Marriage for One and All

Everyone be quiet for just a second.  Shhhh....shhhh....you hear that?  That very distant, stifled crying.  You hear that, right?  That's the sound of 'traditional marriage' supporters huddled in their bigotry bunkers.  The Supreme Court today (26 June 2015 [mark it in your calendars]) legalized same sex marriage throughout the country.  This is a monumental event in the history of our country and within the LGBT community.  

No longer will a couple have to travel to another state to marry their partner.  No longer will a civil union be good enough.  No longer will a same sex couple have to introduce their partner as their partner.  They can introduce them as their husband or wife.  

Let's not pretend that this will magically solve everything.  Of course there are still hateful, sad, unsatisfied in their own life so they have to act out against others, people that think that this moment in our history is just the worst thing in the world.  Of course the LGBT community will face ridicule because it's 'not normal' (even though it is).  And of course the sad scared little politicians will try their best to find loopholes. 

I don't want to end on a negative note like that, so let's all take a moment to celebrate this. If you are part of the LGBT community or if you are an ally.  Take a moment to remember this day.  Surely we all have friends or family or both that this directly impacts.  Celebrate today.  For today and forever more, marriage is for one and all.  Regardless of who you love.  

Celebrate.  

Comfort Music

For all the music that I have been finding, whether it is new bands of a genre I have appreciated for a long time or a new genre all together, it is always nice to go back to something that is solidly in your brain.  It's kind of like comfort food, but it's comfort music.  I grew up listening to quite a bit of country music and top 40 pop music because that is what we had in my hometown as far as radio stations.  We also had an oldies station.  It was mostly golden oldies.  1950s and 1960s.  The music that my parents listened to growing up.

I'm not afraid to admit that I didn't start listening to classic rock until I was a little bit older.  I didn't buy my first Led Zeppelin album until I was in college.  And it wasn't even a studio album.  It was a compilation album.  Once I listened to it, I made it a point to go out and buy all their albums.  ALL OF THEM!  I almost over listened to them.  It got to the point where the CDs would sit in my car and I would look at them and think 'there's something else I want to listen to right now.'

I just recently put all their albums on my phone to listen to while commuting to work.  Just because I wanted something that I truly love to listen to.  Putting their entire catalog on shuffle is fun because it covers some many genres that they pulled from.  A heavy rock song can be followed by a blues inspired song to something that is borderline prog rock.  It's fun.  

This song came up while I was sitting in traffic.  'Good Times, Bad Times' was the first track of the compilation album that I bought.  It's also the first track on their first album.  It's the one that got me hooked on Zeppelin.  It's hard, it's fast, it's heavy.  Two chords followed by echoing drums.  That's the start of the song and it is glorious.  For whatever reason, when it came on, it just brought a smile to my face.  I cranked the volume the rest of the ride home.  I played the air drums at certain parts of songs.  I bobbed my head along to the beat.  I'm sure that I looked like a fool.  It was comforting to have that music that I have listened to so many times at my fingertips.  

Whether it is bubblegum pop, thrash metal, or rap, everyone should have that one band that they can play and just forget about life for a little bit.  Isn't that what music is for?  

Solo Movie Going

Is there a stigma in going out by yourself?  I'm planning on going to see 'Mad Max:  Fury Road' this afternoon.  And I'm going by myself because it's a weekday and my wife is at work.  Also, she doesn't want to see it.  Even though it's apparently hella feminist.  Action movie, strong feminist characters and story lines, what's not to like?  Also, Tom Hardy.  One of two reasons 'Inception' was tolerable, the other being Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  Is it weird to go see a movie by yourself?  Or is it okay at certain times?

I have gone to see multiple movies by myself, so it's not like it's weird for me to do this.  I have always gone on a day off in the middle of the afternoon before it gets busy and is cheaper.  There's movies that I want to see that my wife just has no interest in.  And it's funny, because there usually has been a few other people that are there by themselves.  It's like a little club.  Except no one wants to talk to each other and avoiding eye contact is crucial.  I'm pretty sure when I saw 'Choke' I was the only person in the theater. 

I have always looked at going to the movies by myself as okay as long as it's during the day.  If you are going in the evening by yourself, that seems weird.  Evening movie going seems like a date time frame or a family event time frame.  That's not to say you can't go see a movie in the evening by yourself.  This could be the only time you are able to go because of work or other engagements.  And besides, there are some movies that just need to be seen on the big screen.  Usually action movies with tons of explosions because it grabs you and won't let go.  I saw 'Return of the King' by myself and the Battle of the Pelennor Field sequence was absolutely amazing.  Watching it at home doesn't have the same effect as seeing it in the theater.  

There aren't any rules that say you can't go see a movie by yourself.  Even if people say that it's weird, who gives a shit?  You want to go see a movie, you don't have anyone else to go see it with, go see it.  Make a day of it.  Make it about you.  Treat yourself.  Sneak some candy in to avoid the high prices.  

Anniversary Post

Earlier this month, my wife and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary.  Pretty cool.  We have a tendency not to do extravagant things for anniversaries.  We were in Missouri this year for a family thing, and we actually spent our anniversary with some friends from Kansas.  But I'm not writing this post about our wedding anniversary, I'm writing it about our dating anniversary.  As our friends and family know, we have been together for quite some time.  Quite a long time.  Practically half of our lives.  

We officially started dating in 1998.  We've been together for seventeen years, guys.  Seventeen years!  We were sophomores in high school.  We hung out with the same group of friends and that is how we got to know each other.  A side note, we went to elementary school together from second to fourth grade.  AND, my older sister watched my wife and her younger brother a few times when they were younger because they lived a block away from us.  Anyway, the first time we went out without a group of friends, we went to see Godzilla.  We were originally planning on seeing a different movie (the Big Hit maybe?), but it was gone so we got stuck seeing that horrible movie.  We had a friend who worked at the theater and I'm pretty sure he let us in for free.  It wasn't long after that, we started dating.   

Throughout high school and college, we went to our respective extended family things.  Get togethers, weddings, parties.  You name it, if we could convince our parents, we would go there together.  We got to know each others' family.  When we got engaged after college, we heard a lot of congratulations, but we also heard a lot of 'it's about time' type comments (jokingly) from our family.  We wanted to get out of college before getting married.  Just made sense to us.   

Despite being together for so long, we still find time to be ourselves.  Everyone knows that type of couple that can't be separated to do their own thing, right?  We do our best not to be that couple.  I'm sure we were like that in high school.  Do we do a ton of stuff together?  Yes.  But there are times when do our own thing.  I've gone to see a live show a couple of times because my wife didn't want to see it.  Would you rather do that or drag your partner to a thing that they didn't want to see? 

We went to the same college after high school.  That made that transitional part of life a little bit easier.  We got an apartment together for our sophomore year.  Since then, we have lived together.  That made the first years of marriage easy.  We had already lived together for years.  Pretty sure I have written about that in the past.  After college was the real world.  The rest is history.  We talk about how long we have been together, but it doesn't feel like it's been so long. 

The Power of Music

One great thing about the technological advances that we have seen in the past decade is the access.  Whether it is the ability to look something up in a manner of minutes to settle a debate or to check the weather for the city you are planning to visit, it is at the tips of your fingers.  It's all there if you want it to be.  Another wonderful thing, is digital music.  Instead of carrying a book of the one hundred or so CDs that you own (let's face it, everyone had one of these monsters in their car), you can carry all your music in your pocket on either your phone or iPod.

Instead of fumbling through the pages and pages trying to find the CD you want to listen to, you can scroll through and find it and play it.  You also have the ability to find musicians you didn't even know existed and fall in love with them.  If you want to have a good cry, Adele can be found.  If you want to rattle the windows in the car after a stressful day, Metallica is a click away.  If you want to great political music, Rage Against the Machine or the Fugees are around.  All you have to do is plug it in and go. 

 

Above is a screen shot from my phone of an album I bought when I was in college.  Now, there are a handful of people that I know that, if they read this, might scream happily at seeing this.  One thing that I find with ska and new punk is that if I come across it at the right time, it just makes me want to roll the windows down, drive fast, and not give two fucks about anything.  Other times, I hear a song come on and think 'Meh.' and skip it.  And some if it is so good.  Listen to Dropkick Murphys 'The Gauntlet' and tell me you don't want to kick some serious ass.  Some of it, not so much.  'We're Desperate' by Pennywise is the worst.  But it's fast, it's loud, it's vulgar, it's everything a college kid looks for in music, right?  There are tracks on this particular album that I didn't even put on the computer because I just didn't like them.  Another perk to the digital age.  Pre-skipping music you don't want to listen to.  Did this album change my life?  No.  Did it make me want to find out more about the bands?  Not really.  There were some bands that I already knew (Dropkick Murphys, NoFx, Bad Religion) and some I didn't (T(i)NC, Death by Stereo, Millencolin).  

The power that music has that allows you to forget about the world is wonderful.  I think back to the last scene in 'Dazed and Confused' when Mitch puts on his headphones, 'Slow Ride' starts to play and he just gets this big old grin on his face.  Whether it is just one song that you want to put on repeat for hours on end or an entire catalog from one band, music allows you to escape.  Music might not solve all your problems, but it allows us to forget about them.  Even if it is for just an hour. 

I will leave you with this gem that is on the album.  Enjoy!