Tuesday, August 19, 2008
A Question.
WCBE kept me hostage in my car this morning after I got to work with a Joan Baez cover of "Day After Tomorrow," a politically-charged song by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan. First and foremost, when I am in charge of things, Joan Baez will not be allowed to cover any Tom Waits songs. Despite the horridness of the song, I could not leave the
Civic until it was over.
The song places the listener in the shoes of a 20 year old boy fighting a war that confuses him. A letter home to someone in Illinois, the song promises that the boy will be home, as the title suggests, "the day after tomorrow." This promise, one can assume, never comes to fruition.
I first heard this song live in Seattle several years ago (as sung by Tom Waits, not Joan Baez, thank God). It moved me. That's all I can say. It moved me.
I am not fighting
For justice
I am not fighting
For freedom
I am fighting
For my life
And another day
In the world here
I just do what I've been told
We're just the gravel on the road
And only the lucky
Ones come home
On the day after tomorrow
It's so easy to take a stance on something, to oppose war or eating meat or religious fundamentalism or poverty. But do we get desensitized while doing so? Do we categorize people, ideas, entire countries and put them in a box, without thinking about humanity? I do, sometimes. A war for oil is wrong. Clearly. But rarely do I think about the soldiers - ours and theirs - who are caught up in the conflict. To think about, learn about the people involved, their stories, their hopes, wouldn't change my stance; it may even further my stance.
I consider myself a good Liberal. Open-minded and all that jazz. But I believe that sometimes I fail to go to the depths of discomfort to fuel my passion for change. In the deepest darkness of my psyche, I must admit that a part of me thinks, "Well, you had a choice to join the military." But no choice is black and white.
And so Tom Waits, through the cackling of Joan Baez, jolted me out of my comfort this morning, reminded me that everyone has a story. Everyone. And that to be desensitized is, perhaps, a crime.
What pulls you out of desensitization? For me, today, it was a song. Sometimes it's a poem, or a hearty conversation with a good friend with a different background. Often times, it's a book or an article. Rarely will a photograph do the trick; only so much is told within the view of the lens.
Tell me your story.
WCBE kept me hostage in my car this morning after I got to work with a Joan Baez cover of "Day After Tomorrow," a politically-charged song by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan. First and foremost, when I am in charge of things, Joan Baez will not be allowed to cover any Tom Waits songs. Despite the horridness of the song, I could not leave the
Civic until it was over.
The song places the listener in the shoes of a 20 year old boy fighting a war that confuses him. A letter home to someone in Illinois, the song promises that the boy will be home, as the title suggests, "the day after tomorrow." This promise, one can assume, never comes to fruition.
I first heard this song live in Seattle several years ago (as sung by Tom Waits, not Joan Baez, thank God). It moved me. That's all I can say. It moved me.
I am not fighting
For justice
I am not fighting
For freedom
I am fighting
For my life
And another day
In the world here
I just do what I've been told
We're just the gravel on the road
And only the lucky
Ones come home
On the day after tomorrow
It's so easy to take a stance on something, to oppose war or eating meat or religious fundamentalism or poverty. But do we get desensitized while doing so? Do we categorize people, ideas, entire countries and put them in a box, without thinking about humanity? I do, sometimes. A war for oil is wrong. Clearly. But rarely do I think about the soldiers - ours and theirs - who are caught up in the conflict. To think about, learn about the people involved, their stories, their hopes, wouldn't change my stance; it may even further my stance.
I consider myself a good Liberal. Open-minded and all that jazz. But I believe that sometimes I fail to go to the depths of discomfort to fuel my passion for change. In the deepest darkness of my psyche, I must admit that a part of me thinks, "Well, you had a choice to join the military." But no choice is black and white.
And so Tom Waits, through the cackling of Joan Baez, jolted me out of my comfort this morning, reminded me that everyone has a story. Everyone. And that to be desensitized is, perhaps, a crime.
What pulls you out of desensitization? For me, today, it was a song. Sometimes it's a poem, or a hearty conversation with a good friend with a different background. Often times, it's a book or an article. Rarely will a photograph do the trick; only so much is told within the view of the lens.
Tell me your story.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Gun Show.
I went to a gun show yesterday morning, as a part of my cultural growth. My goal was to learn three things about people and three things about guns. My friend's goal was to buy a shotgun. We were both successful in the Sunday morning venture.
Many friends and family were stunned by my decision to go, as well as by gun shows in general. I think that for me, the most shocking part was just how simple it is to purchase a firearm without a) paying taxes, b) a receipt of the transaction, c) a background check or d) registration. Apparently it's perfectly okay to buy an assault weapon without any formal paperwork or limitations. So long as you're at a gun show.
"It's the same thing as saying that child molestation is illegal, unless you're at a Child Molestation Show," Sarah said as she processed the fact that my friend now has a double barrel shotgun and could be a complete lunatic. My friend is not a lunatic, but I do admit that the idea is somewhat troubling. As we walked out of Vet's Memorial, carrying the box filled with iron and wood, I felt uneasy, as if I'd just successfully carried two gallons of gasoline and a box of matches on board a flight to Detroit. Strange.
All in all, the experience was highly amusing. I stood out completely in my liberal brown-rimmed glasses and my left-wing Chacos, carrying my highfalutin coffee drink from Cup-O-Joe and knowing that I'd be reading the New York Times was in my near future. Also, I was the only woman at the event whose hairstyle did not originate in 1986. Vendors sold scrunchies at the Gun Show. Scrunchies.
My favorite part of the show had to be the t-shirt selection. T-shirts at this gun show generally featured images of deer, scantily clad women and scantily clad women on deer. There were a few political t-shirts that stuck out from the rest, ones that no hipster kid would dare wear - even for irony's sake - at Skully's. The first one I saw was simply designed. It said, "Nombama" with a line through the "O" that made it look like a no smoking sign. The second - the winner of the 2008 Gun Show Horrible T-Shirt Contest - was an image of an American flag with a heterosexual couple holding hands where the stars would be. The text? "Straight Pride." Good God.
Regrettably, while it's easy (and somehow encouraged) to bring rifles out of the show (with ammunition and all), it's very difficult to bring cameras into the show. I desperately wanted to capture the event in images, but couldn't do so without "previously written consent from the show's organizers." I decided to shy away from the process of somehow convincing the management that I wanted to take pictures for educational purposes. I spent several evenings coming up with reasons why they would allow me in with a camera, but the best thing that I could come up with was, "I'm doing a photographic series on places that make liberals uncomfortable." (This isn't too far from the truth; I took about fifty pictures from the inside of a meat-packing plant a few weeks ago.) I knew that they'd take one look at me and realize that I'm a liberal.
I did see a few signs that made me laugh and/or cringe. One being, "We want your swords." Another was, "NAME BRAND HERE: YOUR TOTAL ASSAULT SOURCE." If you need an assault source, friends, I know where to find one.
To complete the experience, I carried the shotgun down the street (calling myself a "gun toting liberal") and tried to assemble it with my friend when we were safely in the Short North. It's way more difficult to assemble a shotgun than it looks. Elmer Fudd does a way better job than I do. The gun was stubborn, mocking me for listening to NPR, reading Wonkette and having soy milk in my fridge. I finally had to resort to the poorly-written instruction manual to learn how to put it together. Spelling and grammar are not necessary for your typical shotgun owner, it seems.
So what did I learn?
About People:
1. If you stand out in a crowd - as I most certainly did - they will not look you in the eye. They will look past you. They will look at other people. They will look at guns.
2. Many arms dealers seem to like to text message or surf the internet on their phones, checking Fox News or baseball scores when no one is perusing their wares.
3. There is not a need for excellent graphic design at gun shows. Aesthetically, the designs of the guns are way more important than displaying a pleasing graphic. Gun people know that graphic design is a waste.
About Guns:
1. The bullet for a shotgun is not called a bullet. It's called a shot.
2. I can purchase a weapon for less than the price of new tires for my car. (And I can do so anonymously, no questions asked.)
3. The implements used to clean out a barrel in a shotgun look remarkably similar to those used I used to clean out the inside of my clarinet in high school.
I went to a gun show yesterday morning, as a part of my cultural growth. My goal was to learn three things about people and three things about guns. My friend's goal was to buy a shotgun. We were both successful in the Sunday morning venture.
Many friends and family were stunned by my decision to go, as well as by gun shows in general. I think that for me, the most shocking part was just how simple it is to purchase a firearm without a) paying taxes, b) a receipt of the transaction, c) a background check or d) registration. Apparently it's perfectly okay to buy an assault weapon without any formal paperwork or limitations. So long as you're at a gun show.
"It's the same thing as saying that child molestation is illegal, unless you're at a Child Molestation Show," Sarah said as she processed the fact that my friend now has a double barrel shotgun and could be a complete lunatic. My friend is not a lunatic, but I do admit that the idea is somewhat troubling. As we walked out of Vet's Memorial, carrying the box filled with iron and wood, I felt uneasy, as if I'd just successfully carried two gallons of gasoline and a box of matches on board a flight to Detroit. Strange.
All in all, the experience was highly amusing. I stood out completely in my liberal brown-rimmed glasses and my left-wing Chacos, carrying my highfalutin coffee drink from Cup-O-Joe and knowing that I'd be reading the New York Times was in my near future. Also, I was the only woman at the event whose hairstyle did not originate in 1986. Vendors sold scrunchies at the Gun Show. Scrunchies.
My favorite part of the show had to be the t-shirt selection. T-shirts at this gun show generally featured images of deer, scantily clad women and scantily clad women on deer. There were a few political t-shirts that stuck out from the rest, ones that no hipster kid would dare wear - even for irony's sake - at Skully's. The first one I saw was simply designed. It said, "Nombama" with a line through the "O" that made it look like a no smoking sign. The second - the winner of the 2008 Gun Show Horrible T-Shirt Contest - was an image of an American flag with a heterosexual couple holding hands where the stars would be. The text? "Straight Pride." Good God.
Regrettably, while it's easy (and somehow encouraged) to bring rifles out of the show (with ammunition and all), it's very difficult to bring cameras into the show. I desperately wanted to capture the event in images, but couldn't do so without "previously written consent from the show's organizers." I decided to shy away from the process of somehow convincing the management that I wanted to take pictures for educational purposes. I spent several evenings coming up with reasons why they would allow me in with a camera, but the best thing that I could come up with was, "I'm doing a photographic series on places that make liberals uncomfortable." (This isn't too far from the truth; I took about fifty pictures from the inside of a meat-packing plant a few weeks ago.) I knew that they'd take one look at me and realize that I'm a liberal.
I did see a few signs that made me laugh and/or cringe. One being, "We want your swords." Another was, "NAME BRAND HERE: YOUR TOTAL ASSAULT SOURCE." If you need an assault source, friends, I know where to find one.
To complete the experience, I carried the shotgun down the street (calling myself a "gun toting liberal") and tried to assemble it with my friend when we were safely in the Short North. It's way more difficult to assemble a shotgun than it looks. Elmer Fudd does a way better job than I do. The gun was stubborn, mocking me for listening to NPR, reading Wonkette and having soy milk in my fridge. I finally had to resort to the poorly-written instruction manual to learn how to put it together. Spelling and grammar are not necessary for your typical shotgun owner, it seems.
So what did I learn?
About People:
1. If you stand out in a crowd - as I most certainly did - they will not look you in the eye. They will look past you. They will look at other people. They will look at guns.
2. Many arms dealers seem to like to text message or surf the internet on their phones, checking Fox News or baseball scores when no one is perusing their wares.
3. There is not a need for excellent graphic design at gun shows. Aesthetically, the designs of the guns are way more important than displaying a pleasing graphic. Gun people know that graphic design is a waste.
About Guns:
1. The bullet for a shotgun is not called a bullet. It's called a shot.
2. I can purchase a weapon for less than the price of new tires for my car. (And I can do so anonymously, no questions asked.)
3. The implements used to clean out a barrel in a shotgun look remarkably similar to those used I used to clean out the inside of my clarinet in high school.
