Tag Archives: russ

my brother’s radio show, 10.15.08

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he likes to play bass

he likes to play bass

I think I’m going to start direct linking my brother’s radio show on my blog.  He records it on Saturdays at noon here (PST) right in our basement.  He is incredibly lucky to have gotten this show; he won it as part of a contest to find the “next progressive star” on Air America.  It’s syndicated on KPOJ here in Portland (Sundays at 8-10am), and on XM radio (live 12-2 PST), and you can listen to it on his website, radicalruss.com.  It’s a great listen and a great addition to your podcast arsenal.

So here you go!  The show for yesterday!

link to segments on the show

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the norml daily audio stash

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Alright, this is pretty bad ass. I am now the Music Director of the NORML Daily Audio Stash, which is the podcast my brother does in the basement, right below me. This is an excellent thing for a resume, but also it gives me a chance to do something I love — look for and listen to new music. The only catch is that the music has to be either about marijuana or social reform and/or justice. It’s not that much of a catch, though; as long as it somewhat references pot, or smoking, or whatever, it’s cool. For instance, I found a song called “The Girl That Smokes” which is probably more about a girl smoking a cigarette than a joint, but whatever!

Someday I’ll write another blog about podsafe music and how ridiculous it is, legally. It’s just a lot of hoops to go through, I guess.

Anyway, I get paid $10 per song. Today I essentially made $70 for future posting a bunch of songs I found. Did I mention this was Awesome? I think I did.

Also, and this is my favorite part — I get to record the music part of the podcast. This means my voice is now on the Daily Audio Stash, and will be for as long as I continue getting music for the Stash. I did my first one tonight and I loved it. Russ’s equipment sounds great, and let’s be honest, I’m a bit of a natural.

But most of all I’m just happy to get some income rolling in. I’m going to work with my brother on more media-related things for their marijuana activism, commercials and radio spots and whatnot. Russ gets to advocate for social justice, and I get to utilize the skills I learned in college. It’s a win-win situation for us all.

Go me!

why tolerance should not be tolerated

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I would generally consider myself a moderate person, Aristotelian in that I believe too much excess or deficit is harmful to the body and psyche.  I spend a lot of my time trying to get the right amounts of everything, whether it be food, drink, or the right amount of reverb on a particular song.  Usually, then, when it comes to morality and ethics, I can be pretty moderate, with some exceptions.

My brother has, once again, gotten into a religious discussion with my extended family.  He, a self-proclaimed “radical” liberal, responded to an e-mail a cousin of mine sent with pictures of a Muslim protest in England — your typical scare-tactic e-mail, designed to play the “terrorists are coming!” card and recall the moments of 9/11.  Russ responded to the e-mail by saying, “Those are religious extremists,” but, in typical Russ fashion, went one step further by counterattacking the Christian extremists who exist in our country and don’t in any way get the same kind of e-mail treatment.  While I agree with his views, I’m not entirely sure whether his point was made.  My entire extended family is very Christian, but they are also hard-working, family-oriented people with a lot of love for everyone, and thus can’t really be culled into the “Christian extreme.”
My cousin Scott, a youth pastor, replied and challenged Russ’s view of Christians, something I’m sure he has done multiple times.  And I stayed neutral, reading their replies.  But then I came to this paragraph, written by Scott:

Do I have friends who are gay?  I would have to say at this point in time no.  But my attitude about people who are gay is that they are still people.  I may disagree with their lifestyle choice, but I am still called to love them.  And for me I can’t get around that call to love, nor do I want to.

Bolding emphasis mine.  I was immediately struck by this statement, “called to love them,” because it is clearly a positive euphamism for tolerance.  If he had said, “but I still love them,” then there would be no problem.  But called to love?  That implies that you don’t want to love them, but are forced to, or guided to.  As though loving someone were a job instead of a genuine human response.

This is what bugs me about Christianity the most, more than the silly god-in-heaven stuff, more than the fanatical churches, more than the Crusades, the hypocrisy, the blatant errors in “God’s” Bible.  It’s this underlying feeling of superiority, and this idea of tolerance.
Everyone preaches tolerance.  If you hate ‘em, tolerate ‘em.  I think tolerance is a weak solution to a serious problem, the problem of love, or lack of love, to be more specific.  People don’t love each other anymore, they just tolerate each other.  You’re gay?  Well, I don’t like you, but I’ll tolerate you … until the Rapture comes and I go to Heaven and you go to Hell, because you’re a sinner in God’s eyes.  Muslim?  I’ll tolerate you … until you fly a plane into another one of our skyscrapers, you heathens.
The problem with tolerance is that it’s subversive, because it’s designed to be subversive.  No one is taught to love their fellow neighbor anymore.  Sure, it might be glossed over, but saying something and doing something are two completely different things.  People all around the world right now are telling their children, “Love thy neighbor,” as they lock their doors and deadbolts and secure the metal gate over their windows, as they avoid eye contact with the people living next door, as they poke fun at the gas station attendant behind their back.  Guess what, people?  Kids see this stuff.  They take it in like sponges.  They catch on to the truth of tolerance long before you know it.  And soon they’re either doing it themselves, or they’re becoming the brunt of “tolerant” children in school, who say hello to your face and make fun of you when you walk away.
We’ve become a nation of people terrified of each other, terrified of talking to people because we’re afraid of inciting anger.  We’re afraid of discussing religion because we don’t want to hurt feelings, but no one realizes that feelings are being hurt because we’re not talking about these things.  We just tolerate them, let them pass on by without serious consideration.
Tolerance is not the answer, plain and simple.  So what is the answer?  Simple: All you need is love.
Don’t tolerate your gay neighbor, love them!  Welcome them with open arms!  Treat them like they are an equal, because they are.  If God does exist, then surely he would not want you treating his creation like dirt, or even tolerating them.  Do you think God tolerates you?  Of course not!  He loves everyone, all the time, no matter what.
Remember, Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  And you would want people to love you, right?  Not just tolerate you?  So do the same!
I know lots of people who do things that drive me nuts, or people who just drive me nuts in general, even people whose lifestyle choices I don’t particularly agree with, but I don’t just tolerate them.  They are my friends, my family, my people, and I love and respect each one of them as they deserve to be loved and respected.  I don’t choose people to target because some god told me to.  I don’t have to target people.  I don’t have to tolerate anyone.  I just love them, that’s all.
I think I rambled a bit.

the funny thing is, my bed here is a third larger than my last bed…

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Here I am in beautiful sunny Portland, OR, sitting at the edge of my bed, at a computer desk which is much more accommodating than my old computer desk, my bed being, as mentioned in the blog title, a third larger than my old bed. I’ll always be one step ahead of you in the bed department, Aaron Kiefer. One step ahead…

I had to leave earlier than I thought, not realizing the impact of the Democratic National Convention on my brother Russ, and his extreme need to get back home in time to do his radio show (which is live on Saturdays … it’s 12 to 2 here, and I think you can hear it on KPOJ.com). So during Obama’s speech on Thursday night, he was driving from Denver to Boise, and ended up getting to my parents house at about 11am. I was in Boise giving plasma. My night of fun and frivolity ruined, I would be damned before I left without getting my precious blood money. Also I left my eyeglasses at the Dorian House and had to pick them up. Afterwards I managed to eek out a lunch date with my friend Megan, who is a most ambitious person and was able to essentially be the last person I saw in Boise before I left. That was about 3pm.

I got to my parents house and was immediately whisked away into Russ’s car, where we took the long, somewhat boring drive through eastern Oregon up to the Columbia Gorge, which is very pretty, and finally into Portland. I drove most of the way while Russ and Karri (I guess I haven’t mentioned Karri yet, have I? Well, she’s awesome and she lives in Astoria, which is equally awesome) slept. The drive to Portland is great, but once I’m in the city I lose all concept of what it means to be in a vehicle. I had to go around a roundabout; there is only one roundabout in the entire Treasure Valley and it’s like a kiddie roundabout. Anyway, I frightened Russ a couple of times with my ineptitude. We got in about 9pm, watched a bit of Obama’s speech (tivo’d) and went to sleep. Oh, and once I got to the house I realized that in the fervor to get out on the road, I forgot all my stuff in the bathroom — contact solution, toothbrush, etc. So that sucked.

Today was an adventure day. I got up at 10, walked to Walgreens, and marveled at the sheer amount of stuff a couple of blocks from my house. A park right across the street; a Burgerville(!) at the corner; a Wendy’s further down the way; a Walgreens, a Safeway, a Subway, a … some other things. It was great. And the weather couldn’t be nicer. So I went to Walgreens to buy all the stuff I forgot in Boise (they didn’t have contact cases, by the way, so I had to buy a little bottle and a case with it. Stupid). When I came back it was time for Russ’s radio show. I’ve heard it through the interwebs before but I’ve never sat in on it. Needless to say, it’s surreal, to be sitting, listening to a radio show on headphones that’s happening right then. It was a good show, cause the Sarah Palin VP thing had broken and it was essentially a hilarious decision on McCain’s part, and so there was plenty of fodder for Russ.

When the show wrapped up we took the dogs out for a walk (they are cute dogs, I will post pictures soon), and then went to Burgerville for, I dunno, burgers. I think they serve those there. They were delicious. Once we got back, though, it was time for the grand Moving of Bedrooms!

You see, Russ and his wife (I dunno if she’s big on the “name on the internet for all to see” sort of thing, so I’ll leave it out for now) had their bedroom on the ground floor of this house. It’s right next to the bathroom, and it meant less time hauling laundry up to the second floor. But eventually they realized that the upstairs bedroom was the master bedroom (well, I mean, they knew that but, yeah) and so when I moved in they wanted to switch bedrooms with me. I don’t blame them; the upstairs has a little office and nice closet space and another room that’s just an unifinished part of the attic or something, it’s weird, but either the office or offshoot room would make excellent writing/music recording rooms, and so naturally by the grace of fate I would not be allowed to use them.

Okay. So first we move my bed downstairs. My bed is a queen? King? I dunno, but it’s supported by two single box springs. Don’t know why. We moved it and set it aside in the kitchen, while we prepared to move Russ’s bed upstairs. We strip the bed, move everything aside, and start hauling the box spring up the small staircase.

And it gets stuck. And not like, hey, we can muscle this stuck. I mean the “if we move this any more we’ll break something” stuck. This box spring was not meant to go up these stairs.

Now, Russ has one intolerable quality that is a quality of all Belville’s, and it is Stubbornness. When we get it in our heads that we’re going to do something, then by god we are going to do it. And it was decided by the two of us (not by his wife that much) that we were going to get this bed into the upstairs. We tried muscling, we tried alternate angles, we tried removing the door to the stairs so we could come in from the kitchen. We tried everything. That box spring would not budge.

At this point there were two thought processes: one, that we saw the box spring in half, and two, that we remove the moulding from the door to give us an inch or two of extra room. Another qualtiy that Russ and I have is that we sometimes have stupid ideas that do not conform to common sense. Granted, I have more than he does (like when he gave me this computer desk. I set it up and for some reason put it somewhat in front of the closet. Russ came in and said, “Will that desk work?” and I said, “Yeah, it’s kind of in front of the closet but that’s okay,” and he said, “Why don’t you move it away from the closet?” and I said, “Uhhh, yeah, good idea.”), but every rare once and a while we both get the same stupid idea, and that stupid idea was to remove the moulding. Russ’s wife went along with it, too, because she knew Russ’s stubbornness (though has not been privy to mine), and so before you knew it, they were tearing moulding off the doorframe.

About a third of the way into the process it became clear that this was a Bad Idea, but they were already doing it and so eventually the mould was off and we could see the doorframe. Russ tried to hammer the doorframe out of its place but it was cemented in there and would not budge. But we thought, Hey, we have a couple of inches now! So we took the box spring and started pushing it up the stairs…

And it got stuck. On the next step. In roughly the same place.

At this point Russ was pissed, his wife was desperate to get some sleep (she worked the night shift), and I was secretly hoping that they would opt to leave their bed downstairs so I could get the kickass upstairs all to myself. But the Belville Stubbornness does not dwindle when faced with such a dilemma; nay, rather, it grows tenfold, like a hydra who just had one head cut off, three more grow in its place.

We briefly assayed the idea of hauling the box spring through an upstairs window, but they were all too small. Perhaps, we thought, we could remove the stairs and get it up there. Too much work. And then we got back on the idea of sawing the fucking thing in half. This seemed risky because we were afraid of disturbing the springs. But after some pawing of the mattress itself (is it technically a mattress? I never know), we realized that there weren’t any springs in there at all, just a simple latticework of wood supports. So Russ and I were like, fuck it, let’s saw it in half. We spent ten minutes taking the staples out of the fabric part, and then Russ got his saw and he sawed the thing in half. To be honest, it was pre
tty awesome. And then we folded the box spring in half (sans springs, apparently), and it was much easier to get up the stairs.

Once we got it up there, though, having had some previous experience sawing things in half in tech class and the need to put them together for stability, I realized that we would need something to put the wood back together, or else maybe one night Russ and his wife are sleeping and Russ turns over and suddenly the whole damn thing caves in. That would be bad. So I suggested we get some small 1×4 pieces of wood or something we could screw into the wood to put them back together. We ended up going to Home Depot, getting metal joiners, and screwing them into the box spring, making Russ’s bed look like a weird Frankensteinian monster.

Then we brought his regular mattress up and while it took a bit of muscling, it was much easier to get up there than his box spring. And then of course I unloaded all of my stuff in the downstairs bedroom, and everything is copasetic now. I’m still getting over the fact that it’s an hour earlier here than Boise, and that I don’t know anyone here (yet), but I’m already having a blast, and Russ’s wife has a contact in the theatre, and if all else fails I can go busk down on Hawthorne street, which might be fun, actually.

Anyway, it’s late, and I’m going to attempt to put a fitted bedsheet on a bed that is too large for said bedsheet, but somehow had said bedsheet on said bed before we moved it downstairs. Goodnight!