Arrivals

The best place to spend an hour or two in the Portland Airport is downstairs near the baggage claims. There are seats facing the windows, and you can sit and watch as hundreds of people pull in and pick up arriving passengers. Along with great people watching, you inevitably will feel optimistic about the world to see so many people who are so excited to see the ones they love.

"The Short Bus"

I knew I'd love this book from Jonathan Mooney when I read its sub-title:

"A Journey Beyond Normal."

Not only did I love it - it changed my perspective and hopefully, will help me change my life.

Mooney grew up with labels and around other kids who carried the weight of their own socially-imposed tags. ADD. ADHD. Retarded. Short bus rider. Down syndrome. Learning disabled.

Mooney writes that he'd get so ill in elementary school, just thinking about having to read aloud in front of his peers. He's get so ill that he'd vomit in the school bathroom. Mooney did end up graduating from Brown University. But his own story and the journey he takes when he buys a "short bus" and road trips around the country, interviewing others with "abnormal" labels and their families, illustrates that many of the social constructs of "NORMAL" that we indoctrinate ourselves with and abide by, are more or less total shit.

Obviously, that's a very brief description of the book. Pick up a copy of this MUST READ. It will make you consider how you see and treat others; make you consider how others see and treat you. Hopefully, it will help you catch a clearer glimpse of humanity, our view of which is so often and so easily skewed.

I think of "The Short Bus" all the time - the lessons it reminded me of and the inspiration it fostered in me to do something better in the world; to make a greater difference.

I haven't found a channel for that inspiration yet - but my hope is strong that future opportunities will present themselves. In the meantime, I celebrating Mooney's "Journey Beyond Normal," and thriving in my own "beyond normalcy" every day.

Trampled by Turtles are Anything but Slow

Fave group of the month is Trampled by Turtles. Their lyrics make me think of heartbreaks, past and present, but their beats make me want to run, very fast, toward the future.

A perfect album to begin this very promising summer of 2010 with.

The Cereal Aisle

I watched The Hurt Locker last weekend.

If you haven't seen it, you need to. The Oscar winning flick offers a decently sharp look into what one might imagine Iraq might have looked like in 2004-05, based on what friends, cousins, brothers, husbands, sons have reiterated in brief stories about their arduous time "on duty" in the desert.

There's one scene in the movie that rang home for me though - and I never have, nor will ever (God willing) be at war in Iraq.

There's a brilliant scene when the main character, Sgt. William James, has returned home to the U.S. after another tour in Iraq. James is pushing a shiny metal and plastic shopping cart up and down sparkling aisles in a sanitary grocery store. Elevator music offers the soundtrack. (This contrasts splendidly with the movie's previous scene where James led an adrenaline-charged sprint down a trash- and terror-filled street in Iraq. I'd heard from guys who've been in Iraq that the streets were just filled with plastic bags. The movie reinforces this detail nicely.)

James crosses paths with his sort-of girlfriend, the mother of his son, who he's clearly at the store with but not actually shopping with. She orders James to go get some cereal.

James walks into the cereal angle and stops. The producers captured long angle shots from both ends of the cereal aisle in all it's marketing glory. Endless shiny boxes with pretty eye candy on the front, filled with breakfast candy and ready to make kids' lives happy and fun; womens' bodies fit and sexy.

James just stands there and stares before knocking a random box into his empty cart.

It's a brilliant scene.

And it made me think.

It made me think about the ridiculously soft lives we live here in the U.S. On the one hand it's sort of splendidly posh. On the other hand, I believe it's made us disconnected from any genuine human experience. Not that I want or could even handle the adrenaline-filled rush of war, like James is hooked on in The Hurt Locker. And it's not that I want such a challenged life like people in Iraq and other repressed countries have to endure.

But with all our excess, propelled by all the marketing agencies and the corporations trying to figure out how to capture minds and sell more, we've let ourselves spin into this fucked-up reality where we consume things that aren't necessities and spend entire careers doing tasks that are, in the grand view of the world, inconsequential.

Take apart a bomb and save thousands of lives.

Write creative copy and try to sell someone else's shit.

Shit made in India, no less.

I"m a fan of balance - not that I have any in my own life.

But after watching The Hurt Locker, it's been more clear than ever that I'm on the extreme edge of being inconsequential on a daily basis, as opposed to doing something that impacts people with my life.

The ridiculous thing? A flipping Hollywood movie made me realize this.

March

The hard part about marching to the beat of your own drum is, sometimes, you're the only one who understands the beat.

But, keep marching.

If the beat is true and good, and comes from the honest place inside you, you won't march alone for long.

*Image from Drue Kataoka; http://www.drue.net/

New Artist to Check: Valerie June

Her name is Valerie June. She's from rural Humboldt, TN, but lives Memphis.

While most people seem to talk about her dreads while they should just hush and listen to what she has to sing, I love her voice and love her song lyrics even more.

There's such a great need for unique sounds on the music scene - sounds that remind us that music is an art and not a commodity. June's sound is wonderfully unique, haunting and moving.

This song is called "I Will Not be Blue."

Artist to Check: Justin Townes Earle

Justin Townes Earle is the son of Steve Earle. Named for rebellious, drug-addicted but legendary folk singer Townes van Zandt, Justin Townes Earle has reportedly taken some steps down the same path of his father and van Zandt.

If you read-up enough on Justin Townes Earle, you'll come across his own admissions of heavy drug use during his youth, including incidents of OD-ing by the time he was 12 or 13. But, JTE claims he's mellowed these days: "I smoke my weed, but I'm good," he told the Huffington Post.

I saw JTE on Sunday at Portland's Doug Fir Lounge. He was fabulous live. A truly talented musician and a rare original voice with his own stories to sing. Regardless of what the guy does in his personal life, I hope he does himself well enough to keep making music for a long, long time.

His cover of The Replacements' "Can't Hardly Wait" simply floats my boat.

Hear the song and get your hands on his most recent album, Midnight at the Movies.