Who matters to us?

This past week I recently got in contact with two of my friends from high school. There has been a long gap since I have spoken to either of them. One was my best friend even up through the first 2 years of college. The other was a friend I lost contact with as soon as we graduated. We always had laughs and fun together. Looking back I regretted I lost contact with them.

I remember the day Mike and I met in home room back in the sixth grade. Ever since then we were friends. Talked about video games, music, movies, school (that goes without say) and we both played the slide trombone in band. Our quote was, "the low brass gets no respect". We didn't care how stupid it sounded because it was true. There were about six of us which were Tuba players, Baritone players and of course the Trombone players. I remember we were excited when we had ten low brass members. What more do you expect from a small school. When Mike and I were catching up it was like the past five years never happened. It seemed as if it was just last week when we spoke. We were talking up to the early hours in the morning over the things we always do. We even spoke about some things that I've written about on this blog and we agreed on a lot of things. That was pretty interesting because he and I would usually go 8 for 10 on the agreement department. It was 10 for 10 the other day. 

Then there was my best friend Vince. He and I also met in the sixth grade. We became really good friends that winter during CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) basketball. From there our friendship grew and we talked about the same things Mike and I talked about. There was even one time when Vince and I were interested in the same girl during our Freshman year of high school. We didn't get angry or competitive with each other. It turned out some other guy started dating her and that was the end of it. We hung out together all the time and on weekend Vince, myself and our friends were always together. School events, outside social events, and whatever else that would be brought to our attention. We haven't spoken to each other in about 3 1/2 years. We ended our friendship on rough terms. To sum it up briefly, things had to be his way or no way. He had to be controlling and be the center of everything. He was even telling me how I should live my life. I'm not talking advice, I'm saying he actually told me what I should do. I gave him the benefit of the doubt at first but things got worse and worse. There wasn't any other way around it so I disconnected myself from him. I wasn't the only one, his own cousin didn't want anything to do with him. He can handle him now but only in small doses. When he added me as a friend on Facebook I thought that since there's been some time maybe we could patch things up. Within 24 hours of accepting his request I removed him from my group of friends. Obviously things weren't any better and he was the same. He was pushing pro Obama agenda down my throat and I didn't want to put up with it. 

I have a system. I use Twitter for politics and whatever and Facebook is for keeping in touch with my real friends. I keep them separate because my friends either have the same views as me, different views or they don't care. I could ignore Vince's postings but at the same time he needs to be corrected on some of the things he says. I didn't want to annoy my friends with that and took the higher road once again. I quote Linus Van Pelt, "There are three things you should never discuss with people; politics, religion and the Great Pumpkin".

What I'm getting at is people change for the better, people change for the worse and then you have the people who don't change at all. No matter what happens you should keep in touch with people you really care about. The people that matter most to you help makes you the person you are. We are all different but there are similarities that makes us connect with each other and from that friendships are formed. Today is September 11, 2009 and eight years ago politics and current events didn't matter to me. Before that day my biggest concern was trying to understand Chemistry and wanting to ask the cute girl I saw in halls out on a date. There's still that occasional cute girl that still pops up every so often but now I'm more concerned about politics and world events. I'm focused on the worries of the country and the world. Today I ask you to put aside your differences and ask what really matter to you? Take a chance and reach out to people you haven't spoken to in a long time. You might regret it and you might not but at least you are putting fourth the effort. You are demonstrating that you are willing to put aside petty differences. If the other person doesn't share your motivation then try again in a year or two.

This day will forever be burnt in my memory. It's when I saw the world differently, it was a day we were afraid, we didn't know what was going to happen. The only thing we knew was that we would get revenge on the Muslim extremists that attacked us. We waved the American flag proudly and weren't afraid to show our pride to be a country of freedom. What's happened since that day? Why is everything politics? Now even talking about cars is politics because our government is a major share holder of General Motors and Chrysler. I ask you to put aside your differences and when you reach out to others don't push your views down their throats. Treat each other like the friend that you remember them to be and maybe you can regain sight into the type of person you really are.

I Wanna Rock!

Twisted Sister said it best, "I wanna rock"! That was a great cry for rock music in the 1980s. The decade of hair bands such as Guns 'N' Roses, Poison and Motley Crue. The 1970s gave us psychedelic rock like Led Zeppelin and The Who. The 1960s was the British Invasion and the 1990s were grunge. Now come the question, "what next"? Besides the boy band attack in the late 1990s and ending early in the start of the new millennium.

What will be the next new wave (excuse the pun) of music? The music today isn't as good as it used to be. The top sellers now are Black Eyed Peas, Katy Perry and Lil' Wayne (whereabouts unknown about Big Wayne.) Country music has a couple artists who hop over to mainstream airwaves like Toby Keith and Taylor Swift. Rap and dance music are a majority of mainstream music. About 5 lines in the whole song but who cares it sounds cool.

Each year there are only a few new bands I listen to that get into my iTunes rotation. The music of today doesn't interest me like it did ten years ago. It doesn't interest people today because band's albums aren't making money like they once did. Today people can download them from iTunes, burn/rip whatever they call copying music from one source and putting it to another source these days. Here are my three thoughts about why the music industry is down in the dumps.

1. What I stated above about there not being a music movement and there hasn't been in a long time.

2. Thanks to stupid reality shows like American Idol it has lowered the bar for artists. Now before you get mad there are some people that do well and deserve to win, Kelly Clarkson, Clay Aiken, Chris Daughtry. Wait, only Kelly Clarkson won the show the first season. Clay Aiken was a runner up to some guy who is nowhere to be found. Chris Daughtry wasn't even in the final two and his career is better than the guy who won. Who did win that year? American Idol, in my view, has really destroyed music. It might be great quality programing for families and the show all the people talk about on Facebook, MySpace and whatever the next thing is that comes out in the next three months. Despite all of this, the show is still a crock of bull.

3. Since MTV has stopped playing music videos, artists aren't getting the recognition like they should. Remember when you used to get up and get ready for school? You used to have the TV on while you got ready and listened to the music. You also got to see a cool video that got the band even more recognition. I remember when I saw Everlong by Foo Fighters and thought it was one of the best videos ever made. Then again it was one of the first I ever really watched. Video might have killed the radio star but now without videos you don't have a music star at all. 

Think about these points for a moment. Now I'm gonna tell you what we have today with music. We have songs that sound so mellow and boring. Death Cab for Cutie songs sound like a bunch of hippie free love garbage. Then you have the lady singers between the age of 23 to whatever the youngest one is who sings from the Disney Channel. I think it's great that they can have a hit show, perform music and star in movies. It's great they can show their talented in not just one area of the entertainment industry. However I don't understand how kids, who don't even have jobs, can buy everything their favorite musician does and yet people who have jobs don't have a must see now band anymore. We need more talented musicians like Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. All we can do is play the waiting game for someone with creativity like them.

Closing thought. Since we are in a non risk entertainment industry now how will there be another trend like Seattle grunge that shock the 1990s? How will record labels do that again if all the companies want the easy and safe way to making a buck?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that when people look back at the music that was created in the early part of the new millennium it will be known as Indie Rock. The reason I say that is because so many groups this decade have been found via the internet. Either from file sharing amongst friends, the artists official website or even their MySpace, Facebook or Twitter pages. These performers are getting out at any means necessary without a label. I wish these people the best and hope they achieve success that other groups have but don't deserve.