Recently, I got tired of listening to the same music over and over again. Never mind that my iTunes boasts something like 4,000 songs and I could theoretically listen to my music for 23 days uninterrupted, without ever repeating a track.

Alas, my musical tastes tend to drift, morph and reinvent themselves over time. Sure, I enjoy listening to some of the old stuff - sometimes. But the mood really has to strike. I have to feel particularly blue and in need of some serious *soul* to be able to listen to Mahalia Jackson, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone - no matter how great they are. Or I have to be in a bouncy, sentimental-of-my-youth mood to be able to enjoy Prince, Madonna, Michael Jackson and other 80s music.

Lately, I just seem to be drawn more to dark, hard melodies with deep, rich sound carpets. Linkin Park rock my world. So does Korn, Marilyn Manson, Deftones, Rage Against The Machine, Disciple. And then there are my good old friends The Cure and Depeche Mode.



So I went out and acquired new tunes yesterday.

Amazing, really. The way music can elevate one's mood, suck you in, put you into a different state of mind, completely occupy you. Like honey on the tongue, it melts and sweetens the sound waves traveling to your brain. You can let yourself fall, get lost in them, swim in them like in an ocean of warm velvet.

And there is so much cool stuff out there now. Remixes, covers, mash-ups, obscure "live" versions. Covers of covers. New bands covering old bands. Linkin Park doing Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence". Marilyn Manson doing "Personal Jesus" and Madonna's "Like A Virgin" (admittedly a bit of an acquired taste). The Cure covering "World in Your Eyes".

And then there are songs I've never heard of because they either never got popular or got lost on some album nobody bought. But if I listen to them a few times, they quickly become friends. Ever heard of "Free Love"? Even die-hard Depeche Mode fans will surely shake their heads. But really, it's an excellent track I've just fallen in love with. No idea where it had been hiding all this time though...

In many ways, it's like unearthing treasures. Who then become part of the tapestry of your life. So sweet, so vibrant, so encompassing, so precious.

Enjoy the Silence.

Fellow burners will understand my instant dismay upon hearing this:

SAN FRANCISCO -- A man once accused of attempting to set fire to San Francisco's historic Grace Cathedral has been released from custody after pleading no contest Friday to reduced misdemeanor charges, his attorney said Monday.

San Francisco police arrested Paul Addis -- an "eccentric" performance artist according to his attorney, public defender Tal Klement -- outside the cathedral Oct. 28, his backpack laden with fireworks.

Police reported at the time that he had other items with him that "led officers to believe he might be up to something," and that a neighbor reportedly heard Addis say, "The cathedral isn't going to be there anymore."

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Addis has also been ordered to undergo six months of counseling, and to stay at least 150 yards away from Grace Cathedral, according to Klement.

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Addis was earlier charged in Nevada for allegedly setting the Burning Man effigy on fire before it was scheduled to be torched at the annual counterculture festival held each Labor Day weekend in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. Addis is now scheduled to return to Nevada to face those charges, according to Klement.


I hope that to anyone who has in the past regarded this guy as a "hero" and "personifying the Burning Man anarchy spirit" will now rethink their stance. Sounds like he's simply a psychotic pyro who needs to go (and stay) behind bars.

Grrr.

If I knew what was good for me, I would just shut up, shrug and move on with my day. Alas - sometimes I (i.e. my opinionated brain) get the better of me.

So then here it goes: When I read an article (titled "Housing forecast: It'll only get better") in The Bulletin a couple of weeks ago about a real estate breakfast at the Riverhouse and how their keynote speaker touted the local real estate market as "being on the brink of a turn-around", I quietly sat for a minute, astonished at the cheery and uncritical tone of the article, and then thought to myself "BULLSHIT".

Shortly thereafter, an article in The Source about COBA (Central Oregon Building Association - for all your out-of-town readers), trying to get its members to cheerlead to the local media and asking them to put out press releases with good news about how strong the local building industry was, got me pondering too, and I came up with the same result - "BULLSHIT".

Now, that is just my opinion. Although I have to mention that it is based on three minor facts:
A) as an architectural photographer, I work with a lot of local building industry folks and have a pretty good sense of the overall mood in the housing market.
B) I have a business degree, and therefore pay attention to economic trends as they relate to the nation and world as a whole (and that trend says the housing market, along with the overall economy, is in the shitter).
C) I'm married to a finish carpenter who has had to travel all over the West Coast for the past 6 months for work.

But I only put two and two together today, when I read in The Source online about the very reporter who wrote the Riverhouse article losing his job "after complaining the paper was sugar-coating its coverage of the local real estate market".

Hmm.
WTF?
Hello?

Is anybody living in Central Oregon (or in the rest of the US, for that matter) - and blessed with a brain - seriously buying that the local real estate market is just fine or on the verge of a turn-around? What's the point of sugar-coating? Why risk your credibility and dignity as a newspaper by putting out tweaked stories, and then hoping people will not notice the excrement all over it, or worse, actually believe you? It's insulting - that's what it is.

Yeah, yeah, I know - preservation of advertising revenue to keep the paper on the press, and all that jazz. Throw the local housing market a bone to keep the ad money flowing. But I don't know. I always thought that the responsibility of a newspaper and its editors - and as such the media as a whole - is to truth and honesty in reporting and disseminating a story. Independent of what the economy, and therefore your advertisers, experience as a whole.

Is that too idealistic? Is it really too much to ask of your local media to adhere to some basic standards in reporting? I think not.

So, dear Bulletin - please pull your heads out of your asses, and stop insulting the intelligence of your readers.

Or I will cancel my subscription.

And I'm sure your advertisers won't appreciate that.