Coupla Things…

Guitar player joke; what did the blues guy order at the bar?

Gin and pentatonic.

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While in a Daddy’s Junky Music the other day, I pondered the purchase of an Alesis SR16 drum computer; and another patron suggested not to bother, as you can download lots of different drum programs online for free. Free sounded pretty good, so off I went. I found what seemed like a good package, unzipped it, and released a trojan horse virus that did major damage. What a country.

And speaking of matters country, I have been perusing my Clustermap to watch the fascinating migratory patterns of my 62 loyal readers. I suspect now that they aren’t really migrating at all. I think I’m probably looking at dot crawl caused by the virus, as they always seem to lose focus and drift away from their points of origin, only to suddenly snap right back to where they started from. In my research, I refer to this phenomena as DHR ( digital homing response ). This is especially prevalent here in Rhode Island, where the trauma of having moved more than two zip codes away from one’s place of birth has been known to cause irreversible past-life regression. I myself spent several years believing that I was once a wing commander for Napoleon Bonaparte, only to be removed from my post for insisting that the Imperial Guard stand ‘ side by each’, as opposed to ‘ form companies’. Or possibly for referring to the Emperor as ‘that little bitch’. He was notoriously short, you know. But that’s all crazy talk. I’m past that; I’m someone else now.

But back for a moment to the clustermap. I’m always somewhat taken aback by the relentless steadiness of the 62. Every bit as determined as the 300 at Thermopylae, they have stayed with me all these months as I have tried to re-define ‘inanity’. Most of them are checking in from points within the US, with 10 Canadians, a few Brits, and one or two each from several more exotic spots.

I wonder very much how this sort of thing must appear to someone from a very un-Western culture. We in America have always enjoyed an absolute presumption of our fundamental freedoms; we could not remotely imagine being without them. I don’t think we could, or would even want to, survive without them. We just don’t particularly like being reminded of our antipathy. So passe. So Revolutionary war.

But when I see a red map dot from China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan…I wonder. Is that person taking a risk to visit my blog site? Are there actually repercussions in some places for even being associated to such activities? Yes, there are. And if there are some amongst my 62 that are running those risks, it’s certainly not because I’m so good a writer. I am a chimp who’s managed to pry the lid off a few cans of paint, and madly throw them against a white wall when the simian spirits beckon. It’s tremendous fun. It’s very cathartic. It’s wonderfully satisfying. And in some parts of the world, it gets people killed.

I suspect that those people just want to watch this certain type of freedom being utilized, however poorly. A fundamental human right is being displayed, and even though the participants are often not as appreciative as they should be, it is still something to behold.

Freedom of speech. A phrase from high-school history books; that’s all it is to us. We’ve always had it. We think we always will. So very many have died to secure it, and we simply continue to take it for granted.

So I find myself pondering over those far-away red dots on the map, and I genuinely and truly thank all those who take the time to check in here; especially if there are risks involved. I hope it at least entertains you,  and I hope that you can spot a few subtleties in between the lines. It’s not really about chimps, paint, vacuum cleaners, or Leadville, Colorado. It’s all about the freedom. Glorious freedom.

( Insert video of jet fly-by over colors at full mast; cue in National Anthem; fade to black)