Apparently no one appreciates the Socratic Method anymore.  A snippit of conversation from Twitter:

brooksbayne: we did close it [it being WWII] successfully. that’s why u won’t find anyone arguing otherwise. learn from the successful models.

zornog: Do you think that the Iraq war has the same merit as WWII?

brooksbayne: i think the global war on terrorism has the same merit as wwII, of which iraq is part.

zornog: Okay, answer this question: When does the war on terrorism end?

brooksbayne: it ends when it ends.

zornog: And how will you know when it’s ended?

brooksbayne: as i said, it’s over when it’s over and not one day earlier.

zornog: Okay, so let’s say one day the War on Terrorism ends. Does that mean terrorism ends?

brooksbayne: u need to reread my last two tweets. i’ve been quite clear.

zornog: No, you haven’t. “It ends when it ends” is actually a very vague statement. I’ll ask again: when does the War on Terror end?

brooksbayne: it’s not vague. when a outcome is based on participation of disparate parties, it’s up to all. so, it ends when it ends, finally.

zornog: Vague vague vague. “It’s up to all”? To what? To win? How do you “win” a war on terror? Is a peace treaty signed?

brooksbayne: examine those questions within the context of my response. you’ll find ur answer there. it looks like ur close to getting it.

zornog: No, actually, I get more confused. You don’t understand my questions. My point is that the whole War on Terror is worthless

zornog: because it cannot be won. There is no way you can stop terrorism by fighting a war on it.

brooksbayne: says who?

zornog: Says me! I’ll ask again: HOW do you end the War on Terror? At what point is it considered “over”?

brooksbayne: forgive me for not putting much stock in ur opinion. the question has been answered. u simply don’t like the answer.

zornog: Are you kidding me? Are you actually being serious? You did NOT answer the question. “It ends when it ends” is not an answer!

zornog: Do you think leaders during WWII said “It ends when it ends?” No, they said, “It ends when we kill Hitler.” That’s a reason.

brooksbayne: lol, ur so close to getting it.

zornog: Then why don’t you just tell me, O great leader of the free world?

brooksbayne: ”give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day; teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.”

zornog: Ohhh, so you think establishing democracies is going to end the War on Terror. Well, good luck with that.

brooksbayne: that’s not something i said or implied.

zornog: Then what? Christianity? What are you implying? Why are you being so vague?!

And he stopped replying at that point.  Leaving me with absolutely no answers whatsoever.

I wrote up a WP page for my Christmas album, which is totally free and can and should be downloaded by everyone because it’s just a really good album, not one of those stuffy Christmas cover albums.

But as I was writing the page I thought, “Gee, Josh, not everyone is Christian.  Some people might not want to download your album because it’s about Jesus and stuff.”

I don’t usually think about this because I myself am not a Christian — I’m a pretty laid back agnostic, if anything.  In the long run I don’t care if there’s a God because his existence does not change the fundamentals of morality and how we should utilize our lives.  I will stop talking about that now, cause I could write a whole other post about my feelings on objective morality.

Instead, I will offer up my separate, seemingly cutesy term for Christmas — Chrimmis.  I started saying Chrimmis years ago, for no real reason other than my family (esp. my father) is big on malopropisms and so we’re always substituting one word for another (e.g. “horse pistol” for “hospital” and so on), and so it seemed natural to say Chrimmis instead of Christmas.  But it ultimately has a separate meaning for me as well.

Christmas is a religious holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

Chrimmis is a secular holiday celebrating the spirit of family by giving presents and/or generally hanging out with the ones you love.

Some will say, “But Christmas is about family too!” and I would agree.  But it’s more about Jesus.  And while I think that Jesus was an a-okay dude (had some nice stuff to teach people that unfortunately got twisted by fanaticals into slaughter, rape, pillage, and general mayhem), I think that Christmas leaves out all the other religions of the world, and thus the other people of the world, which is awful.

So, instead, I celebrate Chrimmis.  The term “Chrimmis” makes me think of my six-year-old self, waking up before dawn on Christmas Day, sitting by the pile of presents under the tree, waiting for my parents to wake up so that I can open them (the presents, not my parents).  The term “Christmas” however makes me think of old people singing dull hymns in church.  Not the place I want to be.

Anyway, I just thought I’d put that out there.  I understand that most of the songs on my album are Jesus-specific, but they’re also just songs.  Good ones, too.  So no matter what religion you may be, I hope you’ll download it and at least take a listen.

I also didn’t want to step on any toes with this post, so I apologize if you feel offended at all.  Generally I like offending people, but not with this one.  :)

I spend a lot of my time, probably too much time, thinking about ways to get my music out to new ears without actually getting out of my house.  Playing shows is obviously the best way to get your music known, the reasons behind it being deeply rooted in history, of gatherings of people to hear a troubadour or a classical piece, or a lute player sitting at a muddy street corner, playing folk songs for pennies.  This part of musicianship will never die, even as forms of music change (and in fact, some new musical genres — DJing, for example, thrive more at the live show than they do on an album).

The internet, however, is another beast altogether.  Busking is non-exististant.  There are no “live shows” unless they are online streams of an actual live show.  Thus, the sociology of what it means to play music, the gathering aspect of it, the culture of going to see a show, dissolves, and we are thrust back to square one without even realizing it.  So I thought I would attempt a discussion of the sociology of the internet, as it pertains to online music and fan gathering.  I would appreciate feedback on this, since this is mostly off the top of my head, and I could be dead wrong.

I have broken this down into three parts: Primary Sites, i.e., social networking sites; Secondary Sites, i.e., websites/music sites; and Tertiary Sites, i.e., weblogs/internet word of mouth.

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The fine fine people at Artists House Music Tweeted this article and it immediately caught my attention.  I wanted to reply to them but 140 characters is not enough for what I want to say.  Then I thought, I have a blog!  Yay!  I’ll just write something there.

AND THE REST WAS HISTORY.

So I’ll just reprint what the article says, since it’s pretty short and some people (like me) don’t like to click on a bunch of links sometimes.  It reads:  

A few legislative notes:

Yesterday (the very day the CMA Awards were hosted in Nashville) Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen signed into law SB 3794, a bill that requires all public and private universities and colleges in the state to take proper steps to assure that their networks are not being used to illegally trade copyrighted material. It also requires each school to develop and enforce a policy for computer usage, network usage and ethics. The House IP subcommittee was abolished and will be bumped up to a full Judiciary committee.

My immediate thought upon reading this was: they’re gonna screw it up and get a bunch of college students pissed off at them.

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I’ve figured it out.  It came to me in a moment of brilliance, like a blinding light in the sky.  I know why some Americans hate Obama.  It’s not because he’s a terrorist.  It’s not because he’s a socialist, or because he’s black.  It has nothing to do with race, color, creed or anything else.

The reason some people hate Obama is because he’s a nice, honest man with nothing to hide.

I know, it sounds ludicrous.  How can you hate a nice, honest man with nothing to hide?  But if you think about it, Americans have been indoctrinated to politicians that are greedy, corrupt, morally misguided and full of so much bullshit it almost forces you to not listen.  We’ve heard Bush stumble about like a moron.  We’ve seen Dick Cheney pull the puppet strings from behind the curtain.  We’ve watched countless morally corrupt men take power, and good, honest people like Colin Powell try their best to make the situation better.  We’ve been watching it for eight years.  And let’s not forget all the past corrupt presidents.  Nixon gets more airtime than Carter these days.  Bad presidencies or bumbles in the White House are better known than triumphs.  Clinton caught Slobodan Milosevic, but all we hear about is how he had an affair.  Kennedy stopped the Cuban missile crisis but did he fuck Marilyn Monroe?  Scandal trumps praise.  Bad news is more entertaining than good news.

And so now we have two presidential candidates, one that is widely known as trying to get to the White House just to one up his father and grandfather (both four-star generals), who visibly gets angry and frustrated during debates, who goes on Saturday Night Live and is made fun of to his own face … and one who is calm, eloquent, and passionate without being fanatical.  One who answers questions with a smile and a firm answer.  One who looks good in a suit, not stiff and awkward.  Who stands gracefully.  Who looks good on TV.

And Americans are petrified of this.  It’s ingrained in our heads, that this kind of natural behavior is not becoming of a president.  Clinton was calm and eloquent, but he had an affair, so he was hiding something that whole time, right?  Obama must be hiding something too.  Terrorist connections, inexperience, etc etc etc.

This blog post came to me when I read on a friend’s Facebook wall a post from a young woman, a McCain supporter, was wary of Obama because “he is hiding a lot of stuff.”  This, I think, is exactly the type of misguidedness the McCain campaign is using to brainwash Americans.  They are sneaky, too.  Obama isn’t hiding anything because any question that he has been asked, he has responded to, calmly, clearly, and with the same answers, again and again.  He isn’t creating a story to feed to the media.  He is responding to the media.  Rev. Wright?  He has responded about him.  Bill Ayers?  Obama’s response has been the same.  So, knowing that Obama has nothing to hide, McCain’s campaign spins this as a lack of knowledge about Obama.  As though we don’t know enough about him, when, really, he has been more than thorough in his background.  Again, it’s very sneaky, and it speaks a lot to the attention span of the average American.  McCain supporters do nothing but repeat mindless and untrue talking points because they have nothing else to go on.

The truth is out there, folks.  Obama is just a nice guy.  He’s a family man, he grew up poor, so he is humble and kind.  He’s not a socialist, he’s not a Stalinist, he’s not a terrorist.  He’s no -ist.  He’s just a man.  And god I hope he’s elected tomorrow.