Mark Olson: Little Bird of Freedom

Caught Mark Olson at Club Passim two nights ago and wanted to get the word out that if you can see him perform go do it. He left Cambridge Sunday night for Portland, Maine, then he said he was going straight to Germany where he was going to meet up with Ingunn Ringvold who he made his latest album with.

I am fairly familiar with the Jayhawks, but really didn't know a lot about Mark as a solo performer. The great thing about Club Passim is how intimate the setting is. Now most of the time when you call a venue "intimate" it means the tables are all crowded on top of one another. And, yes, that is true about Club Passim, although whoever is sitting next to you is likely to be equally as interested in music as you are, and likely to know even more. After all, it is Cambridge. But intimate, in this case, also means that the artists and the patrons mingle, and while Mark and Mallory, one of Club Passim's crack sound technicians (the club has a wonderful, clear-sounding sound system) set up, I turned in my chair and saw someone who was clearly a musician walk in from backstage (it's really an outdoor patio) clutching a fiddle case, and wearing lime green pants, suspenders, a yellow shirt, and a straw hat that rode over the clearest blue eyes I think I've ever seen. It was Mike "Razz" Russell, longtime cohort of Olson's and a member of The Creekdippers. I still didn't know who he was, but we talked about him going to the movies at the Brattle Street Theater where he fell asleep, and about music and playing and a little bit about how he got together with Mark. He said if Mark hadn't asked him to play he still might be sitting on his front porch. Afterward, Mark stood in the lobby and talked with us far longer than you'd ever expect him to do. He seemed genuinely happy to be talking to us about his music and what he was up to and about the gig he just played.

Mark and Mike are both from Minnesota, and from living in Boston for so long, and always having to deal with both its angry and snooty sides, it was such a breath of fresh air to talk to them and watch them perform. They were joyous and had so much fun together (they had a drummer, whose name I don't know but he was so tight and had such a beautiful voice, like one you'd hear in a choir.) Mark's songs are optimistic and loaded with imagery from the outdoors, again something you'd expect from the Midwest.

Mark played a lot from his newest album, Many Colored Kite. This is the opening track and I love it. It fits in so much with the play I'm writing right now, Highland Center, Indiana.

The Problem with Aggregators, or Second-Hand News Sources

I just quit gather.com as a blogger there. Gather.com has high hopes of being a major second-hand news source, and I just wasn't comfortable with what I experienced there, from Gather's emphasis on hits rather than the quality of the content, to what appeared to me as flirting with copyright infringement.

I intended to blog about that here on Action Bob Markle, but am strapped for time at this exact moment. But a Facebook friend posted this article in his page, and I want to take the opportunity to get it out. Of course, what's interesting is this article is a commentary on the initial article that addresses this issue, but that's just the nature of the world, the news, and the Internet.

I'll follow up on this later.

The Money Tree

What would happen if money grew on trees? In this intelligent, thoughtful, quirky film, you can see exactly what happens.

As a social experiment, Amy Krouse Rosenthal (whoisamy.com and MissionAmyKR.com) hung one hundred one dollar bills in a tree on a busy street in Chicago. Now, what would you think would happen? If you really know human beings, this film won't surprise you in the least.

The T on Crutches

I got hold of a pair of crutches and they are a godsend. With them, I still just creep along, just one slow shuffling step at a time. But they take the pressure off my back so now I can actually stand upright with very little pain.

And so, today I negotiated the T today for the first time by myself since my back went out. It was now or never. Sue's been driving me around, taking me to and picking me up at class, but she couldn't keep doing that. Her job is stressful enough without adding more to her day. And I hate depending on anyone, even Sue. She says I'm stubborn but I'm just independent and like doing things on my own.

You're a different person on crutches. First, people are quick to give up their seat. At Wollaston I crept into the car and a young woman right by the door just sprung up and gave me her seat. What's funny is when I hobbled into the car at Park Street at rush hour, one guy just stood right up, while you could see a flurry of people down the car considering. Funny that it's not natural of us to come to the aid of our fellow humans.

While people give up their seats, conversely I become an invisible person. I just shuffle along in my own world, and you can see people consciously ignoring me. But that's kind of a gift, because today in Park Street, as I slowly made my way through the crowd, I was able to really look around and since everyone was ignoring me, I was able to almost stare. It was like when I was living in Sherborn, and everyone ignored me there, too. I think they figured there if they didn't already know me I wasn't worth knowing. Now it's like my own personal play and I'm able to walk slowly among all my actors.

This is Massachusetts though, and the T is as hard to negotiate as the streets. And this time pain is the payment for any miscalculation. I got off at Park, and though I can get up and down stairs, I thought I'd go for the elevator since I've never ridden an elevator in the subway in thirty years. Bad idea. I followed the signs to the elevator, which was way at the end of the platform, only to find that it would take me to the wrong side of the Green Line. I took it anyway. I wasn't going to walk all the way back. The thing about this injury is that the tiniest movement hurts so much, so walking the length of the platform only to find I was in the wrong place was almost overwhelmingly demoralizing. The pain just wears you down.

The one thing that I wasn't prepared for was how vulnerable I felt. I realized that if someone lifted my wallet from my back pocket, I'd just have to watch them run away. If a couple of hoods decided to jump me or pick on me, well, I joked that I'd poke them with my crutch but that honestly wouldn't get me far.  I was imminently aware that I was a weak member of the herd, and that if the lions decided to dine that day, I would be one of the first to be hunted down. I moved my wallet to the inside pocket of my jacket, and hoped that I looked rough enough that I'd be left alone. 

So far none of this has affected my studies, at least too much. Right now it's about 10:30 at night, and normally that would mean I still would be up writing for another two hours or so. But after I put this post to bed, I'm going to bed, too. Like I said, the pain just wears you down.

Dead Zone off Louisiana; Who's to Blame?

Are the farms in the Midwest any different than the BP oil spill in the Gulf? Why do we care about the BP spill, but not the runoff from farms that causes the same damage? And why haven't the southern states, most notably Louisiana, filed lawsuits the way northeastern states have against coal-burning power plants in the Midwest that sent plumes of acid rain over the Northeast?

Because of the runoff from the Mississippi River watershed. all along the Gulf of Mexico there are places in the water called "dead zones," and they are exactly what you might think the name implies. The runoff that drains from the heartland of the United States and the Midwest, from the Missouri and the mighty Ohio, plus a host of other rivers, is filled with what news reports are calling "nutrient-rich" runoff, but what they mean is fertilizer. Single cell animals on a large scale feed on the nutrients, thus depleting the oxygen for larger animals.

A huge "dead zone" has made the news, and what makes this one particularly noticeable is that there are five or six species that have been killed, instead of the normal one or two species for your "typical" dead zone. (I can't believe I just used the word "normal" to describe something called a dead zone.) Experts are wondering if this one doesn't have something to do with the BP oil spill. Read the news story here on Yahoo.

I guess the first thing that comes to my mind is that there have been these dead zones for how long now?--and now we're wondering if it is associated with the oil spill, when in fact, the farms and their toxic runoff have the same effect as a renegade oil well. Where's the logic in that?

We're just slitting our own throats, and with the economy the way it is, environmental issues will continue to take a back seat to the economy. Still, I wish someone would realize that the greening of America, as it's called, could be the one thing that brings back jobs and the country. It would constitute new industries and a new way life, but more importantly it would mean our survival.

Photos via Billy Nungesser/WWL

Mark Vashro Bikes Against the Wind photographs

If I'm anything it's stubborn and persistent. And the minute you tell me I can't do something, that is the very second I want to do it.

Laid up here when I can barely walk from one end of my apartment to the other, all I can think about are all the places I want to go and all the things I want to do--upright on two legs. I told Sue last night, when I'm all healed I'm going to climb Mt. Rainier. I don't know why I'm fixated on that particular mountain, but I do know I want to keep living for all it's worth.

And the fact that I can barely walk ten feet without pain makes my buddy, Mark Vashro's bike ride seem so amazing. Mark's not the first person to ride across the country. Sometimes it seems when you surf the Web that there are so many people crisscrossing the country on bicycle that they'd be dodging each other out there in the heartland.  I blogged about Mark here on Action Bob and over at gather.com.

Then yesterday I noticed that Mark posted a link to a photographer's site who had taken some shots of him. When you read Mary Costa's intro to her photographs, you get a good sense of what Mark is like. I met him while acting in a play, and probably had a better time sitting in the dressing room talking to him than I actually had being on stage in that particular production.

Check out the photographs here and here's a link to Mark's site and the projects he's working on. He really an inspiration.

A Dangerous Business: really sweet travel blog

I'm a vagabond by nature, and being ensconced on this couch, mending my sacroiliac, I have to resort to travel blogs and sites while even my plans go on hold.

Lucky me that today I stumbled on Anjel Van Slyke and Connal Hughes' blog about their travels around the world, A Dangerous Business. (Tagline: It's a dangerous business going out your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." --J.R.R. Tolkein.)

I love their tagline. I'm assuming it's The Hobbit. It sounds like something Bilbo might say.

I've always wanted to do exactly what these two have done: travel around the world and write about it at the same time: record and share the experience. I'm a writer, no doubt, and when you are a writer you have this craving to write down and share everything. It's almost an obsession. Kind of sick, actually.

This is still doable in my world. Maybe not a year's worth, but three months maybe. Cross your fingers. I know mine are.

On herniated disks, excruciating pain, and patience....

How did I get to the point where the most comfortable place for me is on my knees on the floor of the shower in the fetal position with hot water cascading down my back? Only like that is there a complete absence of pain. The only discomfort is water running up my nose.

A disk slipped, herniated, did something, pinched a nerve or a bundle of nerves, and now I can walk no more than ten feet without excruciating pain, or worse, paralysis. I didn't realize paralysis could be painful. I thought it was the complete absence of any feeling. But you cannot move your leg and still be in--and I keep hating to use this word, but excruciating is the first word that comes to mind--at the same time. The kind of pain that makes you involuntarily throw back your head and suck in your breath with a shhh...ttt...and you lose all control of your legs so you have to grab on to something or someone to stand and you don't even see; just white light. Or something. I have to be more aware of what I see. Yes, slow things down so I can see through the pain, what's there. And yes, it's a searing burn in my thigh, like a hot knife, or what I'd imagine a hot knife would feel like. Sometimes it's like the worst charlie horse you've ever had--non-stop.

The damage is in my back, but curiously the pain is in my leg. So interesting to live this long and not be aware of that little line of nerves that coursed down my spinal column and exited my backbone at the small of my back. So vital, and it's letting me know it's there now, and its function and how important it has been for all my years. The damage is in my back but the pain is over here. There's an analogy there, for life, isn't there. Something more to explore while I wile away my time on the couch, willing my tissue to heal. The damage can be here but that person over there gets hurt. There are bundles of nerves connecting all of us, and the damage over here can cause pain over there. What do you think?--is too heavy-handed for a premise for a play? Is my medication playing with my mind?

This is pain but wouldn't it be fun to be totally aware of the functioning of our bodies this profoundly. The beating of our hearts would seem like the throbbing the engines of the Titanic. Our breathing roaring like a cyclone. The opening and closing of our eyelids flapping like unleashed window shades. 

Thursday night I was creeping along the wall of the Harvard Square T stop, the pain was so bad. Holding on tight so I wouldn't crumble to the ground. Groups of commuters, caught up in their own world, would be startled to look up suddenly and see me. People stared. People gave me wide berths. I did think it was funny. I was confused, by some, for one of the many drug addicts, homeless people, crazies, that populate the city. You should try it sometime, being a pariah. Maybe the next time you'll be a bit more generous with your spare change.

This is a long time coming. A few weeks ago I was standing in the lobby of Playwright's Platform Theater after seeing New Exhibition Room's Candyland, and suddenly my right leg went numb, and I grabbed at the table that holds all the theater postcards. No one noticed. Sue and Dawn kept talking. And then it went away. And I forgot about it.

This is the result of years and years of running. Pounding the road. I started when I was thirteen, and God willing I'll be fifty-five at the end of this month. You do the math. I have medals from road races to prove I was fast. My PR in the 10K was 46: something, maybe 47: something. I don't remember, but right now I'd take a sixty-minute 10K. I'm going to miss running, but I think a new part of my life is starting.

So, now, until tomorrow morning sometime when I have to be at BU for class and for work on Five Down, One Across, I'm sitting on the couch, trying to be as "patient as a milksnake swallowing an egg."*

*From Highland Center, Indiana

Rhapsody in Blue

One of the greatest songs ever written, and this captures precisely its mood in such a nostalgic and romantic video of the city that it's about...

The Coyote Diary

It’s come right down to the wire.

Right down to the date.     

Right down to the penny.

Tomorrow I start the real work towards an MFA at BU in creative writing/playwriting. I’ve written a play for our first class. The Coyote Diary. I think it’s good. Or, I thought it was good but the more I read it the more I wonder what’s so great about it. In the end it’s faith and courage that keeps you putting things down on paper. And never, never apologize for your art.

Thirty years ago I moved here, to Boston. Almost to the date. Labor Day weekend. Then I moved to the suburbs and lived a life I really wasn't suited for, and now I find myself back, literally, where I started. Let's try this again, and see if we can't do it right this time.

Thirty years ago, almost to the date, I end a thirty-year career to embark on a journey I should have embarked on thirty years ago to write stories. I started out with nothing, a peon in an ad agency, worked my way up to a point on the corporate ladder that was commendable, then dropped down to the bottom again exactly to where I started thirty years ago to the date. The economy knocked me down, yes it did. There's is no denying that. And there were certain people who seemed to enjoy taking a few potshots at me. So be it. I can take it. I've learned to battle adversity though, and just be myself and have confidence that who I am will get me through anything.

Almost ten years to the date my marriage crashed to an end. Columbus Day weekend. Ten years of questioning and searching and failure and success and love and hatred and coming to terms with who I am. Just a human being. A coyote, smart and wary and living on the fringe, not liked by many but those who do like me are golden.

It’s come right down to the penny. I transferred over my last dollars for child support and rent today into my checking account, and tomorrow I start living on borrowed money. Let's see if I can't skirt this economy and come up on the other side.

I’ve given up so much to get here. A life with my kids. Friends and family. In the process of getting here I’ve hurt so many people who I never in my wildest dreams intended on hurting. You know the value of something by what you’ve given up. What it’s cost you in terms of your heart and your soul. But you never give up searching. I don’t, at least. It’s inked into my shoulder: I’m a searcher. Always was; always will be. Always want to see just what is around the corner. Over that rise. Over the horizon. Day one of The Coyote Diary.

Drew Landry's BP Blues now on iTunes; 75% goes to saveourgulf.org

Drew Landry's oil spill song, BP Blues, is now on iTunes.

Remember Drew Landry, the guy who sang in front of the White House committee investigating the Gulf oil spill? I blogged about him here on Action Bob and also here on gather.com.

Today on Facebook, Drew posted that he's signed with Warner Brothers, his oil spill song, BP Blues, is on iTunes, and when you buy it on iTunes 75% of the proceeds go to saveourgulf.org.

For a buck twenty-nine ($1.29) you can have a piece of Americana on your iPod or MP3 player of choice and help the people whose lives have been changed forever by the bungling of a multibillion dollar international corporation. They can put a cap on the oil well, but they can't put a cap on the suffering these people continue to endure.

It's a damn good song, categorized as country, and here I'm getting up on my soap box but it's got all the earmarks of a real country song and not some piece of garbage sung by some stud with marbles in his mouth wearing a cowboy hat. Drew is a bone fide singer/songwriter, and he put his God-given talents to work trying to save the place and the people he loves. You got to admire him and all the other people in the Gulf right now who are fighting for their lives, and if you can spend a little spare change and get a good song out of the deal, you'd be doing something pretty good.

The Housing Market Meets the Big Bad Wolf Economy; Housing Market Dips 25.5%

This week we learned that the housing market is built of sticks and straw and not bricks, as the Big Bad Wolf huffed and puffed in the form of the U.S. economy and blew the U.S. housing market down 25.5 percent below the level it was a year ago.

As reported in the New York Times and by the Associated Press via Comcast, the final blow to the housing market was the...read the rest of the story here.

Journalism for the 21st Century; Revitalizing Journalism Education

Walter Cronkite is a thing of the past. He was called "the most trusted man in America", but today's journalists have lost credibility and the respect of viewers. The rise of celebrity reporters, the Web, 24-hour cable and its unrelenting appetite for content, and bloggers are just some of the factors and forces that changed American journalism.

Read the rest of the story here.

Roger Clements was indicted today...

...and I'll ask the same question I asked two years ago when that committee in Congress called him to testify. What does anyone care what Roger Clemens shot in this big butt?

Back in 2008 the country was going to hell in a hand basket. And two years later it's even in worse shape. Doesn't Congress have bigger worries than Roger's butt?--even though I gotta say, that's a pretty big butt.

Read more about what I have to say here.

Manchester, Ct. shooting

There was a shooting today in Manchester, Connecticut that I've been following all day. I've been updating my blog over on Gather. Not getting a lot of hits. Big news today is the solar tsunami--yep, that's what they're calling it--that may set off some Northern Lights tonight. People are writing about that, and it's clear they've never seen them or might not even know what it's about.

And there's this family the Washington Post are featuring that lived on a boat for seven years. Amazing. Amazing is the word a lot of the big hit writers bandy about because they are plagiarizing, er, I mean, writing so many stories they don't have time to pull together a cogent opinion of anything.

Anyway, the shooting. There's a black man who was caught stealing. He was brought in for a meeting. Either quit, or we'll fire you, he was told. We have a video. He was calm. Then he pulls a handgun out of a lunchbox and starts firing. Eight dead, then he kills himself.

There's a backstory that he had complained about racial harassment. No one did anything.

Anyway, I kind of latch on to certain stories and this was one. I can't write about just anything, which is my downfall on a blog that is only interested in numbers. Not quality, but the quantity of hits. So Google News will pick them up then.

Anyway, here's the report I updated throughout today when I should have been reading and working on a paper for my counterculture class.

And here's an opinion I wrote. Leave a comment if you feel like it.

Arcade Fire's The Suburbs

I've been getting kind of bored with the music I've been listening to of late. There are always new artists you can find, but it's the sound of the music that I'm getting bored with. Alt/indie, country, Americana, call it what you want, I still think it's great, I'm just looking for a little bit something more.

And I think I found it. I haven't been all that happy with old gather.com lately, with its emphasis on numbers and kowtowing to google news so it can be a a "secondary news source", which is just a fancy way of saying "bad writers plagiarizing for hits", but if you'd like, head over there and see what I'm talking about. Arcade Fire's The Suburbs is really something to listen to.

To live is to fly

A Sunday. Hot. Humid. Just the way I like it. I think I'm cashing in on my alleged father's Italian genes. I love hot weather. It doesn't bother me the way it seems to bother others. I hate the cold and the wet and the dark. When it gets this hot, all I have to do is think about snow, and I just settle down. I always joke and say I'm solar-powered.

So, sitting on the porch this morning reading the New York Times and trying to figure out what to do with this beautiful day, I finally decided not to go to a play and spend money even though I should--(should!--that awful word rife with guilt)--even though I should stay on top of the local theater scene since I'm going to school and spending so much money and time (did I mention so much money?) to be a part of local theater scene. I always say that an artist has to live life, and then bring what he or she finds in life to the stage or the canvas or to music, so today I decided to to stay at home and live a life and write and read for my class and play guitar. And not spend a dime. I'm reading everywhere about the Great Recession. (I don't know why we keep dancing around this and wonder when we're just going to realize it's probably even worse that the 1930s.) I learned a while back how to enjoy simple and cheap and free. Sue and I have so much in this apartment, and people don't really understand what we do all the time since we don't have a television. (So, what do you do?)

A mockingbird moved into our neighborhood, and is the last bird heard as night falls.

Today in the Times I read how important Facebook and Twitter is to our diplomatic effort. Please, people falling into the trap (again) that technology will save the day. With people, you have to continue to do the human thing.

Yesterday I spent a glorious day on the beach with my oldest, who has seemed to have adopted Rhode Island for her home. It's a beautiful place, all that coastline with such a deep sailing history. We get along, after all these years of being apart. In my counterculture class we read how so many people want to turn back the clock, revisit a time when things were "better." That's a natural human response but it's impossible. And it's a response that I think is ruining this country right now. We have to embark on new paths; learn from the past but the times call for a new way of life.

With my daughter I know I can't turn back the clock, I can only go forward from here, and that's probably the right and true thing to do anyway. I know, if she could, she'd turn back the clock to when she was happier, when there was a regular family with a mom and a dad and a sister and a dog living in a house in the suburbs. She needs me right now, needs my advice to help her move toward the future. I think there are some people in her life who'd she'd be a lot better off without. Not bad people; just nothing great about them--they're the hoi polloi, though I'm sure they think otherwise about themselves; I'm sure they've been told all their lives how great they are, how smart, funny, intelligent, witty, good-looking (on the outside, maybe) by doting parents and superficial friends. And I know I'm prejudiced, but Allison is a catch. She's a terrific person who has a fragile side thanks to her father and there are those who are too damn clumsy, stupid, or just plain uncaring to deserve her company. And I feel it's my responsibility to protect her. I told her yesterday that she deserves to have the kind of friend that she makes for others.

I've turned into a crusty old SOB; someone who doesn't suffer fools. I've wasted too much time (Livin's mostly wastin' time/I waste my share of mine/But it never feels too good/So let's don't take too long). I've always heard the clock tickin' and always tried to live my life knowing that it all could end tomorrow. It's too precious. And I hate wasting anything much less time.

Drew Landry, crawfish fisherman, uses a folk song to urge the oil commission to "do the right damn thing."

I saw this article on Huffington Post yesterday, about this crawfisher from Louisiana who went to Washington to testify in front of the White House oil spill commission. And it was a great story about how this guy pulled out his guitar and sang a song he wrote about the effects of the oil spill, and it was a nice song and he had a nice voice.

He also said a lot of intelligent and soulful and heartfelt things to the commission, and it made me feel so good because I like seeing country people in that light. They're smart and caring and maybe they're not as sophisticated as so many city people, but they're heads are usually screwed on straight.

I've been bumming out more and more about the state of affairs of the world, the oil spill has me sick, with all its ramifications of destruction and greed, and how the economy is just killing people, and again at the root of it all was greed and dishonesty. It is enough to make a person sick.

So today, because I was bumming out, I pulled up the video again just to cheer myself up. I tend to turn to music when I'm feeling low. And I was listening to it, and I notice the guy's name--Drew Landry. And I thought to myself, hold on a minute, I know that name.

And it took me a minute, but he and I are Facebook friends. We've never met, but I even remember he befriended me, and I even wrote him asking who he was, and he said he was a musician and saw that I posted about music occasionally, and that was it. He shows up on my wall from time to time, and I get invited to concerts and such down in Louisiana, which of course I can't make.

But today I'm feeling good about the world, despite everything. Because there are good people in the world, and thanks to the digital space, which if you've read this blog enough I certainly have some bones to pick, but you don't have to look hard to find these people. And music is a good thing that does make the world a better place, so we all got to keep playing music.

Here's the video of him testifying and singing his song. After this one there's another video of him I picked up on Youtube of him playing a song and another of a movie someone is making of him. He's a talented musician, and obviously a real decent human being. Kind of a vanishing breed in the United States, wouldn't you say?

unf--k the gulf...

Unfuck the Gulf. You heard me. And a federal appeals court threw out the FCC's indecency policy, so my headline and anything I say including this video is 100% AOK to post. Hey, if the Wall Street Journal says it's true, who am I to aruge?

You get the message from the title. It's the work of Nate Guidas and Luke Montgomey.

About Nate:
Nate is an environmental activist and educator with a passion for persuasion. He produced the video and designed the charity shirt. Check out more about him on his website: GreenGuyNate.com

About Luke:
Luke is an internet, fundraising and media strategist who works as a consultant for non-profits who want to make a bigger impact and change in the world. He directed the video and designed the website. See more of his work at: GoodIdeasforGoodCauses.com

Do your part. Check out unfuckthegulf.com. Buy a t-shirt. Post it on Twitter and Facebook.

Comfortable in my own skin

Well, life is good and it's not and sometimes it's hot and today it's raining.

Happy in my own skin seems to be the order of the day. I used that expression last night in class, and it seemed to resonate with the professor. I guess folksy talk isn't normally heard in a graduate studies classroom, but I was using it to describe Jay Gatsby, or rather how the Great One wasn't. Comfortable in his own skin, that is.

One of the greatest lessons I've learned in my lifetime is how to say no. Or walk away from something or someone. I was a yes-man for years, not in the bootlicker kind of way, but I rarely said no to anyone and eventually you see that you're getting taken advantage more often than not.

Now I'm going to point you over to two posts that I've written most recently over at gather.com. It's a cute little endeavor over there, but numbers are taking a front seat to quality, and that never sets well with me, especially when it comes to slacking off when it comes to writing. It's all about SEO and Google, and money, of course.

(Maybe, for full disclosure, I should say that the the literature course that is currently occupying my mind is called the literature of the American counter-culture. Never before has the American Dream been on the retreat as it is now in the United States, and big changes are in the wind. Money--or our incessant, 24/7 desire for it--has got to have a cap on it...like that oil well in the Gulf. And I guess capping our desires is going to prove as difficult as the oil well.)

Anyway, check out what I had to say about a viral video, and my response for what gets passed off as a news story on gather.com.