If writing is my life, music is the breaths I must keep to sustain life. I love music, have spent my entire life with music and can’t understand how others don’t feel the same way I do. William Congreve’s full quote, which is often misquoted and almost always truncated, is, “Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.” Those are words by which I live my life.

In the first week of live shows on Fox’s 3000 pound gorilla known as American Idol, the contestants, ranging in age from 15 to 30-ish, sang selections from the 60’s. Unfortunately, it does not surprise me that three of the four eliminated from the competition in this the first round of audience participation were under the age of 20. Kids today…Whoa! Who said that!?….Kids today know very little about music history. I’m not talking Brahams and Bach music history. I’m talking MoTown and Detroit Rock City (yes, I realize, they are the same place but with two totally different meanings in terms of music) music history.

At least two of the contestants openly admitted that they had never before heard the song they had chosen to perform (which, I guess, was balanced out by Simon admitting to never having heard Baby, Please Don’t Go by Muddy Waters *shrug*).

Today at work, my boss regaled me with an anecdote about her sons (aged 17 and 20) admiring the quality of “this new song,” a song that had been released when their parents were in high school. She didn’t tell me what the song was and I didn’t ask; the point of the story is that they didn’t even know it wasn’t a new song. She told me one other time about helping the younger of the two load songs onto his iPod. He was astounded that she knew most of the songs he was picking out and even more so when she told him she grew up with those songs. Again, she didn’t list titles and I didn’t ask.

Some of my earliest memories include sitting on the floor in front of my parents’ stereo, listening to a golden oldies station on AM radio. I’m not exactly a spring chicken; music from my childhood has now found its way to the oldies station line up; but I am young enough to have been born after AM radio, 8-tracks and, to some extent, vinyl. But I still know what all of those are and understand there are situations where they are better than CDs and MP3s. Granted there was no way a Sony Walkman could give you 1000 tracks at time or fit comfortably in your hip pocket but when they came out, only the coolest kids had one.

I think the part of it that saddens me the most is that the current high school and college generation, the group who will, before long, be running this country, know nothing of the music that has shaped it. No, the survival of our nation as a whole is not hinged on knowing that without slave hymns we would have never gotten jazz and without jazz there would never have been rock and roll or r&b and without r&b they would have to find someone other than Fiddy to teach them about ghetto violence and illiteracy, but it is a huge part of our history. And a lot of people, I won’t even condescend to say young people but people in general, don’t know about the progression towards rock and roll. They might know Weezer’s Buddy Holly but have never heard about Buddy Holly’s Peggy Sue.

I don’t expect anyone to have as much trivial knowledge about any one subject in their head as I have in my own but the lack of general knowledge of music and the music history that has shaped our nation’s history and, subsequently, who we are today truly breaks my heart. I guess I have said all there is to say on the subject. Until next time, I’ll be listening to the classics, both new and old. I hope you’ll join me in a sing along.

Crimson

http://beshameless.net/archives/2008/02/23/music-hath-charms-to-something-something-something/trackback/

Comments(0)

Okay, so as time progresses and we all, dare I say it, get older. We tend to realize that of the many ways we can continue to fuck up our lives, relationships seem to be a kicker. So for the next few weeks (or months or years depending on my own work ethic) I’m going to be writing my own little guidebook on how to deal with common everyday relationship issues the shameless way. (Please note that I actually completely suck at relationships, and I do not guarantee that any of my advice is valid, in fact it will probably make things worse and antagonize already fragile situations, but at least it was an entertaining read)

For the first chapter I decided that communication would be my focus. So I devised a list of situations and tell you how I would handle them. Here goes:

1 . You haven’t heard from your partner in a week and have gotten no response to your attempts to contact him or her. The Right thing to do: Patiently await a response, if none is received, send a message of concern and let the person know you are worried, but will take a hint and move on. The Shameless thing to do: “FUCK that jerk I’m getting laid tonight!!!”

2. You and your partner get into an argument and it has come to a standstill with no compromise in sight. The Right thing to do: Wait until you both have calmed down and discuss the issue like adults, even if it means you agree to disagree. The Shameless thing to do: “Dammit, why won’t you just admit you’re wrong and get over it so we can have make-up sex already!!!”

3. You’re having a bad day, you come home and your partner has just made it worse by saying something completely demeaning and belittling. The Right thing to do: Calmly communicate that you’ve had a hard day and inform them of how their behavior has made you feel . The Shameless thing to do: Find something of their’s of value that is kind of heavy and probably breakable and throw it at their head, then curse yourself for missing. (Unless you actually hit them, in which case you will need some trash bags, bleach, and a car with a large trunk)

4. Your partner is upset with you because you have not allowed them to meet your family. The Right thing to do: Tell your partner to be patient with you, and re-enforce that you are not embarrassed by them, but you need time to prepare yourself for that step in your relationship. The Shameless thing to do: “If you’d take a damn bath and get a job, I might consider it!!”

5. Your partner comes to you and tells you something that is bothering them about you, with hopes that you both can talk about it and work it out. The right thing to do: Listen to their complaint, use this discussion to get your complaints on the table and work together to improve. The Shameless thing to do: Tell them that you will never change, and if they don’t like it they can go fuck themselves. Don’t forget to add in everything that is wrong with them that is expected to change or you’ll kick them out on their ass.

That’s all for now, I hope you have enjoyed chapter 1. Fell free to comment with your own Shameless Relationship Advice in the future

http://beshameless.net/archives/2008/02/22/un-happily-ever-after-a-shameless-guide-to-relationships-chapter-1/trackback/

Comments(0)

The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart. ~Elisabeth Foley

I was actually saving this idea, this entry for Beshameless’ second birthday. However, something has come up that makes me want to share it with you all now.

As I said, I was saving this for the 2nd anniversary of my very first entry. I wanted to do something special for it, and not let it slip by unnoticed like last year. So I sat down and thought it out. What would make it special? Calling people out for things I don’t agree with? I do that all the time. The occasional post of good news wouldn’t do either, because our world still isn’t seeing very much of it. I decided it deserved some real thought. Why did we start Beshameless? We fooled ourselves into thinking that we would be cutting edge, talk about things that often went unnoticed, or to shed new light on the same old story. In some aspects we were and are; but, to me it was for another reason entirely. I didn’t realize it at the time… I see why now.

BeShameless started in March of 2006, when the three original writers were facing crossroads in their life. Sure we had talked about it for awhile, played around with the idea often. Yet, we never actually got it started until we all came to the cross road. I think that we actually started this site to remain close to each other.

The three of us were facing the possibility of splitting up. Shameless was going back to where he had been living, and Ethan was offered a promotion that would require him to move. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew without a doubt that I would miss them both more than I could imagine. So the site began, we spent alot of time together talking it out and bringing it to light. Even now, I remember the day that it came online. Ethan was having some technical trouble and was talking with the site host or something to that effect. Shameless and I sitting on Ethan’s couch talking about the 1st entry. When the tech consultation was over we spend the rest of the night coming up with grand ideas, and constantly hitting refresh to see if we were online yet.

Beshameless became our own sort of family. It has inside jokes (usually about some people not updating ::coughshamelesscough:: ), it has its own set of self imposed guidelines, and hopefully one day it will have its own traditions. After all, we have already grown to include one more to the family. Crimson went from reader, to occasional commenter, to full time writer. She’s become one of us… And, even she posts more than Shameless.

I’ve always had a hard time adequately expressing the way I feel. Even with my constant foot in mouth symptoms, I hope that my fellow writers know how I feel. They are my family, in this little corner and in the real world. I respect, admire, and most of all love them with all my heart. These two years have been beyond amazing, and I can’t imagine life without them.

That being said, the reason I bumped this up instead of saving it, is because once again we are separating. Ethan, darling, I can’t say enough how much you mean to me. Yes I know you are only a few hours away… but I’ll miss having you close by. More importantly, I hope that this move will fulfill you (that way I don’t have to help you pack again, hehe) and that you find everything that you are hoping for.

Oh and to the readers out there, Ethan isn’t leaving the site. I wouldn’t allow it. If it came to that I would chain him in my basement. He would be allowed a laptop with windows vista (bwahaha) and the only website he could visit would be this one. So have no worries, our geek god isn’t leaving here.

Until next time, I’ll think fondly of you all,
autumn

http://beshameless.net/archives/2008/02/09/a-special-entry/trackback/

Comments(0)