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Yesterday a friend told me about seeing a musical duo perform twice within a short time, where the first gig was amazing but the second was rather dull. That conversation reminded me of another friend who told me the same thing a few years ago. That guy went to see one of the legendary flatpickers, and he really had his life changed. Then he dragged a friend along to see the same picker a year or so later, and the show was just slow and boring, as he recalled it.

Those stories reminded me of what I wrote here yesterday, about our bandapos;s performance that was fun for us but maybe not appreciated much by the folks at the event, at least from what I could tell.

What does it mean? I donapos;t know. I guess you win some and you lose some, as a performer.

I started performing my songs back in the summer of 1989. I had only played my original stuff once or twice when I was asked to sing at some sort of pep rally to kick off the new school year at United Wesleyan College, where I was a senior. The agenda turned out to be a surprise. There was some group singing and praying, since this was a Bible college. Then at some point the schoolapos;s acapella quartet performed several numbers. These were four music majors who had been performing together all summer at churches and camps to recruite new students. They were tight and awesome, and the audience thoroughly enjoyed them as usual. Then came stupid old me to close the whole thing. Man, I was up there with my guitar, harmonica around my neck, and one microphone, in a gym. I was supposed to follow up those music majors--ugh. Who the heck decided to put me there, anyway?

I first told the audience, "Iapos;m sorry, I didnapos;t know I was supposed to follow them. They were so great. I really donapos;t think I can do much after that." (I donapos;t remember the exact wording, but it was an apology of that sort.) I wasnapos;t a slick musician. I wasnapos;t a music major. I didnapos;t know how to sing, and I couldnapos;t stay on key. Good greif.

Then I sang a simple prayerful song that I had written. It was one of the first songs I ever wrote, and it wasnapos;t all that great. But I stood there, blew my harp, mumbeled and sang through my song, then walked away to put my guitar in its case. The audience applauded, which made me feel good. At least I hadnapos;t totally messed up the whole thing. I put my guitar in my case, then something felt weird. What was going on? I looked up from the side of the gym bleachers, and they were giving me a standing ovation. I was shocked. Oh well, you never know.

Afterward several people told me that my song was the best part of the program. One guy, a very sweet and hip youth pastor, told me that he liked my delivery and that it reminded him of Dylan. So something I did really worked that day.

About six months later, a friend and I went to play at the open mike at Godfrey Daniels in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. We had been writing songs like a lot of Bible college students do--a few good ones here and there, and then a lot of preachy crap quoting Bible verses and trying to make a hard-hitting statement about something. My friend was a much better songwriter than I was at that time, but neither of us had a clue about taking our goofy songs off-campus. We thought we were the Christian answer to the Indigo Girls.

There we were, playing our four-song preacher-boy set at the open mike. The only people in the room besides our various friends and girlfriends were the other open-mikers and a couple making out in the corner. And we sang away about the end of the world and looking for Godapos;s love, or something like that. The guy running the open mike actually apologized to the room after we were done, saying, "Well, you never know what people are going to do at an open mike." So no one booed, but we realized that we werenapos;t the next Larry Normans.

I am glad that I had a surprising success and then a surprising flop when I started performing back then. I think that those weird situations taught me to keep a level head and to know what the audience wants. Donapos;t give them Resurrection Band when they want James Taylor. And donapos;t be surprised if people sometimes like your songs. I still find that some gigs go well, some donapos;t, and I just keep plugging. I donapos;t do so-called Christian music anymore, so I donapos;t have the extra pressure of performing to meet a specific religious agenda from the audience.

I like to follow the old line that a lot of baseball managers and hockey coaches give: Donapos;t get too high with the highs, and donapos;t get too low with the lows.

Adios for now.
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I just scrolled down my journal a bit, and noticed "and iapos;m off on weekends".� my ass.� mandatory overtime.� i worked today, and iapos;m working tomorrow.� fucking seven days/week.� iapos;ve worked every weekend so far since i started.� it was supposed to be a monday-friday deal.� i like my job, but the rush/priority/apos;fuck you we pay you so do what we say, be here constantly, donapos;t think about things outside of your jobapos; mentality is pissing me off.


and why is marijuana fucking illegal?� goddamn.



marcyapos;s doing great.� sheapos;s such a doll.� :)
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Iapos;ll admit that I donapos;t fully understand the point behind all this "voter fraud" nonsense. What exactly is the issue?

First, a couple of general observations. "Voter fraud" isnapos;t really an issue unless itapos;s supposed that "voter fraud" will tend to skew one way or the other. That is, if a statistically-even number of fraudulent votes are cast among each of the available candidates, then their net effect on the outcome of an election is nil. So any person supposing that "voter fraud" is a distinct evil that needs to be fought must have an underlying supposition about how those fraudulent votes are likely to fall. Theyapos;re not just concerned about fraudulent votes but fraudulent votes over-representing a particular political affiliation.

Also, we ought to remember that there is some "margin of error" endemic to the election process. As a technical matter, itapos;s unavoidable that some ballots will be miscounted or unrecorded. Thereapos;s also an unavoidable factor of simple human error in recording oneapos;s own elective choices; in other words, a personapos;s actual preferences with respect to candidates may be misrepresented by their own failure to use the voting machinery correctly, without their being aware of it. "Voter fraud" also is a factor in that lack of precision. Relative to those other factors, "voter fraud" is only a concern insofar as it eclipses those concerns, say, or in some sense poses an issue that those other fudge-factors do not, in terms of our election-ideals. For example, if "voter fraud" is an issue because it will tend to skew election results in one direction, and we care about election results accurately reflecting the aggregate choices of the voting public, then "voter fraud" should be an issue only to the extent that other sources of error are an issue. If we donapos;t care about, say, a 0.01 skew in election results due to miscounting, then why should we care about a 0.01 skew due to "voter fraud"?

[Note, also, that the notion of "error" with respect to election results presupposes a political theory that describes the appropriate relationship of elections to self-governance. If we were to suppose, for example, that a democratic government ought to reflect the precise aggregated will of the people, we might care a great deal that our election results be as accurate as possible, as measured against the preferences of the people (and not just those who vote). But if our political theory is not particularly troubled by election margins that are within the "margin of error" introduced into the process by technical and human errors, then it would seem that our political theory requires only that election results track the popular will, broadly and in general. Under such a theory, if popular sentiment is strongly one way or the other, then our election process should be sensitive to that and reflect that strong sentiment, but if popular sentiment is largely ambivalent, then the particular result reached is relatively unimportant. Given the relative under-emphasis on voter participation that we see in this country (save as a device to achieve particular electoral results) and the lack of a sense that close election results present a democratic problem, Iapos;m inclined to believe that our society implicitly subscribes to this sort of political theory.]

Given that the most outspoken opponents of "voter fraud" appear to be conservative Republicans, we might then suppose that these Republicans believe that (1) "voter fraud" tends to favor Democratic candidates and that (2) "voter fraud" happens frequently enough to make a relevant difference in election results in a way that simple error does not. Is there any evidence that either of these beliefs is the case? If not, we might rightly wonder what really motivates these Republican activists.

(Iapos;m not just being na�ve about the issue; I intend to take up the notion of "voter fraud" more directly in a subsequent post. This is enough for now.)
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Nunca �ntent� escribir versos.
Bueno, se puede recordar una o dos veces cuando lo hice, pero como no me acuerdo ni una l�nea, no creo que fuesen buenos.
Tampoco traduc�a poes�a de espa�ol a mi idioma, porque siempre me parec�a demasiado complicado.
Pero �ltimamente he leido tantos versos preciosos, que empec� a sentir fuerte deseo de traducirlos a espa�ol para compartirlos con mis amigos. Me imagino que ser� muy dif�cil, me doy cuenta que mi espa�ol no es perfecto y necesitar� su ayuda.
Pero cada d� mi deseo se pone m�s fuerte.
Un d�a este momento llegar� estoy segura.
Entonces tendr� que confesarme de que pa�s soy ;)
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