Ain’t got no time for dat!!! I need to get my 100 Phish shows first!
Thought that has been consuming me for the last week:
[size=150]FUCK YOU CANCER!!![/size]
Seriously, WTF are you good for!
In the past week my father in law has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and on almost the same day, my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer.
Although my FIL prognosis is much better, it’s still without fear and a fucked up future.
My dads is much worse. Spread from his lungs to his liver and a tad bit in his bones. Not good at all.
Flying out to North Carolina this weekend to see him before he starts his chemo. Not a good prognosis.
So, both my pops can use some collective vibes from the best community on the web (and in life).
!!!FUCK YOU CANCER!!!
Vibes, dude. Wishing your family successful healing!
^^Ug, it’s so terrifying. My Dad had a baseball-sized growth in his lower back that they found and removed when he went in for a gall bladder issue. It really sucked when we had to wait for the news on whether it was cancerous or not. Thankfully it wasn’t, but that’s just a sinking feeling even at the possibility. It’s amazing how cancer just affects everybody.
Mega vibes, sir.
Yes.
My best thoughts are with you and your family, Chris.
Attended my niece’s elementary school concert the other night. The school pushes music education and always has something about the benefits of it written in the program. This year, they had a new one I thought was very well stated…not written by someone at the school, but borrowed from somewhere else. I don’t know who to credit it to. It is titled “Why Study Music?” I found it on the world wide web, so I thought I’d share. In addition, I’d like to add that they have a great music program and the 4th and 5th grade (combined) band played well above the level that many of their cohorts would be at that age.
Music is Science.
It is exact, specific; and it demands exact acoustics. A conductor’s full score is a graph which indicates frequencies, intensities, volume changes, melody and harmony all at once and with the most exact control of time. It embodies many levels of physics from acoustics to architecture.
Music is Mathematical.
It is rhythmically based on the subdivisions of time into fractions which must be done instantaneously, not worked out on paper, in a highly specific form with regard to exact placement and symmetry.
Music is a World Language.
Most of the terms are in Italian, German or French; and the notation is certainly not English. It is a highly developed kind of shorthand that uses symbols to represent ideas. The semantics of music is the most complete and universal language.
Music is History.
Music usually reflects the environment and times of its creation, taking on the emotion of a nation, region or a people. It is the only Art form we can hear as people hundreds of years ago had. Unlike paint, whose image is always there once created, Music is perpetually “Repainted” each time it is performed. The feelings and thoughts of countless generations are forever cast in Sound.
Music is Physical Education.
It requires fantastic coordination of the fingers, hands, arms, lips and facial muscles, and control of diaphragmatic, back, stomach and chest muscles, which respond instantly to the sound the ear hears and the mind interprets. There are as many calories burned by a symphony trumpet player in one performance as there are by a quarter-back in a professional football game.
Music is Art.
It allows a human being to take technical and sometimes difficult areas of learning and translate them into human emotion. It helps every person to recognize and understand beauty, and to understand love, compassion and how to live more fully within this world.
This is Why We Study Music:
Not because we expect you to major in music. Not because we expect people to play music all their lives. Not so you can relax. Not so you can have fun.
BUT:
So you will be human, so you will recognize beauty, so you will be more sensitive, especially to all the thoughts and feelings put into sound throughout the ages, so you will be closer to an infinite beyond this world, so you will have something to cling to, so you will have more love, more compassion, more gentleness, more good - in short, more life!
Of what value will it be to make a prosperous living unless you know how to live?
That is why we study music.
I just saw the headline "Renowned poet Maya Angelou dies.” Is that the last “renowned poet” ever? I can’t even name another famous one. Seems like the art dies with her.
^Thank goodness we got rid of Saddam, right?
The city of Mosul, which was just taken by rebels, in northern Iraq is where my grandparents on both sides are from. Not the city proper, but a village called Tel Kaif outside of Mosul, in the Ninevah area. The villages are primarily Aramaic speaking Christian Assyrians who have lived there for thousands of years. Since we toppled Saddam, that area has gone to hell, and thousands upon thousands of Assyrians have fled to Turkey, Greece, and the USA (usually Detroit). My aunt is part of a charity that helps a lot of these refugees coming in and finds them housing and jobs. Anyway, over in Iraq we’ve been getting targeted by political and religious extremists for a few reasons: Christians buy and sell liquor, send our women to universities, and just because most Assyrians are Christians. Extremists have killed and kidnapped bishops, clerics, children, store owners, and women. Some grisly stories if you look for them.
Two days ago I was sitting with my family at my grandmothers house and when she told us that terrorists have captured Mosul, the room kinda went silent. No one really knew what to say because We’re so far removed from everything “back home” but it pains us all the same. It’s our people and heritage being destroyed. I don’t know anyone who lives there now so I move on of course, but one day I would like to visit the village and walk the streets I would’ve walked, talked to the people I would have known, spoke in my broken Aramaic, breathed the air I would’ve breathed. I don’t know of that will ever happen and I don’t know if there will even be anything to visit by the time it’s safe enough to go. Not trying to get pity or anything just sharing my person connection to this event.
What do you want me to do, to do for you to see you through?
A a box of rain will ease the pain and love will see you through…
That’s for my best friend, Marley. The vet just informed me she’s at the beginning stages of heart failure and only has six months to a year to live. I’m so sad. It’s hard to describe. She was by my side during the most difficult periods of my life. A few months ago I went into a severe anaphylaxis and it was so bad, I didn’t even go to the hospital. I took four benedryl and rushed home because I really thought I was going to die and I wanted to die with Marley at my side. I ran in the door and grabbed her and jumped in bed. I can’t describe how comforting it was to feel her fur and listen to the rhythm of her breath while I faded out… Now, hopefully I can return the favor while she completes her journey…
Make every day with her count Sean. I don’t know if there is any pain worse than losing a pet. People, even your parents, children, siblings, and friends will all have done something in your life to upset you or just something that makes you question how much you mean to them…your dog will never leave you feeling this way. A dog is the very definition of loyalty. A dog is maybe the only source of truly unconditional love I’ve ever come across in my life. No one ever gets excited to see me, and I don’t blame them, but if I leave the house for 10 minutes my dog treats it like the most important moment in her life when I walk back in the door. I feel for you Sean. Nothing I can say will ever make it any easier, but my thoughts are with you and Marley buddy.
thanks Devin. That helps. And, FYI, I am looking forward to seeing you at Dicks. I’m not gonna hump your leg or pee on the floor when I see you, but maybe we can rage a Fluffhead. 
Drew, can’t imagine what that feels like. I’m two generations away from grandparents who emigrated from Sicily at the turn of the 20th century, but if the people there were being systematically wiped out and the island overrun, I would feel incredibly cut off from my past, psychologically adrift in the grand scheme of life. Your grandmother must be truly saddened because those memories are being trashed with any hope of revisiting her homeland. Truly sad.
Truly sad to hear about Marley as well, Sean. We don’t have many best friends in life, so it’s always hard to see them go. Don’t know if she’ll be suffering during this period, but if it gets very difficult for her, the right decision will get much more difficult for you. Stay close and we’ll do what we can to offer kind words.
Worst President since Carter…
What exactly did Carter do that was so terrible again?
news.firedoglake.com/2013/09/17/ … an-rebels/
Fine by me. Anything to keep our own troops from getting killed over there. I don’t think we should waste any time on Syria but you know they won’t do that.
No one really knew what to say because We’re so far removed from everything “back home” but it pains us all the same. It’s our people and heritage being destroyed.
I hear you on that. I work with some people from that general area…one guy mentioned how he can’t even get back into his old country to see his hometown or extended family or whatever. He didn’t seem too keen on wanting to do it but the fact that it’s not even an option was a bit depressing…he thinks he’ll likely never see it again. Just shows how good we have it.
That’s for my best friend, Marley. The vet just informed me she’s at the beginning stages of heart failure and only has six months to a year to live.
Awww, damn…nothing more depressing than seeing a pet suffer. Hope his last periods of life are happy…it’s all you can do to try to make them that way.
People, even your parents, children, siblings, and friends will all have done something in your life to upset you or just something that makes you question how much you mean to them…your dog will never leave you feeling this way. A dog is the very definition of loyalty.
Agree with every part of this. I’ve had grandparents and others die but few hit me as hard as having to put my first cat to sleep. I will like to correct you that a cat can be just as loyal as any dog. My cat greets me at the door every time I come home, follows me around the house so she can “hang out” in whatever room I happen to be in and gives me kisses and then sleeps at my feet every night.
Either you are joking or you were not alive yet.
VIBES Sean!
^No, I’m curious why folks find him so bad. He did a lot of things that the country needed but weren’t popular. Which is kinda what we want from our politicians…
BLACK COWS ARE THE MEANEST, GRUMPIEST, ANGRIEST, TERRITORIAL FUCKERS.
You racist bastard.
^I hear you. My cat is mostly black so I get a kick out of calling her an “African American” and making the occasional stereotype comment that would be best to not repeat here.