The Soundtrack 2 My Life

Morgan Hill High School: Hiding behind the flag?

Recently, I saw a news cast coverage on a local High School that had a case where four boys at the school sported (in an extreme fashion) the American flag on the “Mexican heritage” holiday, Cinco De Mayo. The boys were seen as defiant for refusing to take off the attire, and were suspended from school. Now, I had a few problems with this case that I didn’t seem to catch in the news coverage that seemed vital to the situation.

For starters, although Cinco De Mayo is seen as a “Mexican heritage” holiday here in the US, it’s just another day in the actual country of Mexico. So, if a few kids decide to wear the American flag on this day, there’s no problem with that, right? Now, before I heard more in-depth coverage on the case, that is exactly how I felt. Why would a few kids cause a problem at their school just for expressing their personal patriotism? And as you can see in film taken at the site, the kids attire is quite overly-done in an All-American style. One of the boys wore flag-covered shorts, while another wore shoes with red, white, and blue stars on them. This, so far, was all normal to me, and not a problem; that is, until I saw what the fourth boy was wearing. He was seen sporting an American flag bandanna, and was asked to take it off, but refused. I’ve seen my fair share of kids at my high school, and I can confidently say that none of them have ever worn an American flag bandanna school. Was this apparently ”random” idea from the boys to wear American attire on Cinco De Mayo more than just a funny prank? After seeing these things, I began to question the boys intentions.

I believe that instead of wearing these colors out of sheer patriotism and pride for their country, these boys sported these outfits to purposely provoke something with the Hispanic community of their school. One thing that the news seemed to avoid and not touch on at all for some reason, was what the boys did at school while they sported these colors. Did the boys intentionally aggravate the Hispanic community of Morgan Hill by wearing and boasting about their attire? Although no proof can be given about this idea, I believe it could be possible, and then the administration asking them to remove their attire was quite the reasonable approach to the situation. This event is far from over, as newscast’s haven’t given the case a rest since it occurred, and more info and backup to the story is bound to surface in the coming weeks. Now, all we can do is sit back and wait.

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BRAVE NEW WORLD: A book ahead of it’s time

Recently, I have started reading the novel Brave New World in my English class, and I have more than just respect for this book since I began reading it. This novel speaks about a world where “everyone belongs to everyone”, where equality is the only way, and where everyone is the same. It’s a twisted Utopia of sorts, with strange loops in the storyline throughout the whole thing. The world in this novel is not only different, but may as well be the exact opposite of what our world is. Everyone is equal, sex is seen as a communal activity where everyone is with everyone, having a mother or father is obscene and being alone is out of this (or I guess, that) world. Like I said, basically the exact opposite of our world, right? And although I find myself impressed by how well the storyline in this book has been played out so far, I think that I find myself even more surprised that this book was written before the time of Hitler. The ideals of this “Brave New World” in the novel are much like that of Hitler’s, and to think that someone almost predicted these events to happen soon sends chill’s down my spine. I highly recommend this book, for all the reasons I listed above, and for many more interesting reasons you’ll see if you get the book yourself.

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…Are you sure?

Last night I attended a musical event that is normal to me, but the enviornment was the exact opposite. I took a trip to Sebastopol to see a rock concert, something I do often these days, but the difference here was that this particular concert was held in a non-denominational Church, and was played by all Christian Rock bands. Now, while I have nothing against Christian rock or the Christian religion (I’m of the Catholic faith myself), I still had the unconscious notion to feel uncomfortable in this situation. I naturally connect crazy mosh pits and intense partying to any rock concert I attend, and while the moshing was there (which was hard to do in the cramped space between the stage and the pews), it still seemed wrong to do such things in a church setting. The bands were all quite talented, and although I don’t like the genre’s played that night, it was definitely refreshing to hear some fresh new music I had never heard before. It finally got to the point in the night where my friend’s band was set to play, and as I approached the back room of the temple to help him set his things on stage, a man in the corner of the room approached me, and casually asked, “… Are you sure?” Now, naturally I was confused… did I know this strange fellow? Or perhaps, was he asking me because I really did look confused. I asked him, “what’s that? Am I sure of what?” “Sure of… anything. Do you know god? Do you know that through him, you could be brought to assurance, clarity, faith, and meaning in this world?” After all this, all I could think was, “Oh boy what did I just get myself into…” I thought this guy was just another Christian “DO YOU  KNOW GOD LOVES YOU?” religious preacher trying to strengthen my faith. Boy was I wrong.

As the night went on, I sat through the night, I talked to the man about many things, and he pointed out things about me I never noticed. He said I cross my arms too much, which gives off the sign that I didn’t want to talk to him. Made me think, does anyone else think that? Hope not, cause I have the tendency to cross my arms during conversations. Also, he told me how I seemed unsure of myself and where I was, where I was headed, and what I was going to do. Although he obviously ended this all with saying, “you know god can show you the way…”, I really got to thinking on how everyone sets goals and direction for themselves; that final standing point where you’re finally done, finally at peace, finally sure of where you stand.

So I guess this post was written as more of a reflection, and hopefully helps someone out there who reads it, maybe you, the idea to take a second out of your day and analyze yourself. What are your goods? Your bads? What makes you feel confident in yourself? And at the end of the day, ask yourself… are you sure?

DISPELLING THE “MYTHS” OF RANCHO

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THE POWER OF… TEA?

Tea has been a key part of the Chinese culture for the past 2,000 years, and not only does it have a soothing flavor that could relax anyone in the worst of times, but also has many beneficial factors to it that make it something special to the world. Tea comes in four essential forms: black, oolong, green, and white, going in order from strongest to weakest in flavor. Antioxidants come in plentiful amounts in tea, and recent research says that tea can help you fight against heart disease and various forms of cancer. Experts even say that certain types of Oolong tea can help strengthen our bones! Overall, tea can help us in many ways and help us through our health.

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ANALYZING THE SAN FRANCISCO 1906 EARTHQUAKE

To this day, the 1906 SF Earthquake was the single largest geographical event to occur in the U.S. Not only was there the earthquake that affected the people of SF, but there was also a huge city-wide fire that occured as a result from the quake, which costed the city more money than the quake itself. The quake was felt throughout the entire state, and even parts of Nevada and Oregon, and costed the city close to $400 million in damages. Underground pipelines around the entire the area were broken to bits by deep fissures caused by the quake, causing the fire to rage on without water to put it out. Over 28,000 buildings destroyed and 3,000 people left dead in the aftermath. A tragedy, to say the least.

Not only did San Francisco have to bare with the destruction of the quake but also with out of control fires raging through out the city. It’s estimated that about 90%  of the damage done on that day was caused by the fires in the aftermath. Not only was that bad, but the main Fire Chief at the time in SF had died in the earthquake earlier that day, so the firefighters in town had a struggle at putting out fires. The fires burned for four days and nights, and was not all done by natural cause. Some people had the thought of greed on their minds, even in times of suffering such as this. Many people were said to have deliberatly set their houses on fire, hoping that insurance would then cover the destruction in  their households. And with most of the water mains in the city snapped by the quake, water was short and the fires were even harder to put out.

It was a tragedy that shook the world in 1906, and is still seen as one of the most important earthquakes in the history of mankind.

To further understand the intensity of the event and truly see how much the quake costed not only the US people but economy as well, I put together a list of facts about the losses that came from the SF earthquake. The four main topics are DEAD, HOMELESS, BUILDINGS DESTROYED, and PROPERTY LOSS due to the quake.

Dead – More than 3,000, A report from U.S. Army relief operations recorded:

• It is estimated that over 3,000 deaths were caused directly or indirectly by the catastrophe. The population of San Francisco at the time was about 400,000.

Homeless – 225,000

• 225,000 from a population of about 400,000.

Buildings Destroyed – 28,188

• Wood buildings lost = 24,671
• Brick buildings lost = 3,168
• Total buildings lost = 28,188

Property Loss – More than $400 million

• Estimated property damage: $400,000,000 in 1906 dollars from earthquake and fire, $80,000,000 from the earthquake alone.

In conclusion, with all the facts surrounding the event, there’s no doubt that this tragedy was something of epic proportions that truly shook the foundation of our world forever, and change our view on earthquakes forever.

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 WHAT FINALLY KILLED THE DINOSAURS

“How did dinosuars become etinct?”

People have been asking this question for decades, and finally, we have an answer. Sceintists came to the decision this past Thursday, deciding that an astriod impact on the Earth is the only reasonable explanation for the rapid extinction of the dinosaurs.

Sceintists had narrowed down the possibilites of the extinction of the dinosaurs to either volcanic activity in Deccan Traps or an asteroid impact. After lots of study, and after the finding of a 9-mile wide crater that is in Chicxulub, Mexico, scientists are reassured that this (an asteriod impact) was the cause of the extinction. The asteriod would have been billions of times stronger than the atomic bomb that rocked hiroshima, and was the factor that triggered everything else that eventually killed off the dinosaurs. The asteroid would’ve triggered large-scale earthquakes, fires, and continental landslides, which would in turn cause massive tsunamis. And to seal the deal, a black ash covered the skies, the rubble from the astroid, that caused the Earth to become shrouded in darkness, a global winter, for years. “The KT extinction was a pivotal moment in Earth’s history, which ultimately paved the way for humans to become the dominant species on Earth,” wrote Gareth Collins in a commentary on the study. So I guess for what it’s worth, we can thank that asteroid for paving the way for our dominance over this world that we live in today.

Artchitecture:

By taking one look at this building, you probably got a feel for what this post is all about. Postmodernism is a movement that has been active for decades, and still active today, and whether or not you’ve ever heard about it, you have probably seen it alot. This building is a perfect example of what postmodernism is all about: challenging the traditional ways and views of our culture. The architect of this building took the traditional, straight-forward, rectangular-prism shaped skyscraper you would see in any inner city area in America and contorted it; made it into something you wouldn’t see every day. The random pop-out areas at the top really challenge the traditional views on constructing a building, and takes a new stand on the possibilities of what humans can do.

Art:

When I first saw this painting last year, I saw it as a funny take on Salvador Dali’s famous painting “The Persistence of Memory”, and nothing more. But once I had knowledge on the belief of postmdernism this year, while taking a second look at it earlier this week, I realized this picture is very much postmodern. It has all the factors that make something postmodern. The artist took a very well known painting from the past, established in our society as a defining factor of that generation, and basically made a joke of it. If you look quickly at the painting, you would probably think it was the original painting, but by taking a closer look you would be thrown off to find that it’s a “Simpson-ified” version. And with that, just with the fact that seeing the contorted image gets you thrown off, proves that this painting is postmodern. It challenges the past beliefs of art by refining a very famous piece with modern cartoon characters.

Music: Unleash the Beast – Rule 5

This song is something that I believe is a perfect example of the postmodern. My band, Rule 5, is generally a ska-based band, which is the kind of music which takes traditional reggae music and spices it up by making it up-tempo and added more of a rock feel to it, and also adds horn instruments usually seen in a jazz or marching band setting. Basically, ska is the fusion of reggae, rock, jazz, and marching band. As if that isn’t  already postmodern enough, I also added in an extra spice to this new song entitled “Unleash the Beast” that takes the fusion feel of Ska to an entirely new level. This new factor that I added to the orignal Ska mix is nothing more than ACOUSTIC. That’s right. This new factor adds something new to Ska never seen before that really makes it out of the ordinary and abstract; what gets more postmodern than that?

THE THINGS THEY CARRIED SNEAKS UP IN YOU

When I first began reading the postmodern novel The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, I was left unconvinced and unenthusiastic about the novel. The first chapter starts in a slow, repetitive mood: the author lists all of the things that these soldiers of the Vietnam war carried with them, from toothpaste to an extra pair of underwear; a tedious thing to open a book with, in my opinion. This massive overload of lists left me bored and tired of the book already, and I almost decided that I would not read the novel; I would Spark-notes my way through my English class and survive as best I could, but that would’ve been a huge mistake.

As the novel progresses, things slowly start to pick up, and then, this novel suddenly sneaks up on you with an array of stories that will blow your mind. O’Brien’s careful choice of words used to describe the war string you into the novel; at points you feel the pain, you feel the gunshots flying by you as you read, you feel the shit field that the characters happen to be sleeping in. There would be moments while I read where I couldn’t even move because of all the thoughts running through my head, all the intensity before my eyes. If there is one way a common man could truly have a chance at grasping what war is truly about, this novel is it. This work of fiction is much more of a masterpiece than some can fathom, and by far is the best book I have ever read. You can’t help but let this novel grasp your attention, and although it starts off slow, the novel’s entire abstractness leaves you in thought and waiting for the chance to open up the novel again. It’s an amazing book of the fear and the courage in war, the love and the hate that we could never understand, the anguish and the triumph from a battle, the truth in a novel that isn’t the truth, and the pile of crap in a book that is nothing but the truth.

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HATE

“I’m still not sure what it is to be in love. Hopefully, I never will. I don’t believe the concept of Love can be boiled down to roots and analyzed. There is no “science” to love. It is a muddy endeavor, like viewing the world’s most beautiful painting through a pane of smoked glass.” - Jon Osman

This quote was taken from a friend of mine’s blog post on his myspace in late June of this year, and is a quote that has kept me thinking since I read it. This friend of mine, Jon, has a history of saying smart things that I can promise will make you think, but this, more than ever, blew my mind completely. What is love? That is the question that he presented, and at first, I didn’t know how I would answer it. Personally, I believe in love, I believe life has a basis that’s roots are based in love, the connections with our family and friends that makes us human. Without this, I believe life would be daze of confusion, having no real reason to care for anything in life. But what I believe most do with the word “love” is misinterpret it; take it for what it is not, whether it’s make it more than it is or just another thing we have in life.

For some, the word “love” has a powerful meaning: if someone feels this for you, they would do whatever it takes to protect you, make you happy, and make your life worth while. But for others, this simple thought of “love” is nothing more than a word that is used to describe that you care about someone, whether it is strongly felt or not. I’ll walk around school and hear the over-stimulated, sugar-high freshman girls run at each other screaming, “I LOVE YOU!!”, and clash in an epic hug that would make it seem as if they truly do love one another. But as soon as that’s done, they will part their ways and go on with their day, not talking to that “beloved” friend of theirs for the rest of the day. Is this really love? Or just overly-hyped P.D.A. that should be saved for phrases such as “I like you” or “I think your cool“? I, for one, would say it is the second one, and that “love” might need a break from young kids over-abusing it’s meaning before it becomes a much less powerful word than originally intended.

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THE SMALL DIFFERENCE

When I was in 2nd grade, things like the news were the farthest thing from my mind. I used to believe that if things went wrong, my favorite Power Ranger would take the stage and fight off all the bad guys, but this is far from the truth. When I was young, having concern for issues in our society wasn’t a problem I had, I was more concerned about what toy I had was really my favorite, and which one I would buy next. Now, as I reach my adulthood, I can finally see with open eyes the issues that surround me, and actually care about what happens in my world. But that didn’t come from nowhere; it came from a long life of education and intelligent minds teaching me how to view my world and what I must pay attention to in the media. The big difference that some people don’t see is that as children, we don’t have our thoughts solidified yet; we as growing humans are moldable figures, and grow along with our surroundings and our environment. I believe that our live’s are in constant change and as are or minds. We grow to see the world as it is, and live in adulthood to protect our young ones from the world that they are in, and so that maybe, one day as they get older, they too will see the “Big Difference” from a child’s thoughts and an adult.

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HENDRIX: A LEGEND OF OUR TIME

To Hendrix, his lifestyles “craziness” truly made it like heaven. Hendrix is the most influential electric guitar player of all time, recording some of the most renown songs known to man, such as “Purple Haze” and “Castles Made of Sand”. Hendrix was part if not the founding part of the generation of guitarists that experimented with new age technologies to enhance there sound. Hendrix was a strong advocate of mixing heavy reverb with phaser to his guitar playing, and his musical style is almost impossible to categorize.

Wikipedia sites Hendrix as “the greatest electric guitarist in the history of rock music“, and for good reason. He was part of music’s tragic “three J’s”: Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Jimi, that all suffered drug-related deaths in the 1960′s at the age of 27. His death only eclipsed his popularity and helped Jimi to pave the way for many bands to come. For generations to come after Hendrix, countless bands have looked to Jimi when in need of musical influence. His heavy style of playing that still connected roots to rock and roll paved the way for a new brand of hard rock, and some say even started the first wave of heavy metal in the 1970′s. Personally, I see Hendrix as an inspirational figure and someone that will be remembered in the records of human progress in music: he was an innovator and leading figure of music for his time, and for that, he will never be forgotten.

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“VISIONARY”

Some people may dispute that nowadays the word “visionary” has lost a lot of its originally intended meaning. With figures in the mass media like Lady Gaga and Katy Perry getting recognition as “visionaries of modern music”, people have all the right in the world to think that this word has lost near-all of its meaning. I believe that to truly find visionaries, in our time in day, one must take a deeper look into music culture, beyond the haze of our pop-driven media on TV, to find the modern Beethoven’s of our day. Here are a few of my favorite musical figures of our time that I personally believe to be the  true “visionaries” of our time. Although they might not all be Beethoven’s, each one definitely has something special to distinguish them apart from the others in the rapidly growing music industry of America. Personally, being a percussionist my self, I have to say that I love what these guys do, and aspire greatly to be amongst them in skills one day.

3 of my personal favorites (In no particular order):

1)Carter Beauford

2)Jojo Mayer

3) Steve Smith

All three of these guys, in my eyes, have changed the way I look at music now, and I’ll always be grateful for that. I would advise anyone who sees this post to check these guys out, they truly have changed the face of music and raised the bar as far as playing their instruments musically goes, and playing it with a ridiculous amount of style and grace at the same time.