Radio Free Me

I've gotten old enough that I judge good music by how it resonates with me after years of not hearing it. This afternoon, I was cleaning out some stuff and found a bunch of old cassettes.

That's right, cassettes.

I stopped buying cassettes around 1992 for the most part, so I knew these were old. However, I found out that most of them were from my high school collection.

One of the tapes was a dub of two R.E.M. records - Murmur and Life's Rich Pageant. These tapes had been in various cars for the better part of 20 years, so I just knew they were toast. They weren't. Given that R.E.M.'s signature in those early years was lo-fi or as Stipe used to say, "mumbles," they sounded pretty good. I'm just lucky Carol is a technophobe and won't part with her tapes so we still have a player.

As I listened to Murmur (complete with air drums and guitar), it was great. It made me feel the same way it did in 1988 when I first heard them. Of course, to me R.E.M. has been one of the greatest bands ever to grace the stage. In that same bunch was the copy of Document I bought when it was released. It still has mud on it from falling out of my car after a wreck sometime in 1989.

They're all on iTunes now. Maybe I'll download them.

Or maybe I'll just put them back in the car. The antique does have a tape player after all,

Crashing in

We waste a great deal of mental energy avoiding people because of pre-conceived notions. I wrote a column about the movie Crash this week (http://www.cynthianademocrat.com/view) and the more I thought about it, the more I could have elaborated.

If you haven't seen it, Crash deals a lot with how people perceive those of different - and unfamiliar - ethnic backgrounds. One character, for example, sees all Latino people as Mexicans no matter where they are from.

It's the differences in people that I am interested in. All the Latin American countries have different cultures and social mores. As an American it's all too easy to just lump them all together as 'Mexicans.' It's the same with Asia, Europe and the Middle East. In fact, it's probably the most pronounced but the least know in the Middle East. I've learned quite a bit this week with the Lebanon-Israel conflict. For example, I'm sure everybody know how Israelis are different than Arabs. But, how many of you know that Iranians are not Arabs? I didn't. It's our logical assumption here in the states that all Muslims are Arabs, when that's not even close to true. Incidentally, that fact could be why the Muslim extremists haven't fused together as one solid unit (which would be bad for everyone). The cultural differences inside the Muslim faith have likely kept them separated.

Getting back on point, we also have these notion about people based on their jobs. Think about it - When you hear, 'lawyer,' 'doctor,' 'politician,' 'journalist,' what do you think?
I bet you think you know what they are all about based on what they do.

You would be wrong.

We're all different, I personally don't feel the same way about many things as other journalists. I would bet that if you talked to a group of doctors without knowing what they do, you would find scores of differences between them.

Unfortunately, we hardly ever take the time to really get to know people.