Haiku Rd.: News on being in the news

So it's happened, folks! Haiku Rd. is featured today in the Arizona Republic's weekly entertainment magazine, the Rep. So go buy a copy or three, or read the story here!

personal: Heavy sigh

Well. Here I am.

Paperwork's all done for my master's degree, so all I can do there is wait. I don't know what's happening to sweeten my job, so all I can do is wait. I have a few Christmas presents to buy, but mostly I'm done and just waiting for the holiday. They announced the new Harry Potter book yesterday and I preordered it from Canada, but all I can do is wait. I'm getting a big paycheck next week, with tuition reimbursement and my first overtime pay since starting school in August, but for now I'm broke so all I can do is wait. I have various other little things to take care of, but no one's really around during the holidays, so all I can do with them is wait.

So why do I still feel constantly stressed out?

Stuff never stops. I've been busy every day and night since school ended, what with parties, rehearsals, photo sessions, shopping, etc., etc., etc., and I'd really like to be able to stop and take a breath.

But tomorrow begins a four-day weekend for me, with only Christmas-related family stuff on Friday evening and Saturday and demo recording sessions for the band on Monday planned. So maybe I'll finally get a few moments of relaxation in. I've been extraordinarily testy this week, so I really hope I do.

All I can do is wait.

personal: School's out for winter

This entry goes into the 'Yay-Me!' file ...

Saturday morning I participated in the University of Arizona's commencement! Yay me!

Former governor Raul Castro (not this Raul Castro, nor this one) received an honorary doctorate of laws, and our guest speaker was Raul Grijalva, who delivered a fantastic speech and who I wish was my US representative rather than this joker. But anyway, if wishes were fishes ...

Resplendent in my black robe and red, white and blue hood, I experienced some nostalgia and sense of accomplishment looking upon the poor bachelor's degree candidates and also some envy looking at the people getting their doctorates. There's something about the sound of 'Doctor Devine' that I find appealing. Maybe someday ...

But the upshot is that after the past two years of struggle, sacrifice and stress, it's done.

You may now call me Master Chris.

politics/social issues: A late reply

In July, Mason and I wrote this letter to our US representative, John Shadegg (R). For awhile, I think we were annoyed that we didn't get a response. Now, though, we have, and I think I would've preferred being ignored. I reproduce it below:

December 16, 2004


Mr. Mason Hite
xxxx North xxth Street, Apartment xx
Phoenix, AZ xxxxx

Dear Mr. Hite:

Thank you for contacting me in support of H.R. 3313, the Marriage Protection Act. I appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns and apologize for the delay in my reply.

You will be pleased to know that I voted in favor of H.R. 3313 on July 22, 2004. While the bill passed the House by a 233-194 margin, unfortunately, the Senate did not take action.

Protecting the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman is essential to society, and I will support all legislation to guard this fundamental right. It is my hope that we will address this vital
subject again when the 109th Congress convenes.

Thank you for contacting me regarding this issue. Please continue to express your views regarding this or any other issue that concerns you in the future.


John Shadegg
Congressman
Arizona 3rd District
U.S. House of Representatives

I'm trying to determine if this is a deliberate slap in the face or simply a mindless form letter. Either way, this man needs to come home and quit trying to destroy my country.

And he needs to apologize for this blatant lack of respect for his constituents. Good lord, I'm torqued off.

social issues: Spam ... precious, tasty spam from the American Family Association

Once upon a time I went in search of the Memory Hole because they had a five-minute minute video showing Shrubby sitting in that Florida classroom, getting the news and sitting like a drooling idiot while desperate people were leaping to their deaths at the World Trade Center.

I'm not sure if it was there that I had to enter an e-mail address to sort of register, or if it was another Memory Hole (apparently it's a popular name for Web sites), but most of the time when I register for such sites, I make up an e-mail address at my domain so that I can track if my e-mail address is being sold for spam. Thus far, memoryhole@domain is just about the only of these e-mail addresses that has turned up spam. And I find it hard to believe it came from thememoryhole.org because of whose e-mail list I seem to be on now ... The American Family Association. Truly precious.

Apparently they're boycotting Procter & Gamble now. I'm sure they're quaking in their boots. While I'm no great fan of the multinational mega-corp in general, P&G definitely earns my sympathy for a number of reasons. First, it took them decades to shake off the baseless and silly rumors that they were satanists. And second, as Rev. Wildmon's hate group likes to point out, they're one of the most gay-friendly employers out there.

I'm still perplexed as to how it is that treating your gay and lesbian employees amounts to "promotion of the homosexual agenda," but I guess I have this unreasonable aversion to 'slippery slope' arguments. It must be my innate rationality.

And I have yet to find out what the homosexual agenda is, but I must just not have gotten the Outlook appointment notices, so ... my bad, I guess, I dunno.

But when you ask them what our agenda is, they come back with some of the most absurd things, like forcing public elementary schools to teach the mechanics of gay sex to young children, and 'recruiting' of pubescent teens. This recruiting thing is particularly galling, because they seem convinced that gay people have to have been 'enlisted' to the 'lifestyle' or something. But I can say with certainty that there's no straight person I've ever met who would turn gay, no matter what the inducement. Performing a homosexual act or two, sure, probably, but completely changing their sexual identity? The whole idea that gay people could just naturally be that way causes their entire case to crumble like a house on a bad foundation.

So here you go, folks. Like Andrew Tobias, I was never recruited. I didn't come from a broken home. I was never molested. I've never been involved in drugs. And yet I'm gay. Go figure.

Then there's the marriage thing, which inevitably turns into an assertion that the homosexual agenda involves bestiality and plural marriages. More of that slippery slope thing.

I have compassion for these people, really I do. I've felt my foundations shift more than once, and I know the discomfort and outright panic that can come when the rules change and you just want things to stay the way they are. And even when they lash out in nasty and unpleasant ways, I wish them peace and wholeness. I just wish they'd stay out of my bedroom.

Haiku Rd.: Information! Get your information here!

So I've been operating the Devine Celtic Sounds message board for a number of months and no one has signed up for it or posted anything. At the same time, Haiku Rd. is finding itself with an expanding number of gigs and the prospect of imminent good publicity.

These two things coupled together have led me to repurpose the message board and slim it down a little. Result: the Haiku Rd. & Devine Celtic Sounds Message Board. While I'll still post relevant and interesting Celtic music stuff there, the main focus now is Haiku Rd. news and information, including a gig & events calendar (if it doesn't show up when you first visit, find the 'calendar' link near the top right and it'll drop down.

C'mon, people. Get talking! And come see us.

politics: God damn your souls to hell

For some reason, this story has made me more viscerally angry than anything I've heard in at least a year.

C'mon, conservative, family-values, support-the-troops nitwits, defend this one. I dare you.

Burn in hell, motherfuckers. Burn in hell.

politics: New gloatmail from the RNC

(meta-note: I'm going to start prefacing the subject lines of my posts with general categories for ease of reading. If it's something you're not interested in, you'll be able to tell quickly and move on to something else. Likely categories, at least to start with: Politics, personal, Haiku Rd. and music)

I still get e-mail from the Bush campaign from time to time, and I generally take them with a grain of salt and haven't commented much lately. Something in today's bears comment, though ... the first sentence:

"Our nation united behind President Bush on Election Day because of his resolve in winning the War on Terror, his record of growing our economy and because he was the first President in recent history to campaign for a second term with a clear vision for the future."

OK, so let's see. First off, Ed, buddy, 'Our nation united behind Dumbass ...'?

Check the election returns. They are not indicative of a nation united, even if you believe the votes were counted accurately. It was an embarrassingly slim margin by any account, and demonstrated that our nation at present is anything but united.

Further, in my opinion BushCo has no interest whatsoever in winning the WoT(tm) because fear is a tremendous mechanism for control, and because they do next to nothing to go after the terrorists where they actually are, or to work to change the environment in the Middle East and the view of the US in that region and around the world that give rise to violent extremism. They relish perpetual war because it is profitable and because it helps them maintain control.

And then ... 'he was the first President in recent history to campaign for a second term with a clear vision for the future.' I suppose it depends on how you define recent history. If you go back to the president before him, for instance, well, I seem to remember Clinton's 'Bridge to the Future' thing and a really very clear idea of what he wanted to do with his second term for America. Agree or not, he did have a clear plan. And it did a lot of people a lot of good.

As for Bush, I really have little idea what the future looks like to him, and the parts I do see scare me, frankly. Perpetual war, an economy decimated by deficits, no oversight of the environment, food or drugs, no checks on corporate control of the media and government, perpetual war and death to the point where no Americans will be able to travel beyond the borders of their own country, surveillance and curbs on civil liberties, realignment of American society and laws to conform with fundamentalist Christian dogma and more.

Come to think of it, I DO have a good idea what the future looks like to Bush. And it's good for almost no one except the corporate oligarchs.

No wonder he likes Putin so much.

Every day, I wonder more whether I should pack up and drive north ...

Canada: What America could be. Ain't it funny that they run their country according to principles the right wing shrilly proclaims would lead to fiery ruin, and yet they seem to be reasonably OK.

From XE.com's Universal Currency Converter:1.00 CAD=0.816123 USD. Seems not so long ago they were in danger of dipping under $.70 per Canadian dollar. I'm just waiting for all the jokes about Canadian money to get turned around and fired our way.

Haiku Rd. gig update/alert

No show this Saturday! Paisley Violin apparently inadvertently double-booked, so we're searching for another weekend night, likely early in January, that's free. More as it develops, but don't go to the Paisley this Saturday expecting to see us!

Instead, please come to Willow House next Wednesday night! The more the better. C'mon, you know you want to! Bring money for beverages and sandwiches and tips, and bring extra cash if you'd like a CD.

Or just come and watch. Either way.

An Air America 'Yay!'

Heard and read this morning: Al Franken's sticking around for at least another two years (his original contract was only for the first year), and possibly a third.

Not only that, Randi Rhodes is apparently sticking around for another three years! Color me tickled.

Oh yes, oops, I forgot, this is the failed Air America Radio network the right wing likes to make fun of.

Now I wish I could find a way for KXXT 1010 to play Unfiltered without killing Charles Goyette's show. I'm kind of starting to enjoy him (it's nice, and rare, here to have a liberal take on local stuff), but for some reason my Internet stream (which I use to, functionally, listen to two things at once by buffering Unfiltered till later, and skip over commercials to catch up with the live broadcast) meets with disaster every morning, and I just can't have a good day without my Unfiltered News!

Adsense follies

What's with all the Jesus ads today? Sheesh!

Professional crossroads

Yeah, so I'm 33 years old. I've been in the job world off an on since I was 16 years old. To this day, the only jobs I've had with any level of responsibility were my 2-year stint as a Coast Guard public affairs specialist and 6 months at a Bay Area PR firm. Everything else has been more or less entry-level.

Enough already.

I don't know what's happening here where I am, but I am sick to f**king death of being essentially a glorified secretary. Yes, my job description changed and I got a puny raise (when I changed from being an assistant to an HR tech and went up several paygrades, my pay went up a whole $1.21 an hour), but I still sit in the same desk and perform the same menial clerical and concierge tasks, in addition to actual, real, intellectual work.

Day by day, as my graduation an impending masterhood approach, I get less and less satisfied with this state of affairs. If things don't change in January, I'll be a secretary with a master's degree, which strikes me as incredibly pathetic.

The news coming from my boss is somewhere between nonexistent and not good. Despite the fact that my employer is currently experiencing a torrential green river of cash inflow, the increase in our department's budget next year is very small, and it's this increase in budget that's supposed to fund a change in position for me. And they won't let my dept. hire a replacement assistant, meaning that in all likelihood, even if they doubled my salary and set a golden crown on my head, I'd still end up sitting here playing receptionist, which is REALLY hard to do when I'm trying to focus on other more complex tasks.

But I hate job hunting. I like my employer. And none of our hospitals have openings for librarians right now.

It's insanely frustrating, but I'm going to have to make a decision soon, and I have no idea what (if anything) is planned for me here. Do I trust my boss, who truly has my best interests at heart but isn't the ultimate authority on what can be done with me? Do I quit and look for another job? Do I just suck it up and count on Haiku Rd. to be my outlet for personal fulfillment?

Sorry, just needed to vent.

Haiku Rd. Update

Well, I must say that in spite of the busy-ness of my schedule lately and my best efforts at self-sabotage, Haiku Rd. seems to be taking off ... slowly, certainly, and without much income, but taking off nonetheless.

For your edification, here's the cover of our 'demo' CD, the images on which are derived from the Ministry of Peace ... errrr, Dept. of Homeland Security, as filtered through a less-funny e-mail take on them made better in this blog entry of Richard's.



The CD contains tracks from Hadrian's Wall's Haiku Rd. album, with a few of Richard's solo demos and a track by our new bassist/multi-instrumentalist, Erik.

For your reference, if you're in or can get to Phoenix in the next few weeks, here are our scheduled gigs:

• Dec. 11, 8:30-11:30 p.m. Paisley Violin, 2nd St. & Roosevelt in downtown Phoenix. note: This is a change to what I may have previously reported by word of mouth.
  
• Dec. 15, 9 p.m.-midnight. Willow House, 3rd Ave. & McDowell in downtown Phoenix. I may be late for this one, in which case Richard and Erik may start things off.
  

We're working to add others to the schedule, and we'll be able to start work on a real Web site for the band which will include calendar information, but for now, this is it. http://www.in-the-wall.com contains information about Hadrian's Wall, but only a bare mention of Haiku Rd.

Please come to our shows for fun, frivolity and songs about suicide (no, really, we have a funny Christmas suicide song), all rolled in with our other songs and our trademark lame jokes and mildly amusing on-stage patter. Oh, and bring $8.00 (better yet, bring $10 so you can tip us a couple of bucks; in most cases we're either not getting paid or ain't getting paid much) for one of our lovely CDs! Hadrian's Wall's Haiku Rd. has been out of print for years, so for the forseeable future this is the only way to get the best tracks from it in digital form if you don't already have them.

Thanks, closed-minded corporate bigots!

After seeing the way things have played out this week, I just want to thank NBC, CBS, UPN and every other broadcaster or network who turned down the United Church of Christ commercial.

I've never heard more publicity for the church that helped shape me as a child, and it makes me proud :^).

You've all shown yourselves to be conservative (in the purest sense) asses, senseless little monkeys throwing feces at one another. But your very ridiculousness has, in the end, done more good than simply running the commercials could ever have done. Now everyone has seen them. Now everyone wonders what this denomination is about, that is open, accepting and affirming.

Well done, bean-counting cigar chompers.

Feel free to send nastygrams to CBS and NBC, preferably via post, in large quantities

(Thank you, kniwt)

The United Church of Christ apparently has a new ad campaign to highlight their 'open and affirming' attitude. Watch the ad that's too hot for the networks to handle! Scandalous! Call the FCC!

Apparently, though, some people think it is controversial to follow Jesus' example.

There must have been an orgy scene in this that I missed. Or something.

Well, at least I'm a winner ...

in the Master of Arts in Information Resources and Library Science department.