub credential pays off. He's left a list of songs for the jazz bad to run, but it's a practice, and not a rehearsal. With their rhythm section, they're pretty much autonomous, and I couldn't really have much constructive input since most of the kids know more about Jazz than I do about Irish trad - or anything else for that matter.<div><br /></div><div>However, everything about the other two periods was left to me. What to rehearse, and how. And more importantly, he wants me to <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">rehearse</span> the kids, even his audition ensemble, not just run them through their music. We only have a few weeks and he just dropped new music on them this Wednesday. This is the difference between being a conductor and being a teacher.</div><div><br /></div><div>One small problem: I've never even seen a lesson plan for an ensemble course. I've put plenty together for the Music Theory course I interned in last year, but here I'm doing everything backwards. I've none of the credential programs under my belt, but have over a year's worth of observation and teaching experience in this same classroom. I fretted about this for a while until I realized, I put a lesson plan together before I step up to the podium every day. </div><div><br /></div><div>In preparing my score, I go through it, listen to a recording endlessly, or more often, sing it (much to my brother's annoyance). Anywhere I trip in singing it, I drop a sticky note. Anywhere I think a problem will occur, sticky note - usually covered with barely decipherable scribbles. These aren't notes to myself about conducting, they're to use to help direct a rehearsal. Anytime I come up with something to say about the piece that would help the kids in artistically shaping the piece - like "With Quiet Courage" being about a mother, who was later diagnosed with cancer, exhibiting the courage to face down anything and everything life has to offer without flinching, instead of the brash heroic deeds with which we generally associate courage - that's a sticky note.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anytime we stumble in rehearsal, and I mention something to correct it, I go back through rehearsal after class and write down everything, and stick it in my score. After a while, if things are no longer an issue and the kids routinely get it right, the sticky note gets tossed.</div><div><br /></div><div>Right now, my score for Chorale and Toccata by Jack Stamp is covered to the point where I almost can't read the music. Almost. They just got it on Wednesday, and hopefully in three weeks, the score will be clean and ready for the Festivity of Bands. Tomorrow I'm going to come in and pull down a few of his books on "Teaching Music through Performance in Band" and find the pieces we're playing to get another point of view on what's important in the piece, and a few more sticky notes will go into it.</div><div><br /></div><div>The only other aspect is organization and pacing of the rehearsal, something I'm still working on perfecting. The pieces will be on the board before the class gets in, something my director doesn't often do and we'll tear through them with a lingering promise of giving the kids "the rest of the period off" if we accomplish everything I want. Which means maybe five minutes out of 50, but they won't know that. It's Friday, their teacher isn't there, they'll expect a bit of a break, which means they'll work for it. I just need to keep their instruments on their lips as long as possible. I say <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">on</span> their lips because I have ten trumpets and seven trombones in my back row in one period. If you work with a school band, that actually means something.</div><div><br /></div><div>My lesson plan needs to be modular and flexible, it's not seventh grade science or 9th grade english. Sometimes I wish it were, other times I'm glad it isn't. I have to adapt what I'm teaching to what they need to work on, what they're giving me and how it measures up to what I expect. Now, that sounds just like any other class, but I'm doing it beat by beat, second by second, and not chapter by chapter or test by test.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have great respect for the music teachers I work with, after trying to emulate what they do for just two periods. Different music for each class. I work with a teacher whose mutters a litany with pride: "I teach 7 sections of 6 classes in 5 classrooms. I have 4 bosses at 3 schools, and I commute 2 hours a day for 1 job." After years of doing this, they just fall on their feet, as if they were airdropped onto the podium ready to go and can rehearse without too much preparation. But I need my sticky notes and an overarching plan, so here we go:</div><div><br /></div><div>6th period: Symphonic Band. Theme for the day: LISTEN!</div><div><br /></div><div>Warm up, tune.</div><div><br /></div><div>Masada, the first fast part. I don't have the score with me.</div><div><br /></div><div>Really tune.</div><div><br /></div><div>Run the Times Square 1944 section towards the end where it pits 4 against 3, take them through it slowly, which will hamper their ability to match up, force them through it and speed up. Spend no more than 6 minutes doing so.</div><div><br /></div><div>NEW MUSIC. <a href="http://www.itoky.com/search.php?q=Chorale%20and%20Toccata%20Stamp%20Anchor%20Bay%20HS%20Symphonic%20Band%20MSBOA%20Band%20Festival%202006%2004&t=music">Chorale and Toccata</a>. Not technically new, they've read it once, and I'm sure my bass section has been going nuts. Skip the showery entrance straight to the beautiful bassoon/english horn solo. Normally, I wouldn't make the kids sit through a solo section, but it's important that the trumpets listen to the soloists. Make sure the soloists understand that they have a give and take dynamic in this duet. One pushes and the other gives, then pushes back. The trumpets come in right after and need to match not just the dynamics, but color of the solo. Something hard to do pitting 10 trumpets against two double reeds. together they need to bring out the warmth of their lower register, while sounding like one trumpet, over a hill somewhere for a measure or two then growing. The rest of the band needs to notice the dynamic (not volume, but dynamic) between the soloists and reiterate that when accompanying</div><div>the trumpets. </div><div><br /></div><div>So those four bars were a mouthful, that's why I generally speak in music instead of english at the podium. Tragically, I can't sing for you here. I know my timpanist was practicing this piece at lunch today, and I'm sure my bass clarinets are rocking the toccata and are ready for tomorrow.</div><div><br /></div><div>7th Period.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvBzm9Ez_7o">Longford Legend I</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Tune</div><div><br /></div><div>Longford III.</div><div><br /></div><div>New Music. (Mostly New) <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIrVmqZ-a-4&feature=related">With Quiet Courage</a>. The piece is thickly scored, so the lack of horns and oboe in my concert band is not going to be a problem (though always disheartening). The problem is going to be that without varying instrumentation, the piece starts to sound cyclical and isn't interesting. I'm going to try and combat that by focusing on the countermelodies and bringing them out more, even to the point of absurdity if it will bring about contrast in the piece. It's likely too easy for them, and we won't play it past tomorrow, but it's a really pretty piece, and they need to focus on intonation. They have enough technically difficult stuff on their plate and sometimes they're so focused on their fingers, they don't listen to what they sound like. This piece will force that. </div><div><br /></div><div>Then come the shape note pieces, Geneva Variations and <a href="http://www.curnowmusicpress.com/CMPMusicLow/James%20Curnow/Rhapsody%20on%20American%20Shaped%20Note%20Melodies.mp3">Rhapsody on American Shape Note Melodies</a>. The first in my opinion is too hard for the kids, the latter, too easy. We'll run them and see what they like and don't like about each piece and what they can accomplish. </div><div><br /></div><div>My brother just popped in to ask me a favor: if I'm going to be listening to the music I make my kids play all night, force them to play something awesome like the theme to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQTWNjr25WQ">Jurassic Park</a>. As cheesy as it sounds, it's not a bad idea, especially for our band trip to San Diego this May. I at least started playing the soundtrack for his benefit. </div><br />I've got a bit of system down, but I really don't know how anyone else does it. My lesson plan for tomorrow? Attempt to topple my biggest challenge: shut up long enough that the kids are listening to themselves instead of me. I hope I can pull it off.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-29570206491026272122009-01-28T11:06:00.000-08:002009-01-28T22:41:10.018-08:00Mr. Obama's Package.It's time I briefly revert back to my original intention of this blog; to provide completely unsolicited and relatively uninformed commentary on what's going on and how it affects me. I mean, isn't that the standard definition of the purpose of a blog? Evidence certainly seems to point that way.<div><br /></div><div>Anyways, HR 1 for this congress is coming to vote today, otherwise known as "<a href="http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1/show">THE STIMULUS PACKAGE</a>" (that was a big, booming baritone announcer voice.) All week we've heard how the house minority leadership has griped about this and that; not enough tax cuts, ridiculous amounts of spending and the magic word: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_barrel">Pork</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Though the bill has been meticulously searched and there are no congressional earmarks, Mr. Boehner has gotten a lot of airtime denouncing projects democrats have thrown into the bill to further stimulate the economy. Condoms and replanting the lawn on the national mall have gotten the most attention, and though it's hard to defend the programs with a straight face, <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99871329">some have done so.</a></div><div><br /></div><div>What bothered me most, was tuning in to <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99916513">All Things Considered</a> yesterday on my way home from Davis and hearing that somewhere around 50 million in support for the <a href="http://arts.endow.gov/">National Endowment for the Arts</a> was being labeled as Pork.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ms. Blair made an argument that stuck with me, the Endowment has means to get the money into peoples hands, and fast. There is a system in place that's governed by a peer reviewed grant making process.</div><div><br /></div><div>Think of it this way: An artist in San Francisco gets his grant for a couple thousand dollars. He might leave his job at Starbucks that he's had to hold down to support himself to work on his project. He's not going to cash his check, take all the money home with him in small bills and make a giant paper maché penis. He's going to be living off of that money and supporting himself and his work with it, it's going straight into the economy and the government is supporting a part of our society that is shrinking under the shadow of the cult of prosperity and profit.</div><div><br /></div><div>I think everyone should listen to more Bernstein, they may not like his music, but that's not necessary, his words will work for now:</div><blockquote>"I think it is time we learned the lesson of our century: that the progress of the human spirit must keep pace with technological and scientific progress, or that spirit will die. It is incumbent on our educators to remember this; and music is at the top of the spiritual must list. When the study of the arts leads to the adoration of the formula (heaven forbid), we shall be lost. But as long as we insist on maintaining artistic vitality, we are able to hope in man’s future."</blockquote>Then there's the issue of education and HR 1. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/education/28educ.html?_r=1&hp">The Grey Lady</a> brought up a much missed point in the stimulus package yesterday. Granted, who would want to talk about schools when you could talk about condoms - but the stimulus package offers up huge aid for schools, federal aid, which has a lot of people worried. <div><br /></div><div>Opponents of the aid are afraid huge federal investment in schools at the state level will fundamentally change our system. Though our education is paid for in part by, we are not schooled by the federal government, something that's very important. But the question is, who's going to fund the public schools in California right now? California can't even pay its payroll of state employees, let alone fund programs. All state budgets are thinly stretched, trying to cut spending instead of raising taxes in this time of economic decline. States don't have the financial clout to borrow money, and they can't just print more like the federal government is doing. We need this support. Besides, money set aside for school construction will go far to shore up many jobs that have been lost since the the housing market crashed.</div><div><br /></div><div>The federal government has already done enough damage to education at the state level with NCLB. They're involved in controlling what schools and teachers do with the ability to deny them funding, why don't we let them help instead? </div><div><br /></div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-66160129652871248562009-01-27T19:09:00.000-08:002009-01-27T20:27:00.212-08:00Csus4<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://plus.maths.org/issue35/features/rosenthal/piano_keyboard.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 348px; height: 216px;" src="http://plus.maths.org/issue35/features/rosenthal/piano_keyboard.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">This post is part of a blog project on Student Teaching hosted at <a href="http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/student-teaching-spring-2009/">So You Want to Teach</a></span>.<div><br /></div><div>Scrawled across the blackboard are some bar lines, a few ticks indicating rhythm and a chord symbol: C-sus4.</div><div><br />"How would you go about teaching a 13 year old pianist in your 7th grade jazz band how to read that? He's pretty good, has some Bach - a few 2 part inventions under his belt." <div><br /></div><div>Cmaj7 (sus2)</div><div><br /></div><div>"How about that one? It's just gibberish to him. 'Where are the notes?' He asks."</div><div><br /></div><div>The blackboard slowly starts to turn into a jazz chart and my hands get a little clammy.</div><div><br /></div><div>School's back in session, and my "Instrumental Literature" course starts off by dropping me into the deepest end of the pool as far as my experience goes. We're looking at building a strong rhythm section in a junior high jazz band. At this level, the horns already know what they're doing, but how do you get the kid on the drum set to set them up properly when he barely reads music? Or the guitar player who maybe has Stairway to Heaven memorized but doesn't know that the term "comp" is actually short for accompaniment and not another word for "solo." How do you teach kids to swing eighths? Most of all, how can I lead them if I don't have a grasp of the jazz charts myself.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm out of my league, and I'm excited. If I was back taking structural geology classes or linear algebra, I'd be panicking, but those days are behind me. I paid my dues, got my degrees, and now every class I take has a direct stake in my future. And tackling an issue I've worried about constantly over the last few years, and doing it head on is kind of refreshing.</div><div><br /></div><div>I come into work every day during fifth period and get to sort, file and copy to an awesome soundtrack of a full big band. I get all the administrative crap my director needs out of the way so I can work with the "real" bands during the following two periods, but I've never been put in a position to work with the jazz students.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nor should I though. I play the tenor sax, but couldn't solo to save my life. Being self taught on your instrument in a department of performance majors is really intimidating and I never took the chance to stand up and take an improv class in front of them, something I almost regret. I suffer from a bit of performance anxiety - it used to take monumental courage to step up to the podium at a concert, and I still have trouble leaving the score behind and directing the ensemble even in rehearsal. As far as performance goes, as long as there is music in front of me, I had the confidence to keep up and even take a solo in the wind ensemble, but give me a lead sheet with chords and I'll fall apart.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now however, that's all I have. I get to draw up parts for a rhythm section based off the lead sheet to Autumn Leaves and decide on which instrument I'd rather make a fool of myself - trombone or saxophone - when I solo in two weeks. We'll see how long my excitement holds out.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm now wrestling with a more pressing question: what else about a jazz program might be an even bigger hurdle for me when trying to build one.</div></div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-1701909339684520932009-01-26T22:00:00.001-08:002009-01-27T12:15:56.925-08:00This post is really about rehearsal techniques... I think.<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">This post is part of a blog project on Student Teaching hosted at </span><a href="http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/student-teaching-spring-2009/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">So You Want to Teach</span></a></div><div><br /></div>DHS didn't have school today, and even if it did, I probably would have called in sick. I put in enough hours over the weekend to take a week off if my contract allowed for comp time - but of course, it was all volunteered.<div><br /></div><div>Instead of working, I drove down to Stockton to sort out the rest of my life.</div><div><br /></div><div>After interviewing with the faculty, (who are awesome) I was told that as long as I filled out the paperwork I was guaranteed tuition remission for 9 units of study per semester for two years. 9 units, with a 20 hour assistantship AND student teaching is a full load. If I get everything in and they have the money, they'll even toss in a 3,000 stipend per semester - which, considering I won't be able to hold down a job that doesn't require me to work during normal business hours (school), or nights (rehearsals), would be pretty much necessary. I'm in a far better state of mind now than 6 months ago <a href="http://seuss-ex-machina.blogspot.com/2008/06/3-uop.html">when I got the acceptance letter</a>. I know my parents read this, and they can breathe a little easier now.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, buoyed by some promise of a future, I sat in on the rehearsal of <a href="http://web.pacific.edu/x1458.xml">Pacific's</a> Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Eric Hammer (under whom I'll be working as my graduate advisor next year).</div><div><br /></div><div>This is an auditioned ensemble of conservatory musicians, all of whom are miles beyond me in any aspect of performance (Shh! don't tell anyone). But, what impressed me the most was the balance and instrumentation of the group. Used to a high school or general college wind ensemble, this group surprised me by having each part in the score covered by one or two musicians. Instead of fifteen flutes or clarinets, there were six each - balanced by three oboes, three bassoons, a bass clarinetist, four horns and a sax quartet, 5 trumpets, 3 bones, euphonium and a tuba. </div><div><br /></div><div>This was professional instrumentation, and they were sailing through pieces like John Barnes Chance's <a href="http://www.emusic.com/album/The-Legacy-of-John-Barnes-Chance-MP3-Download/10958271.html">Blue Lake Overture</a> (Track 6), and Copland's <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4165357">Lincoln Portrait</a> (9:40 in the interview)- a piece that I've loved since I had to rip it apart for a ten page paper for an American Studies class on semiotics and images in society. </div><div><br /></div><div>However great the ensemble was, it was due to its director, and I want to bring to light some observations of rehearsal techniques he used that I want to adopt for my own.</div><div><ol><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Ear training</span>. - This is something I'm sure high school teachers wrestle with: how much time to spend rehearsing the music, and how much time to spend on things like theory when the class is designed to be little more than a performance opportunity. If I have the chance as a high school teacher, I'm going to remove all work required by a marching program during rehearsal in the students first year to focus on theory. <br /><br />Dr. Hammer started rehearsal off by getting everyone to hum America the Beautiful off of the B flat they tuned from (casting it in the key of E flat), then play it, then sing it in Solfege and play it again, which fixed all the problems. It was impressive watching the student's theory brains kick as they figured it out. He does this with a new song every rehearsal.<br /><br /></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">"Sizzling"</span> - Air control. I know how important it is, but it's something that I practice on my own, usually with buzzing, and definitely not in rehearsal. Dr. Hammer had the students "sssss-ing" their parts for part of the Blue Lake Overture, and while he conducted it, I could hear the phrasing and dynamics with just their air. I could focus on the melody bouncing around the room and afterwards, something clicked with the students and the entire piece had more substance behind it - it wasn't heavier, just more massive - if that makes sense.<br /><br /></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Metronomic Abandonment</span> - They are planning on including the<a href="http://www.marineband.usmc.mil/downloads/audio/Washington_Post.mp3"> Washington Post</a> March in their concert just in time for President's day, and what surprised me was after all their work, they started falling apart on Sousa. They were stretching the time at the trio, and people weren't watching the director, it started to bounce along like an accordion, stretching out to compensate for speeding up, etc. In a response to this, Dr. Hammer placed his right hand behind his back after a preparatory beat and only gave artistic gestures and cues with his right and, leaving the band to fend for itself, and forcing them to listen to each other. This might end up in a trainwreck with younger groups, but the awareness sudden awareness of a lack of visual cues caused many to focus more on listening.<br /><br />It cleaned up well.<br /><br /></li><li> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Itinerary</span> - Dr. Hammer conducted all business at the end of the rehearsal. At the top, he had a sheet with everything on it, and students picked it up as they walked in. It had a breakdown of every piece to be played during the 1.5 hour rehearsal, and a meticulously structured schedule on how much time was to be spent on each piece. This allowed the rehearsal to move swiftly and orderly, and end with reminders and motivation on the part of the director. Also included on the itinerary, which the students took home with them was everything for Wednesday's rehearsal, and what they needed to practice to be prepared. A little much, but the smoothness with which the rehearsal ran was testament to the order and discipline of the group.</li></ol><div>To sum it up, I'm really excited and am chomping at the bit to work with someone whose conducting is as controlled and powerful as it is fluid and graceful, and am looking to get some real feedback on my own. </div><div><br /></div><div>Is it August yet?</div></div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-83564997110825003222009-01-25T15:33:00.000-08:002009-01-26T21:48:08.071-08:00<3 Parents.<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">This post is part of a blog project on student teaching, hosted at <a href="http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/student-teaching-spring-2009/">So you Want to Teach</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(204, 204, 204); line-height: 20px;font-size:13px;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; ">Forgive typos, I haven't slept since Saturday morning and I'll edit this later.</span><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Parents.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>If there's one thing I'm going to drag away from my experiences working with the bands at Davis High, it's that parent involvement and support are probably some of the most important things in teaching any child. Whatever the subject, only a small amount of learning ever happens in the classroom and anything taught there is reinforced by learning at home. When it comes to a performing arts program, however, parental support is paramount due to all the effort required by a student outside of a classroom. Any performance program requires a regular practice regimen -akin to homework- but all the concerts, festivals, workshops, trips, everything done to make the students better musicians (and make the elective more appealing than art or yearbook), requires a substantial amount of time, effort and money on the part of the parents. Most of my students have their own instruments, many are in extra curricular performance groups and about 80% receive private lessons, and have since fourth grade. This is all a substantial financial investment on the part of the parents and reflects the affluence of the community, something I know I can't replicate when I step into my first job as a teacher.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Operational budgets for performance programs are generally barely enough to pay for routine maintenance on their instruments; let alone venues, festival fees, travel, and the ubiquitous annual "band trip." Fundraising is an integral part of every performance program I know. Those stupid candy bar scams are the first thing to come to mind but thankfully the students I work with have parents who are deeply involved in both the school and community, and the kids are able to do most of their fundraising with their instruments. The bands rent themselves out in small combos at winter time to play for christmas parties, the jazz band and choirs put on an annual Cabaret, the Madrigals hold a Madrigal dinner between thanksgiving and christmas, but the one big thing our band program does is something called a "Playathon." </div><div><br /></div><div>I don't know whose idea this was, but it's akin to the "jog-a-thons" I did in elementary school. Kids beg for money, er collect pledges from close family and friends, either by hour or for the entire night - promising to attempt the amazing feet of playing for 12 hours, straight through the night without sleep.</div><div><br /></div><div>This money doesn't go towards the band's operational budget, but towards the kids cost of the trips we take, some upwards of $600. Each student has their own account and the money is deposited and kept there for them, and any left over is carried over to next year's account. None of this would be possible without the Band Booster's program, and I am routinely surprised at the amount of organization and continuity in the program. They have an extensive charter and binders for each event throughout the year holding the lessons learned from the years previous and instructions on how things are done. The amount of parental involvement in this program is phenomenal and building a booster's program, or taking active involvement in an existing one will be a large priority of mine as a first year teacher.</div><div><br /></div><div>Although <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">too much</span> parental involvement can lead to twitching, murderous glares from teachers, in building an amazing performing arts program, no matter how big of a pain they may be, parents are a teacher's greatest asset. </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Playathon.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>So.... anyways, our director is past 60, and three years ago he declared the last Playathon. The kids got so upset because they loved the program so much that alumni came in, and parents stepped up to make it happen the next year without the director, bringing in student teachers to help conduct instead. Both this year and last I was put in charge of the music, while parents put up the organizational front and provided chaperones for the entire night. This playathon went so well, I want to keep the schedule and music somewhere for next year, and this is as good a place as any.</div><div><br /></div><div>19:00 - Kids show up, warm up, tune.</div><div><br /></div><div>19:30 - Kids give a "Concert in progress," performing works that they've only seen since they returned from winter break. This year, the Concert Band played Longford Legend, Appalachian Morning, and ... (I'm honestly too tired to remember the other one). The Symphonic Band performed Masada, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzRELG6IGgQ&feature=related">Three Dance Episodes from On the Town</a>, <a href="http://www.jwpepper.com/10052143.item">The Whispering Tree</a>, and a roaringly busy piece they got on Wednesday called "Applause," one they pulled off marvelously. With set changes, these two concerts take about an hour and a half.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>21:00 - The Jazz Band steps in. They gave an hour long concert, after playing all day at the Folsom Jazz Festival today. They scored all Superiors, scores in the 90s, but our director was less than satisfied with their performance - the best part is, so were they. They're looking to place at Monterey in a couple of months and need to tighten up quite a bit to do so. </div><div><br /></div><div>22:00 - Between ten and eleven, the pizza arrived, donated in small amounts from most of the pizza joints in Davis, a small college town with lots of pizza places. Before the kids got to chow down, we allowed guest conductors to jump in and direct the band. Mostly parents, some who have no idea what they're doing but a few are "regulars" and ham it up to the point where some of the kids are laughing so hard they can't even play right. This is another chance for fundraising, getting donations, or prizing this out at raffles. </div><div><br /></div><div>N.B. Don't loan your baton out to someone who doesn't know how to use it. Mine was broken before I had the chance to direct.</div><div><br /></div><div>23:00 - The fun begins. At this point we have 45 minutes of rehearsal every hour running through pieces the kids have never seen before, or at least haven't seen in a year. During the other fifteen minutes, the kids run off to a dark room with a strobe light, thumping techno music and enough sugar and caffeine to put several large animals into <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetic_ketoacidosis">hyperglycemic shock</a>. I, myself stuck to a diet of carrot sticks, wheat thins and chai tea, learning from last year that a steady diet of Mountain Dew inhibits my ability to direct and causes my hands to shake. I also brought in help, a few extra directors, the student director, manager and drum major of the <a href="http://camb.ucdavis.edu/camb/multimedia/sounds/sons.mp3">Aggie Band</a>, all current music majors at UCD. There's no way I could direct a band for 7 hours on my own. Working with a combined band of about 150 kids, I lost my voice as it is, and that was working with them only 15 minutes every hour. </div><div><br /></div><div>Between 11 and 12 we started them off easy with "With Quiet Courage" "Three Ayers from Gloucster" and Holst's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgDBRIkuGGk&feature=related">First Suite in Eb</a></div><div><br /></div><div>00:00 - 01:00: WE decided to get the harder stuff out of the way while everyone was awake: <a href="http://juliegiroux.www2.50megs.com/culloden3.html">Culloden III</a>, <a href="http://www.imeem.com/wiwiey/music/AISJ8wSc/tokyo_kosei_wind_orchestra_el_camino_real_alfred_reed/">El Camino Real</a> (a beast to conduct on the fly), <a href="http://www.philharmonicwinds.org/MP3/2nd_Suite_F_movt1.mp3">Holst's Second Suite in F</a> (running the march as fast as we could).</div><div><br /></div><div>01:00 - 02:00: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw0jvqx1mNU">Mars</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJB1zdFtHzc&feature=related">Baroque Hoedown</a>, and <a href="http://www.manhattanbeachmusic.com/audio/an_american_elegy.mov">American Elegy</a></div><div><br /></div><div>02:00 - 3:00: Here if the kids were dragging we made them sing instead, playing arrangements of Les Mis, Aladdin and the Lion King</div><div><br /></div><div>03:00 - 04:00: Continuing in the same vein we did Phantom of the Opera, Beauty and the Beast and Hunchback of Notre Dame. </div><div><br /></div><div>04:00 - 05:00: Rock Bottom. This was a bad time to pull out Vaughn William's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhNJQ8X1FgQ&feature=related">Folk Song Suite</a>. I think the flutes were about to cry when I called it up. Between that, Mary's boy child and an arrangement of Avenue Q, it was a disaster. We should have pulled up much easier music for this late in the game.</div><div><br /></div><div>05:00 - 06:30: To rally the troops we played a bunch of their <a href="http://sacramento.highschoolplaybook.com/media/ShowMedia.do?mid=0a68ae40b7c207b90fde324d4364a2ea">pep band music,</a> (Black Saddles, Cortez) which with a full band, rivaled the Aggie Band in power and quality. We then set out to rehearse three pieces from the night to get them sounding decent for a concert at 7:00. - when their parents and people who threw money at them come to see them perform without any lips.</div><div><br /></div><div>We chose Baroque Hoedown (The theme to the electric light parade in Disneyland), Beauty and the Beast and American Elegy as those pieces with the balance of "easy," "engaging," and "impressive."</div><div><br /></div><div>06:30 - 0:700: Breakfast, keep everyone off their instruments to allow a bit of recovery.</div><div><br /></div><div>07:00 - 07:30: Concert, a little flat here and there, with lips as droopy as their eyelids. But promising the kids that this is the last thing between them and sleep seems to rouse the spirits. And students always play better when their parents are watching. </div><div><br /></div><div>I pushed the pace on American Elegy, but as I said, it was the only thing between me and sleep. If you look closely you can see the sun rising behind the curtains of the multipurpose room.</div><div><br /></div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzacm7y5hJB_zUofauN_6p6IhC-bcLBLAyRnSKde9202QtU5d-d2LxHZHCnt_gFem1FbjMT16_ZmSijMDvipg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-86265157395494657892009-01-21T22:22:00.000-08:002009-01-26T21:39:22.337-08:00Why I love what I do.<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">This post is part of a blog project on student teaching, hosted at <a href="http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/student-teaching-spring-2009/">So You Want To Teach</a></span></div><div><br /></div>I know that I don't reflect back nearly enough on the amazing amount of opportunity upon which I've stumbled over the last two years. I know my situation is fairly unique and am continually grateful for it, except when I grumble about commuting from Sacramento to Davis 5 days a week. My job barely pays for the gas it takes to get there every day, but it's worth enough to me in experience that if they didn't pay me, I'd probably still come in every day. Having graduated in June, and deferred my enrollment in a master's program, I'm stuck between undergraduate and graduate studies and am currently taking music education courses that weren't offered in the <a href="http://music.ucdavis.edu/">UCD</a> music department over at <a href="http://www.csus.edu/music/">CSUS</a>. There I'm lumped under "post baccalaureate studies" and am not currently in a credential program, or student teaching, but my work at Davis Senior High School in the position of "Paraeducator III - Music Specialist" hits very close to the mark. At the very least it's paid classroom observation and mentorship, and at its best it's hands on experience leading a class of kids in making awesome music. <div><br /></div><div>Most of my job consists of doing whatever the director doesn't want to do, which is a lot. On paper, I'm little more than an aide, something his student T.A.'s could do: be more mobile than the director (he's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-polio_syndrome">post-polio</a>) and facilitate an efficient rehearsal. I make copies, grab scores, part music or file it away, take attendance and enter everything into his grade sheets. Sometimes I get to re-arrange music or write out new parts with Sibelius, other times I work as a section coach with any particular section while the director works with the rest of the band. But the reason I show up every day, and would do so without being paid is the chance to conduct the DHS bands.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I played with the UC Davis wind ensemble, we'd go to a gig every year called the "Festivity of Bands" it was the "<a href="http://www.aggiepack.com/pages/football/causeway.htm">Causeway Classic</a>" for band nerds. CSUS and UCD give a joint concert, pitting the wind programs of each music department against the other. Well, for a few years now they've been inviting the audition ensemble from Davis High to come play with them, and I was always a bit bitter leaving knowing we were schooled by a bunch of high school kids. They played harder music than we did and sounded better doing it. </div><div><br /></div><div>This of course is the result of an amazing amount of support from the school district and community in Davis and is completely not representative of any public school program I've ever seen. Last year, when the Governator decided to cut the budget 10% across the board, we were going to lose funding for all elementary band and orchestra programs, and the community promptly raised over $400,000 for the "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZXV011f_K4&feature=related">Save our Music</a>" Campaign, and then voted to implement a parcel tax to cover the expenses for the next 3 years, saving the programs and teachers who had been pink-slipped.</div><div><br /></div><div>I get to work with kids who are musically literate and have a musical maturity greater than some college ensembles. They can sight read anything and sound decent doing it. They regularly play <a href="http://www.manhattanbeachmusic.com/#Grade%205">grade 5</a> and sometimes grade 6 music. The non-audition ensemble, with which I get to work, regularly starts the year at grade 4 and works their way up, auditioning on grade 5 stuff by the end of the year. Last year as an undergraduate and now working towards my credential, this is experience I can't get anywhere else. I'm allowed to peruse a huge catalogue of music and choose pieces that I get to rehearse with the band and conduct in concert, going through the whole process as a director from start to finish and perfecting my skills and confidence at the podium. Right now I'm walking around with about 30 scores in my backpack preparing for a fundraiser for the kids: an all night band-geek-a-thon where I'm responsible for keeping them playing music -all sight reading- from midnight until 7:00am at which point they are to pull together, rehearse three pieces and perform a concert for those parents picking them up - with whatever lips they have left.</div><div><br /></div><div>Basically, I'm spoiled for the rest of my career and have a template from which to work and build my own band programs. One that starts with strong elementary and junior high programs. </div><div><br /></div><div>Anyways, the Symphonic Band got their hands on a piece called <a href="http://www.brolgamusic.com/catalogue/masada.htm">Masada</a> and have been working on it since January 5th - they're two and a half weeks in and still a little shaky. The piece is a programmatic work depicting a great siege of the Judean <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada">fortress,</a> casting the Romans in sober, relentless 4/4 time and their Hebrew adversaries in complex dance rhythms (generally asymmetric meters that flop around i.e. 5/8 [7/8] changes from 3-2 [-2] to [2-] 2-3, mixed in with 2/4, 3/4 or 6/8 for good measure). I convinced the director to let me take the score home with me over the MLK weekend and obsessed over it for three days, trying to work out the rhythm patterns. The goal was to come in during their final period to put together some audition tapes for my meeting with faculty at <a href="http://web.pacific.edu/x1794.xml">UOP</a> next Monday; hopefully to prove I'm a technically competent conductor when it comes to negotiating a teaching assistantship to support my graduate studies. I realize now that the video is not as impressive to look at when compared to the score (the composer or maybe publisher created his own meters to save on ink because the meter changes almost every bar). I had my head buried in the score, and couldn't think past the rhythms enough to do anything but mirror with my left hand, but it was a nice change from the slow, lyric pieces I normally get to work with (the ones the actual director would rather not conduct). In short, this is why I love what I do:<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dw3TZX7R370MpXN34JGuYUfxRW3lWiF8dMRfv7g8MFcDwjYeoDPbEULN0VHv_wLk2cJ7LxjJLFQp2F35gUsrg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><div><br /></div>I get to work with exceptional musicians who bring energy and exuberance that only students can to a rehearsal. I get to engage both my creative muscle and theirs; they may know how to play their instruments, and well, but it's my job to teach and encourage them how to make music to the best of their abilities.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-22695373862238680572009-01-13T11:49:00.000-08:002009-01-26T21:39:42.406-08:00How Obama Can Fix SchoolsYesterday I came a cross a newspost titled "How Obama can fix schools" it was a digest of a Wall Street Journal article by New York City School Chancellor Joel Klein and Reverend Al Sharpton titled "<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123172121959472377.html">Charter Schools can Close the Education Gap</a>" The article presents a sob story of America's youth, particularly minorities who are suffering under the current school system and in some cases are being left four grade levels behind. The article goes on to champion the Education Equality Project which, while tossing accusations at the current system of schools, tows the line of No Child Left Behind. The EEP offers advice to the President Elect on how to close the achievement gap between white and minority students and beyond expanding federal support for charter schools, their first idea is "more stringent standards."<div><blockquote>First, the federal government, working with the governors, should develop national standards and assessments for student achievement. Our current state-by-state approach has spawned a race to the bottom, with many states dumbing down standards to make it easier for students to pass achievement tests. Even when students manage to graduate from today's inner-city high schools, they all too frequently are still wholly unprepared for college or gainful employment.</blockquote>I read this and almost had an aneurism, the mental equivalent of screaming "Are you ephing kidding me Ref?" at the top of your lungs at someone who cant hear you. Stricter standards mean more "assessment" more "accountability" and more "Enforcement" Which means more tests for students (less time spent learning), less freedom for teachers to decide how best to educate their students, and stricter punishments for teachers who don't have the resources to bring some of their students scores up to grade level save by teaching to the test, which is a strategy that not only rarely works, but denies the students any useful education.</div><div><br /></div><div>I immediately ran to my bookshelf and dug out a few old textbooks, and rifled through the boxes in my closet to find some old essays from my education courses. Here's the thing, I never had to experience NCLB first hand, I graduated high school in 2002, a private high school so we didn't even have exit exams or star testing or whatever. My first contact with this program was studying it in education courses, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. Now I work with, and am friends with many educators, all of whom have nothing but venomous words to spit about NCLB and how it's hindering the education of their students. It's not just the assessments and accountability that pressure teachers into teaching to the test and forgoing their duties to actually educate their students, it's the idea that these standards are doing more to hinder the education of their students than to help.</div><div><br /></div><div>To make my point I'm going to lean heavily on a collection of essays both for and against standards, digest thirty pages into a few paragraphs and share them with you. The first of which is written by Deborah Meier titled "<a href="http://www.bostonreview.net/BR24.6/meier.html">Educating a Democracy.</a>" This one essay had a lot to do with forming my own ideas of education. Meier states that the educational crisis facing our country is not the crisis presented in "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Nation_at_Risk">A Nation at Risk</a>," it is not based in economics and can not be solved with higher test scores, and our actions to improve education by implementing and enforcing standards in education have only caused a rift to widen within society.<br /><blockquote>"An understanding of this other crisis begins by noting that we have the lowest voter turnout by far of any modern industrial country; we are exceptional for the absence of responsible care for our most vulnerable citizens (we spend less on child welfare–baby care, medical care, family leave–than almost every competitor); we don’t come close to our competitors in income equity; and our high rate of (and investment in) incarceration places us in a class by ourselves."<br /><br />"One important change has been in the nature of schooling. Our schools have grown too distant, too big, too standardized, too uniform, too divorced from their communities, too alienating of young from old and old from young."<br /><br />"In such settings it’s hard to teach young people how to be responsible to others, or to concern themselves with their community."<br /><br />"By shifting the locus of authority to outside bodies, it undermines the capacity of schools to instruct by example in the qualities of mind that schools in a democracy should be fostering in kids–responsibility for one’s own ideas, tolerance for the ideas of others, and a capacity to negotiate differences. "<br /><br />"Because of the disconnection between the public and its schools, the power to protect or support them now lies increasingly in the hands of public or private bodies that have no immediate stake in the daily life of the students."<br /><br />"We need to surround kids with adults who know and care for our children, who have opinions and are accustomed to expressing them publicly, and who know how to reach reasonable collective decisions in the face of disagreement. That means increasing local decision-making, and simultaneously decreasing the size and bureaucratic complexity of schools. Correspondingly, the worst thing we can do is to turn teachers and schools into the vehicles for implementing externally- imposed standards."<br /><br />"A democracy in which less than half its members see themselves as "making enough difference" to bother to vote in any election is surely endangered–far more endangered, at risk, than our economy. It’s for the loss of belief in the capacity to influence the world, not our economic ups and downs, that we educators should accept some responsibility. What I have learned from thirty years in small powerful schools is that it is here above all that schools can make a difference, that they can alter the odds."</blockquote>After six years of college there was one thing I learned that will be of more value to me in the real world than anything else; from calculus, stress (both personally and in structural geology) to composition of essays or symphonies, the one thing I learned that I value most was how to think critically and the ability to interact with and critique the society in which I live. It is this mindset, more than any skill that Meier is pushing, preparing and motivating students to go out into the real world and make a difference. Holding students and teachers accountable to scores on singular high stakes tests which don't go into any depth of studying a child's education beyond their ability to fill in bubbles has neither brought about a better America nor closed the achievement gap.<br /><blockquote>"Americans invented the modern, standardized, norm-referenced test. Our students have been taking more tests, more often, than any nation on the face of the earth, and schools and districts have been going public with test scores starting almost from the moment children enter school."<br /><br />"We have test data for almost every grade thereafter in reading and math, and to some degree in all other subjects. This has been the case for nearly half a century."<br /><br />"In short, we have been awash in accountability and standardization for a very long time. What we are missing is precisely the qualities that the last big wave of reform was intended to respond to: teachers, kids, and families who don’t know each other or each other’s work and don’t take responsibility for it. We are missing communities built around their own articulated and public standards and ready to show them off to others."</blockquote> Meier finishes by bringing to light the problem of trying to tackle the achievement gap between students of differing socioeconomic standing with standardized testing.<br /><blockquote>"We can’t beat the statistical advantage on the next round of tests that being advantaged has over being disadvantaged; we can, however, substantially affect the gap between rich and poor where it will count, in the long haul of life."</blockquote>In short, we can't begin to address the achievement gap that Sharpton and Klein are so worried about by enforcing more stringent standards and implementing more restrictions on the teachers of these kids. To tackle this problem, Educators need to be able to do their job and, prepare them for life outside of their classroom, to provide them with an education. I'm going to borrow the words of one of the President Elect's close personal domestic terrorist friends, <a href="http://bostonreview.net/BR24.6/ayers.html">William Ayers</a>:<br /><blockquote>"The purpose of education in a democracy is to break down barriers, to overcome obstacles, to open doors, minds, and possibilities. Education is empowering and enabling; it points to strength, to critical capacity, to thoughtfulness and expanding capabilities. It aims at something deeper and richer than simply imbibing and accepting existing codes and conventions, acceding to whatever is before us. The larger goal of education is to assist people in seeing the world through their own eyes, interpreting and analyzing through their own experiences and thinking, feeling themselves capable of representing, manifesting, or even, if they choose, transforming all that is before them. Education, then, is linked to freedom, to the ability to see and also to alter, to understand and also to reinvent, to know and also to change to world as we find it."</blockquote></div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-14005328860808555042009-01-03T12:54:00.000-08:002009-01-26T21:40:04.970-08:00Father of Nations<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/ReligionSymbolAbr.PNG/250px-ReligionSymbolAbr.PNG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 250px; height: 263px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/ReligionSymbolAbr.PNG/250px-ReligionSymbolAbr.PNG" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />8 days ago I hopped in my car to go climbing and turned on the radio. Not commuting every day for over a week had created a void in my schedule for news absorbance. NPR was running a story that Israel had opened the border with Gaza and was allowing aid to reach the country after over a month of it being closed to all traffic and embargoed by sea. It was an olive branch offered in "good faith" to the leaders of Hamas to renegotiate the ceasefire that had ended recently. I thought to myself: "Oh wow, that's cool they didn't just start killing each other." Apparently there had been rocket fire launched from the strip over the past few days, no Israeli casualties, just terror and property damage, in fact the only casualties at that point had been two palestinian girls caught when a rocket fell short of it's intended target.<div><br /></div><div>The next day I opened my browser to read: "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/world/middleeast/web28mideast.html">200 dead in Israeli air strikes</a>." We were told that <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Most</span> of these were Hamas militants. Most. A Majority. </div><div><br /></div><div>101.</div><div><br /></div><div>By Wednesday the death toll had doubled, 400 dead, not to mention the thousands wounded. And today, that border that was opened for the first time in months is now being <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/world/middleeast/04mideast.html?_r=1&hp">crossed by the Israeli military</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>To put this into context, Israel is about 150% the size of New Jersey, invading a state that is maybe twice the size of Washington D.C. This is similar to an eight year old blooding his 4 year old brother's nose for poking him repeatedly after he had told him to stop.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll be the first to say that I know nothing about living in a hostile environment, surrounded on all sides by people who are resentful of my existence, and refuse to recognize my very right to exist. But to me, the idea of "Israeli Deterrence" is thuggish and is no better than tactics used in gang warfare. "If you fuck with us, we'll fuck you up harder."</div><div><br /></div><div>Many ask: "Well, what would you have them do? These are terrorists who will not negotiate with Israel" I can't answer that, as they are following the example we have set, one that almost the entire world disagrees with in hindsight. (One of the dissenters to this opinion, of course being Israel where Bush approval ratings are still sky high).</div><div><br /></div><div>Israel has turned out to be the aggressor here, and it's easy to wag fingers at them. However, when confronted about the excessive violence on his part, the older sibling's response is almost always "But, but... he started it!" No one has the moral high ground here. Everyone is culpable, everyone is responsible for the ongoing violence, including the U.S. and U.N. This goes back 60 years and generations. There are many who would even trace this back to Ishmael and Isaac. </div><div><br /></div><div>Zionism, Terrorism, religious zealotry at it's best. I'm going to borrow from a debate I had a little while ago and lean on one of the brightest and most respected minds of the modern era, Albert Einstein.</div><blockquote>"As long as there are Men, there will be War." </blockquote>Human nature is rooted in tribalism, whether that's ethnic or religiously motivated, there will always be "the other," "the outsider." Religious fanaticism and Nationalism only serve to extend this further.<br /><br />It's not social darwinism, it's not divinely inspired, it's not the prevailing of the righteous or strong, it is simply human nature.<br /><br />What's simply hilarious (in the laugh-so-you-don't-cry sense) is that this conflict between Israel and Palestine, our "War on Terror" and in truth, some of the largest or cruelest of wars and atrocities of the past 1000 years have been committed by followers Abrahamic religions against each other.<br /><br />Holocaust. Inquisition. Jihad. Crusade. Committed all by greedy or malicious men hiding behind religion or more often, and with far more tragic results, hiding behind piety.<br /><br />What's worse? The "big three" all trace their lineages back to the same tribe.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-4521096698801389982008-11-20T23:10:00.001-08:002009-01-26T21:40:37.551-08:00I don't know how to play the cymbals correctly.I've just gone through and edited clips of video recorded from my last few rehearsals. I'm recording my conducting, it's necessary because I can't see how I look when I'm being me. Mirrors also don't work because the experience is so much different in front of a band. I'm pretty sure this isn't some illegal thing, I don't need waivers or anything since I capture any of my students, only their music. This is what I did all last year at DHS, and am continuing to do this year. I just figured I'd put a (short) segment up here as another installment of <a href="http://seuss-ex-machina.blogspot.com/2008/06/day-in-life-part-deux.html">A Day in the Life</a>. This life is free of busses and much more fun.<div><br /></div><div>We were working on getting the third trumpets to acknowledge a triplet rhythm in the first few measures, which they got. I give the evil eye to the percussionists for a while... but really, who doesn't?<br /><div><br /></div><div>Warning: I set up my laptop next to the Oboe stand. My bad. <br /></div><div><div><br /></div></div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxF-W9c0ajKkxtLjVL6eb16uxCXdK1ZlkLqZgw9vH-G63UTHPcPGR5hOnidhhPRjZ1TFX4l8JGTvIQV6qWHyQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-76119830094760826562008-11-11T11:23:00.000-08:002009-01-26T21:40:59.729-08:00Olbermann was wrong.<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>"Wha? John, say it ain't so." <div><br /></div><div>Ok, calm down and (re)watch his special comment from Monday and think about it.<div><br /></div><div><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/cVUecPhQPqY&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/cVUecPhQPqY&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Well, I'm not saying I disagree with him on any point he made, but for all his eloquence and vehemence, he missed the issue in favor of warm fuzzies.</div></div><div><br /></div>Sure, he made me feel all those warm fuzzies, and he made the religious right look hypocritical and anything but Christlike, but this issue, marriage, is not about love.<br /><br />There is no need for love to be legitimized by any institution -church or state- only by those involved.<br /><br />Marriage, the marriage the homosexual community is fighting for, is marriage as a legal right. The "Gay agenda" is not about getting their unions recognized by any religious institution, this is not about love or God, or dissolving the sanctity of a sacrament. This issue is about property, it's about kinship, it's about custody, insurance, taxes. Marriage in this instance is something created (appropriated) and recognized by the state, and is excluding a group people from sharing these rights based on a specific yet arbitrary characteristic. <div><br /></div><div>This issue is about our government's failure in enforcing separation of church and state, and now it's gone further - a proposition passed with a simple majority with the intent to modify the state constitution to exclude a certain class of people from equal recognition under the law on very real issues (property, kinship, custody... etc.).</div><div><br /></div><div>When James Madison <a href="http://www.jmu.edu/madison/center/main_pages/madison_archives/constit_confed/rights/jmproposal/jmspeech.htm">introduced the amendments to the constitution</a> that would become the bill of rights, he made specific mention of this problem.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>"But I confess that I do conceive, that in a government modified like this of the United States, the great danger lies rather in the abuse of the community than in the legislative body. The prescriptions in favor of liberty, ought to be levelled against that quarter where the greatest danger lies, namely, that which possesses the highest prerogative of power: But this [is] not found in either the executive or legislative departments of government, but in the body of the people, operating by the majority against the minority."</blockquote>I hear all the time about how the State Supreme Court overturned the "Will of the People" but the court's job is to use the constitution to serve as a watchdog against abuses of any and all in power, be they by the executive or legislative branches of government, or by the majority of the people. This is one such instance where we have witnessed the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority">tyranny of the majority</a>" and when their initiative was overturned by the courts, they moved to change the state constitution to make their discrimination legal. It takes a supermajority of the legislature to make any changes to the constitution, but only a simple majority to use the constitution to deny the legal rights that only come with marriage to a class of citizens. That's 50% plus 1 vote.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The ACLU in northern California has since <a href="http://www.aclunc.org/news/press_releases/asset_upload_file824_7748.pdf">filed suit</a> with the State Supreme Court, basing their claims that Proposition 8: </div><blockquote>"...makes far reaching changes to the nature of our governmental plan by compromising the core constitutional principle of equal protection laws, depriving a vulnerable minority of fundamental rights, inscribing discrimination based on a suspect classification into the Constitution and destroying the courts' quintessential power and role of protection minorities and enforcing the guarantee of equal protection under the law."</blockquote>Olbermann was wrong. This is not about permanence, or happiness, or legitimacy of love, it's about the legitimacy of a certain group of people as citizens of our government, legitimizing the homosexual community as a minority worthy of the same protections under our constitution as any other. Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-54538073592693819002008-10-31T09:15:00.000-07:002008-10-31T16:34:10.054-07:00"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...."A friend of mine, after six years of school and obtaining degrees in music and engineering, is now pursuing a graduate degree in theology at Berkeley. He raised a discussion on Proposition 8 citing all sorts of things regarding the family as a sociological construct and raising questions about the various arguments for and against gay marriage. I wanted to share my response to his ideas, because it seems I've had this conversation all too often in the past month or so:<div><br /></div>The issue here on proposition 8 is not a sociological or theological one. It's not about unions and procreation or family integrity with only one type of parent. Proposition 8 brings to light a serious issue of civil liberties guaranteed in the U.S. constitution.<div><br />What's happened to spawn this issue is our government has failed us at both the state an federal level. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause_of_the_First_Amendment">establishment clause</a> in the first amendment guarantees freedom of religion by all citizens by enforcing freedom from a state religion. Because our culture is one of monogamy, the state has appropriated the term "marriage" from religion for the civil and legally binding contracts into which people enter, and this is a big problem.<br /><br />When Christians thump their bibles and decry "gay rights" citing the "sanctity of marriage" they are confusing the sacrament and the secular contract. These are two very different things.<br /><br />The state supreme court found that a ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional, based on our state constitution. The very idea of denying a significant minority basic civil rights based on a single quality that separates them from other was found to be what is is: legislating bigotry.<br /><br />Propositions allow initiatives to bypass the legislature and go straight to voters, and basically what's going on is a special interest doesn't like the rules and is trying to change the game.<br /><br />The proposition that should be on the ballot is one that would remove the term "marriage" from our state laws and tax system, replacing it with "civil union," as that is what it is, a contract. We should be leaving the sacrament of marriage to the churches, and if they would rather discriminate based on sexual orientation, (a very Christlike behavior, I might add) that's their prerogative.<br /><br />The state does not enjoy such a luxury.<br /><br />Besides, on the issue of procreation: homosexual unions are pro life. Think about it. The pope should reach deep into that hat of his and pull out some good old fashioned pragmatism.</div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-51549151766847765322008-10-27T16:23:00.000-07:002008-10-27T17:35:07.897-07:00Red Scare 2.0<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 1px; height: 1px;" src="http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 1px; height: 1px;" src="http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a>Just hit play on the video and scroll down to read.<br /><div><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OhjCVrz-uVI&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OhjCVrz-uVI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><div><br /></div><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/151/425636799_d3d3e7b80e.jpg?v=0" border="0" alt="" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 351px; height: 500px; " /><div>It seems that Senator McCain is continuing with his line of attacks that Senator Obama is a socialist. The Joe the Plumber fad is fading and the McCain camp is coiling back up, slithering through the neoconservative base and searching for anything that sits in line with their message to throw at his opponent. I could deal with Obama being an Elitist, a Muslim, a Sex Peddler, a Terrorist... but throwing around the term <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Socialist</span> is bothersome.<br /></div><div><div><div><br /></div><div>It just brings out the feeling that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism">Neoconservatives</a> that rule the right really do wish for the 1940's and '50s to return and remain in perpetuity. Think about it.</div><div><br /></div><div>With Palin stumping about The <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Real</span> America being <span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: line-through;">the average</span> the<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> idealized</span> Small Town America, something straight out of Maybury. Not to mention the fact that we have people lobbying to suppress the civil rights of a significant minority of the country, and trying to legislate christian values into our constitution.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Take a look into the <a href="http://www.newamericancentury.org/">Project for a New American Century</a> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century">wikipedia</a>)- the Neoconservative think tank that dreamt of World Dominance of the U.S. as an unchecked superpower. We've had our second Pearl Harbor in 9/11 - in "Global Terror" we have a new menace on the equal of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. With the Patriot Act, we have the beginnings of a new McCarthyism, and now in the race to succeed the administration that put all of this into effect, we have one candidate <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/11/03/081103taco_talk_hertzberg">calling the other a Socialist</a>, hoping the word holds enough of its former power to stir enough fear in the voting masses.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is not progress, but regression to an era where the citizens of the U.S. lived in fear daily. The Cold War is over, it's time to move on.</div></div></div></div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-40915999268279316042008-10-23T00:03:00.000-07:002008-10-27T20:26:47.159-07:00Propositions and ControversyI haven't posted in a while, and it's really a tragedy because after the election, I'm going to have to look much harder to find stuff to write about. But, here's something to tide you over for a while. It turns out one of the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/LiberalViewer">channels</a> I subscribe to on youtube is to a fellow who at least works in the sacramento area. The video is titled "Is gay marriage a two sided issue?"<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/RDgRUEitC58&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/RDgRUEitC58&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />What bothers me most is that this much attention is given to religious affiliation regarding a ballot measure, the focus of the news segment was on the PASTORS and their opinions.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-83707965017414601042008-10-09T09:42:00.000-07:002008-10-09T15:15:27.752-07:00Red Scare.I've been lazy. I'm behind in my posting, and I'm a bit behind the times with this topic.<div><br /></div><div>Over the past couple months, I've heard people toss around the accusations that Obama is guilty of trying to incite <a href="http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/obamas-class-warfare.html">class warfare</a>. This, combined with anything that requires social responsibility labeled as "Communist" or "Socialist" is meant to scare people out of left leaning ideas. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm sorry, but what? Take a second and look at what's going on in the political scene right now. You have two parties, one made up of mainly middle class, with the majority of the party base being liberal, college educated adults. The second party consists of two very disparate groups, the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_class">working class</a>" who pride themselves as "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_right">values voters</a>" and the rich who want to remain rich and not waste their money on social programs. I had originally intended to contrast the first group with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_conservatives#Fiscal_conservatism">fiscal conservatives</a>, but it seems we're fresh out, seeing as our government has run our <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/10/09/sign-of-the-times-2/">debt clock</a> up to $10 trillion.</div><div><br /></div><div><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/godssdd250.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div><div>Wow, I'm not biased at all. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Then again, we've always had some disjunct in America - the terms blue collar and white collar go back quite a ways. The accusations of Obama trying to incite class warfare by pitting the lower and middle classes against the rich are made out of the fear that the richest maybe 5% of Americans won't benefit form outrageous tax cuts any longer.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>My question is who orchestrated the giant schism between the middle and working classes?</div><div><br /></div><div>Since when in this modern age has a college education made you an elitist? How did we arrive at the term "Elite Media?" and how does that exclude Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp and FOX news? How does the Republican Party survive an economic crisis when it is composed of two fundamentally different economic groups, and spouts economic policies that benefit the smaller at great cost to the larger?</div><div><br /></div><div>Maybe I read too much Marx or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Gramsci">Gramsci</a> in college, but it seems like evidence of manipulation by a ruling class. Whenever something comes up that benefits the majority of Americans, like socialized healthcare, or higher taxes (less tax breaks for the wealthy) to fund social programs, it's labeled as wealth redistribution and slapped with a title we're conditioned to fear: Socialism. (about 1:20 in the video)<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/itEucdhf4Us&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/itEucdhf4Us&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></div><div><br /></div><div>It seems Americans have a high tolerance for income disparity, preferring <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepotism">equality in opportunity</a></span> versus <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_of_outcome">equality in outcome</a> like they have in Europe.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've been doing some reading on economics to try and understand more of what's been going on. Generally, I've gotten by by listening to Roy go on and on while we climb and try and pick things up from NPR, but I recently found <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Reich">Robert Reich's</a> blog and I'm going to lift something straight for that. The post is titled <a href="http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/03/are-we-heading-for-another-great.html">Are we headed for another Great Depression?</a></div><div><blockquote>Probably not. But go back 75 years and you'll find eerie similarities. Marriner S. Eccles who served as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Chairman of the Federal Reserve from November, 1934 to February, 1948 gave his view of what caused the Depression in his memoirs, "Beckoning Frontiers" (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1951):</blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption, mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth -- not of existing wealth, but of wealth as it is currently produced -- to provide men with buying power equal to the amount of goods and services offered by the nation s economic machinery. Instead of achieving that kind of distribution, a giant suction pump had by 1929-30 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. This served them as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied to themselves the kind of effective demand for their products that would justify a reinvestment of their capital accumulations in new plants. In consequence, as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.<br /><br />That is what happened to us in the twenties. We sustained high levels of employment in that period with the aid of an exceptional expansion of debt outside of the banking system. This debt was provided by the large growth of business savings as well as savings by individuals, particularly in the upper-income groups where taxes were relatively low. Private debt outside of the banking system increased about fifty per cent. This debt, which was at high interest rates, largely took the form of mortgage debt on housing, office, and hotel structures, consumer installment debt, brokers' loans, and foreign debt. The stimulation to spending by debt-creation of this sort was short-lived and could not be counted on to sustain high levels of employment for long periods of time. Had there been a better distribution of the current income from the national product -- in other words, had there been less savings by business and the higher-income groups and more income in the lower groups -- we should have had far greater stability in our economy. Had the six billion dollars, for instance, that were loaned by corporations and wealthy individuals for stock-market speculation been distributed to the public as lower prices or higher wages and with less profits to the corporations and the well-to-do, it would have prevented or greatly moderated the economic collapse that began at the end of 1929.<br /><br />The time came when there were no more poker chips to be loaned on credit. Debtors thereupon were forced to curtail their consumption in an effort to create a margin that could be applied to the reduction of outstanding debts. This naturally reduced the demand for goods of all kinds and brought on what seemed to be overproduction, but was in reality underconsumption when judged in terms of the real world instead of the money world. This, in turn, brought about a fall in prices and employment.<br /><br />Unemployment further decreased the consumption of goods, which further increased unemployment, thus closing the circle in a continuing decline of prices. Earnings began to disappear, requiring economies of all kinds in the wages, salaries, and time of those employed. And thus again the vicious circle of deflation was closed until one third of the entire working population was unemployed, with our national income reduced by fifty per cent, and with the aggregate debt burden greater than ever before, not in dollars, but measured by current values and income that represented the ability to pay. Fixed charges, such as taxes, railroad and other utility rates, insurance and interest charges, clung close to the 1929 level and required such a portion of the national income to meet them that the amount left for consumption of goods was not sufficient to support the population.<br /><br />This then, was my reading of what brought on the depression.</span></blockquote></div><div>Those in power should look at history much more closely, or at least pay some people to do it for them, it'd be good for the economy.</div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-2030686146383869102008-10-06T12:43:00.001-07:002008-10-06T13:13:06.264-07:00The Alpine WordsmithTwo weekends past, I made my sixth ascent up Pyramid Peak. It was an overnight backpacking trip with Mike and Mark, Roy and the Canns. <a href="http://www.troop-1.com/PoemsJohnAllenCann.htm">John Allen Cann</a> is Cody's "Poet Laureate" and I don't think I have to explain why. He wrote several poems on the way up, stopping to catch his breath and pulling out his notebook to sketch things down.<div><br /></div><div>He sent me a poem titled "In the Aftermath of the Mountain." I couldn't resist sharing it with everyone.</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family:Arial;font-size:13px;"><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:8pt;"> </span></p><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://photos.l3.facebook.com/photos-l3-sf2p/v111/119/54/3225351/n3225351_35019858_9299.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">What climbing</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">the tallest mountain around</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;"><span><span> </span>means</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">only comes clear</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">after the soreness fades</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">and you’ve resumed</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">your participation</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;"><span> </span><span> </span>in the workaday world---</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">You forget somewhat</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">the grueling feat</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">of staring at your boots</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">& trudging</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;"><span> </span><span> </span>grudgingly</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><b><i><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">one step</span></i></b></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><b><i><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">after another</span></i></b><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">---</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">the pack on your back</span></p><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=942da2a48f&view=att&th=11cb1002458078cd&attid=0.1.22&disp=emb" border="0" alt="" /><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">growing </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">inconsolably heavy</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;"><span> </span><span> </span>since no peak</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">in this part of the universe</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">is yours unless you sleep on it</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">gazing at the stars</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">sequestered from the wind</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;"><span> </span><span> </span>in a rockrimmed foxhole</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">so the slow dawnfire</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">can alchemize your memory forever.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;"></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">All the grimaces</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">borne of the severe steepness</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;"><span> </span><span> </span>going up</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">followed by the harsh descent</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">of the last measure</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">on wobbly legs </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">relax</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;"><span> </span>into an interior smile</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">doubtless shared</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">by those who fellowed you on the climb.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 55px;"><br /></span></p><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=942da2a48f&view=att&th=11cb1002458078cd&attid=0.1.12&disp=emb" border="0" alt="" /><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 55px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; "></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">A mountain matters</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">most in the mind</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;"><span> </span><span> </span>only after the body</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">has been sacrificed</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="line-height: 115%; font-size:12pt;">to its beautiful demands.</span></p><p></p></span></div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-81124277854024473672008-10-06T11:10:00.000-07:002008-10-06T11:14:26.822-07:00Playing ball.As a lobotomized member of the cult of Obama, I am doing my duty to post and spread this propaganda in a smear campaign against Senator McCain. Unfortunately the guilt by association isn't as strong as the wrong doing of his own actions in this one, but you know, we've got a long ways to go before we can catch up with the McCain Campaign and conjuring lies and smears out of thin air .<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/g72BuIvMbWY&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/g72BuIvMbWY&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-53556157203976747462008-10-01T21:13:00.000-07:002008-10-02T01:26:11.040-07:00Veep.The VP debates are tomorrow. I've discovered something that I wanted to share, something from the VP debates of 1992, before Al Gore said "Let there be internet!"<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/z5Jbmaq4YHA&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/z5Jbmaq4YHA&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><blockquote>"Harry Truman, it’s worth remembering, assumed the presidency when Franklin Roosevelt died here in Georgia--only one of many occasions when fate thrust a vice-president into the Oval Office in a time of crisis. It’s something to think about during the debate this evening. But our real discussion is going to be about change. Bill Clinton and I stand for change because we don’t believe our nation can stand four more years of what we’ve had under George Bush and Dan Quayle. When the recession came, they were like a deer caught in the headlights, paralysed into inaction, blinded to the suffering and pain of bankruptcies and people who are unemployed. We have an environmental crisis, a health-insurance crisis, substandard education. It is time for a change."</blockquote><br />Senator Gore's remarks are rather familiar, aren't they? It seems that the only way to get a Bush out of office is to campaign on a platform of change. It's funny because Quayles remarks and warnings about a Clinton presidency are the same things the McCain camp is saying.<br /><br />The Truman/Kennedy business struck me as odd, so I found out what they were referencing.<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/R_85K_ayRIU&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/R_85K_ayRIU&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />He may not be Jack Kennedy, but try that comparison on Palin. Quayle is looking like a champ these days.<br /><br />I was 5 years old in 1988. That was 5 election cycles ago. Those debates in '92? I was in third grade. It's important to realize how much of history will repeat itself if we're not careful.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-16566846983948372002008-10-01T00:46:00.000-07:002008-10-01T00:47:23.029-07:00Free Market BluesThis was too brilliant to pass up.<br /><br /><embed name="comedy_central_player" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" align="middle" src="http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/video_player/view/default/swf.jhtml" width="332" height="316" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars="videoId=186456" quality="high" bgcolor="#cccccc" allowscriptaccess="always" allownetworking="external"></embed>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-7444156957340484262008-09-23T22:09:00.001-07:002008-09-23T22:22:48.561-07:00The End of Days.So, it's no news that Palin belongs to an apocalyptic church, Alaska's going to be a last refuge for people during the end of days and whatnot, and that's going to happen in our lifetime so why worry about global warming, or anything else for that matter. Ok. She's a nutjob.<br /><br />But.<br /><br />But it's been brought to my attention the end of days, at least for our nation may be closer than we thing. Article was published in the Washington Times today about constitutional scholars speculating on an <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn9280">electoral college doomsday</a>, a tie at 269-269.<br /><br />In a system even more unrepresentative than the electoral college, the president would be decided by the House (Democratically domintated, thankfully) each state only getting one vote , and the VP selected by the senate.<br /><br />A deadlocked senate, if Li'l Joe sides with his friends in selecting Palin, and the current VP, Cheney breaks the tie, we immediately get Palin for VP.<br /><br />So that's an Obama-Palin presidency. There have been a few speculations that the house might be dragged into a bitter fight, with Democrats serving in states that voted for McCain having crises of conscience (though I don't know how).<br /><br />With the debate drawn out, we could have Palin serving as our acting president with McCain still breathing somewhere out in Arizona.<br /><br />With the country so bitterly divided in this mess, it's only a matter of time before this ignites into something worse, and we watch our nation sink into oblivion.<br /><br />If given a choice, I'd prefer Hawaii as my refuge state.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3605071782793420196.post-85900351348819382642008-09-23T11:19:00.000-07:002008-09-23T11:33:15.943-07:00The choices we make and prices we must pay.The joke gets old 30 seconds into the clip, but don't let that stop you.<br /><br /><object height="390" width="460"><param name="movie" value="http://media.imeem.com/pl/CPnf0BSsca/aus=false/pv=2/"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://media.imeem.com/pl/CPnf0BSsca/aus=false/pv=2/" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="460" height="390" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object><br /><br />I'm waiting to hear on a few jobs, including my old position at Davis High School. Working with a band again would allow me to work with Dr. Halseth (director of bands at CSUS) and gain the benefit of his experience and master's program without the pesky requirement of 5 years conducting experience to work with his own bands.<br /><br />So, yeah. Right now I have 5 and a half hours of class a week. Plus lessons, a few rehearsals and a good 10 or so hours of practice. I'm used to somewhere around 15-20 hours of class and 20-30 hours of work. Without too much to do, I decided to write more and now I've gotten caught up in writing a novel. 50,000 words is my goal for a first draft to be done in 10 weeks. Nothing fancy, no delusions, just something to feel productive and keep myself entertained. I hit 7500 words in my first week, not a bad start, but I'm slowing down. This draft is for concept - content and style will be focused on in later drafts.<br /><br />That doesn't stop my brother or my friends from making the above reference though.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574932391231863909noreply@blogger.com1