I have loved this picture for a long time.

Pale Blue Dot
by Carl Sagan

Consider again that dot
That’s here
That’s home
That’s us

On it everyone you love,
everyone you know,
everyone you ever heard of,
every human being who ever was,
lived out their lives

The aggregate of our joy and suffering,
thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines,
every hunter and forager,
every hero and coward,
every creator and destroyer of civilization,
every king and peasant,
every young couple in love,
every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer,
every teacher of morals,
every corrupt politician,
every ’superstar,’ every ’supreme leader,’
every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there –

On a mote of dust
suspended in a sunbeam

The Earth is a very small stage
in a vast cosmic arena
Think of the rivers of blood
spilled by all those generals and emperors,
so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters
of a fraction of a dot
Think of the the endless cruelties
visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel
on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner
How frequent their misunderstandings
How eager they are to kill one another
How fervent their hatreds

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance,
the delusion we have some privileged position in the Universe,
are challenged by this point of pale light

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark
In our obscurity, in all this vastness,
there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere
to save us from ourselves

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life
There is nowhere else, at least in the near future,
to which our species could migrate
Visit, yes.
Settle, not yet.
Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience
There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world
To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another
and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot,
the only home we’ve ever known

I Tired To Do Handstands For You (Song of the Week)

Yes, it is from the iPod Nano commercial.



This is a great video concept - the thoughts that run through your mind when you first exchange phone numbers. Thank you XM Radio for listening me to this band, Low vs. Diamond.



So Ali came home from college for Thanksgiving and she got me hooked on this song, "Electric Feel" by MGMT. This band has another song, "Time to Pretend," which I'm sure I've heard somewhere else before, but I just can't place it. It is totally awesome and, best of all, it has a Rock-A-Fire Explosion version. I wanted to put up the original, but embedding has been "disabled by request," which is thumbs down. Anyway, the song rules and I seriously haven't stopped listening to it for a few days now. Posted here is the Rock-A-Fire version but if you want to know what it is like to do HARDCORE DRUGS, view the original. You will be tripping balls.

F-Stop Blues

When is it summer again? I feel the SAD kicking in...

Song of the Week

Way too late. But it's good, here are three for you. Listen to these, they're your future favorite songs.

Since the summer Pulse Parties sponsored by Nate Boyle on the Hook, I have had a special place in my heart for The Ting Tings. This song is different from their radio hit, "Shut Up and Let Me Go," but it is really a nice little melody which shows off Katie White's voice. This song is like the antipodal piece to "Shut Up," if "That's Not My Name" is the synthesis of the two. Anyway, "Traffic Light:"



I have never heard of this guy before. Maybe that's my fault, but his voice sounds much different than what he looks like. Know what I mean? This song follows much that is good with white-people-musical-standards and he's not going to revolutionize any genre, but he still is enjoyable. I'm down to give him some further listening. He feels like a cross between U2 and Dave Matthews, who I do not like. Oh well. I really don't know what I'm talking about anyway, I just like the song.




Following in the footsteps of fellow Drive Thru surf film star Donovan Frankenreiter, Tim Curran released this little gem. Telling the now-familiar story of guy who changes his life to regain a lost love, his style is average surfer-songwriter. But what the Hell, it's almost December and we all need a little summer again. Also both of these men prove that it was a terrible, terrible mistake for me to get rid of my mustache. God I miss that thing. Sigh.

A Visit from George Washington

I wanted desperately to get this out before the election, but I kind of lost interest in it. It was going to be about George Washington showing up on election night and reminding everyone about his parting words on political parties given during his leaving office speech:

"However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion."



A Visit from George Washington


'Twas the night of Election
And all through the House
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a spouse.

The ballots were counted
By computer with care
In the hopes that no Dade
Again would we dare.

The children were nestled
All drugged by their Valium
While we sat down
To the long night's tallin'.

With Ma in her work clothes
And me in my slacks
We both settled in
For the night's coming attacks.

When there on the tube
There arose such a rumble
I turned to the news networks
To see what was the grumble.

From Fox News to CNN
The Daily Show, too
There appeared an apparition
Dressed mostly in blue.

The faces of 'casters
And pundits alike
Told me the this guy
Was an unscheduled psych.

His hair was as white
As new-fallen snow
And his age seemed ancient
But it really didn't show.

I had seen him before
On the one dollar bill
But there on TV,
He arose such a thrill.

By his stance and his posture
He was obviously the one,
Our first real president
George Washington.

"My friends," he spoke
With a rumbling voice,
"Harken my last presidential words,
Amend your method of choice.

"This two-party system
Ye have set up
Has superficial differences
'Mongst this political soup.

"Abandon thy love for
Bipartisanship
And your allegiance
To many parties equip!"

With that he turned,
Leaving all in stunned silence,
And called to his mates
Without malice or violence,

"On Taft and Roosevelts,
Both Frankie and Ted,
On Jefferson, Jackson,
Abe and Wilson get out the lead!"

And in a puff of smoke
And pin-hearing quiet
He vanished that night
Like pudge during a diet.

He never came back
And wasn't spoken of again
But his message was clear:
From party politics should we refrain.

Nov 1-7, 2008
"Go-bama!"

And Now for Something Completely Different

The 2003 Rugby World Cup Final is one of the best games of rugby ever played. It went into double overtime and was at the point where the officials had to decide how to end the match because the players were so exhausted. It came down who could score first and England's wunderkind Johnny Wilkinson booted a fantastic drop goal in the dying seconds of the second overtime. And, while I have always been a fan of Australian Rugby over those pansy English Roses, I have to admit that Wilkinson's kick was one of the most amazing sporting moments of this century.

Song of the Week

Well, Thursday was a pretty long, bad day. Started off on a down note. Couldn't get out of bed and get moving. Woke up, forgot my wallet. Had to pay for my coffee with leftover nickels from my glove box. Spilt some teriyaki sauce on my shirt at lunch. Because I didn't have my wallet I couldn't buy a drink and the make-it-yourself Chinese bowl was spicy. Got observed (which went really well actually). Rushed home to put the dog out; he didn't want to come in. Ran back to school for two hour band practice. I have a laughably hard time conducting in 2/4. Ate a little bit of dinner and rushed off to rugby practice where I re-opened my ear cuts and got banged in the knee and it was cold.

Whine session over.

On the way home from practice, I said "fuck it" and put the iPod on shuffle. "Whatever happens, happens." The Long Winters happened, a band I had loved but hadn't heard since junior year of college. "Scared Straight" just has a way of picking you up and setting you down right ways up on your feet. However, there is no good version of the song on youtube and, while I have put a version up here, you can't even hear the best part of the song - the bass. Oh man. Just download it. You know you want to. It is off their album When I Pretend to Fall.


Right after "Scared Straight," I had to put on the second best Long Winters song, "Fire Island, AK." Both of these tunes just drive the entire song and don't let up. And this one is just a really, really good song. "They found my letters and I don't have to wonder if it reached you" while it seems that the guy is being investigated? Nice touch.


I remember the first time I saw The Long Winters. I was with Sera and Laura in Hoboken at Maxwell's to see The Decemberists and these guys opened for them. That was the most hipster-ish night of my life.