Month: March 2004

What do you think about the Pledge of Allegiance case the Supreme Court is due to hear today? Here’s the quick background on the case:

Michael Newdow, a non-religious California father, lawyer, and doctor, objected to his daughter reciting the words “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. He took the school to court and won, but the district appealed. It is due to be heard before the Supreme Court today.

Until 1954, the phrase “Under God” was not in the Pledge of Allegiance. It was added by Congress due to lobbying by the “Knights of Columbus”, a religious organization. Additionally, in 1940, the Court decided that it was unconstitutional to require any citizen to recite the pledge.

There are a few interesting facets to the case that, in my opinion, may cause the Supremes to ignore it:

• Newdow is not the custodial parent
• Justice Antonin Scalia, noted conservative Supreme Court Justice, bowed out of hearing this case due to his outspoken opposition to Newdow’s arguments at a religious rally last year
• The girl’s mother is a Born-Again Christian, opposed to the case — and so is the daughter
• Bringing this case to bear may cause him to lose his California Bar Certification. Several religious organizations have begun a petition for him to lose his license to practice law.

As for me, this morning I heard arch-conservative Bob Lonsberry refer to Newdow as “this evil man” and his offspring the result of a “hippy-dippy fling”. Although I don’t think the phrase “under God” does any harm in the Pledge, at the same time, I think ad hominem attacks against Newdow due to him following his conscience are simply wrong.

The interesting thing for me here is the question: is the act of putting into law that the Pledge of Allegiance contains the phrase “Under God” a violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States? And will striking the same from the Pledge be an abridgement of the free speech of those for whom the public prayer aspect of the Pledge makes patriotism more palatable? What I mean is, does prohibiting religious speech in government oaths impinge the freedom of speech of those who wish to express their religious convictions in those oaths?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The small addition by Congress of “under God” turns the Pledge into both a patriotic oath, and a public prayer. People are free not to say it when reciting the Pledge, but the removal of it from the official Pledge will deny religious people the opportunity of saying it.

Don’t know how it’s going to turn out, but my gut reaction is that if the court does anything but refuse to hear the case, or rule in favor of the school district, there is going to be a great deal of civil uproar over, really, what seems to be an inconsequential thing. Throughout Elementary School, I recited the Pledge daily. Throughout Middle and High schools, I recited it once a week. Since then, I’ve only said it a handful of times. Seems like a bit of a tempest in a teapot to me, yet the long-term ramifications of the decision are both unknown, and probably far-reaching.

Update: More details now available on CNN about Newdow’s appeal.

The Magnanimous Matthew B was kind enough to donate some valuable barnson.org bandwidth so that I could put up some of the later Wayward Sun tracks for public consumption. Enjoy!

No Further Questions
(CD, recorded January 1995, Studio 508, Baltimore MD)

• Destination: Nowhere (Sam/Ben) – This song was a chance for Sam & I to rail against the expectations of our parents and society and everyone who thought we should “make something” of ourselves. And a chance to rock out in the process. (mp3, streaming)
• Afterlife (Ben/Katy) – Originally from The Right of Way, this was a song I wrote in high school (my sister Katy wrote the second verse). I really don’t have a clue what it means, but it’s still one of my favorites. I much prefer the CD recording of this one to the original – the real piano adds so much depth. (mp3, streaming)
• Waterfall (Ben) – Rock epic! In my further attempts to break the 8-minute barrier, this tune reaches incredibly self-indulgent lengths, but still turns out well, mainly due to the services of the Horns of Terror. (mp3, streaming)
• Chica’s Rag (I’ll Put My Love In You) (Sam/Ben/Matt/Kevin) – As Matt mentioned in his liner notes to The Right of Way, this tune was the result of a late night jam session in my parents’ basement. I’ve never been happy with the CD version – I always thought that Kevin went overboard on the auxiliary percussion, and I don’t think the final mix is especially good. Your results may vary. (mp3, streaming)
• All Over Again (Matt) – One of my favorite Matt tunes. We really could’ve brought about the resurgence of the power ballad with this one. Magical moment: that perfect bit of feedback on the guitar in the beginning of the second verse was a complete accident. Somehow it’s perfectly in key. (mp3, streaming)
• One Man (The Road to Forever) (Matt) – Another Barnson classic. I know I couldn’t do it justice, but I loved being able to record this song again. I play the piano and the guitar on this one, but not being as talented a tapper as Matt, Sam had to sit next to me during the recording session and dampen all the other strings while I was recording the track. (mp3, streaming)
• Breathless (Sam) – A Sammy G gem. The recording of this track is so tight, Sam’s vocals so warm – if this song doesn’t get you laid, there’s something wrong with you. (mp3, streaming)
• The Big Picture (Ben) – Me being deep. There’s a number of things I would change about this track if I had the chance to do it over (mostly having to do with the awkward ending), but overall I’m pretty pleased how it turned out. (mp3, streaming)
• Bad In Practice (Sam) – This song began life as “Sixth Sense”, a song that some our fans thought was crude even by our standards. Sammy went back and re-worked the lyrics, and the song morphed from a diatribe about fat chicks and transsexuals to a diatribe about consumer culture and the dumbing down of modern America. (mp3, streaming)

Stream the entire album!

Unreleased
(A fancy way of saying that these are tracks we recorded in Ed’s basement in the fall of 1995)

• Goes Around Comes Around (Sam/Ed) – Never ones to take criticism well, this song is an outright attack against a music reviewer for the UMBC Retriever who described one of our songs as “the kind of lyrics used to seduce 13-year-old girls.” The result is a really fun song, and the most difficult rhythm guitar work I ever had to do. (mp3, streaming)
• Hamlet In My Mind (Ben) – Perhaps the best song I ever wrote, at least if you ask my family. I wrote this during my junior year of college, when I was already starting to get tired of all the crap that comes with college. For some reason, my dad thinks it’s about suicide. (mp3, streaming)
• Jane (Ben/Sam) – Ah Jane. Dani’s college roommate, 6 feet tall, gorgeous, English. She came to us one day and said that all of the songs called Jane (Foreigner, Jane’s Addiction, etc.) sucked, and that we should write a song for her. So we did. I banged out the music (complete with the idiotic semi-classical instrumental break), and Sam and I wrote the lyrics. On a side note, Jane is getting married this summer and is thinking about opening a boutique. (mp3, streaming)
• Order of the First Verse (Sam/Ed/Ben) – Wayward Sun’s attempt at Art Rock. I think Sam and I were listening to too much Kansas at the time, and the result was this amalgamation of time signatures and nonsense lyrics. Unfortunately, this recording was the first time we played it, so it’s a little rocky. I’ll have to see if I can dig around for a good live recording. The title, by the way, comes from the fact that Sam and I wrote a series of completely unrelated verses, and we decided that it was completely arbitrary which verse should go first, and which order the subsequent verses should go in – hence “order of the first verse”. (mp3, streaming)
• Shadows on the Wall (Ben/Katy) – At Matt’s request, here’s a recording of this song. My sister helped me with some of the verses, which explains the paranoic, stalker quality of the lyrics (she’s especially good at those). When it comes down to it, this song just plain doesn’t work — the original recording (which I’ve lost) had this weird break in the middle, which we tried to cut in this recording, and the result just sounds awkward. It has its moments tho. (mp3, streaming)
• Leave the Past Behind (Ben/Katy) – Originally on Don’t Try This At Home, this song turned out to work really well live, although we only got to perform it a few times. The outro is totally worth it. Don’t ask me what it’s about, because I don’t know. (mp3, streaming)
• Compulsive Fire (Sam/Ben) – Two recordings for the price of one! We pulled this Right of Way track out of the stacks for one more go-around, and found that it held up pretty well! First is a recording done the same time as all the rest (mp3, streaming), and the second is a later recording we did using an electronic drumset that Kevin had borrowed from a music store at which he was employed at the time – very cool. (mp3, streaming)
• Worlds Collide (Sam/Ben) – The last Sam/Ben collaboration. I remember writing this song in Sam’s Virginia apartment – he’d been working on some lyrics and I’d been working on a chord progression, and we just shoved them together. I’ve always been fond of this song, and although it’s not the best recording (the electronic drums don’t sound as cool on this one as they did on Compulsive Fire), it’s still a good indicator of what a good song this is. (mp3, streaming)

Stream all the Unreleased tracks!

Live at the End of the Edge
(Live concert as part of UMBC’s “End of the Edge” concert series, recorded April 30, 1996)

• Come and Get It (Sam/Ben) – This is the song with “the type of lyrics used to seduce 13-year-old girls”, and doggone if it didn’t work! I mean, uh… Anyway, I think it’s a pretty mature look into the power struggles of sexual relationships, but that’s just me. (Note: Due to stupidity on my part, there’s about 16 seconds of empty space before the song actually starts.) (mp3, streaming)
• Back to Basics (Sam) – Written in the summer of 1994, this tune was written by Sammy for his then-girlfriend Noel, who at the time was on a choir tour of Europe (with me). A straightforward pop song, this tune was always a big crowd pleaser. (mp3, streaming)
• Dirty Shoe Funk (Sam/Ben/Ed) – No self-respecting band can consider its repertoire complete without a booty-kicking funk instrumental! Based on a funky bass riff by Sam, this tune grew into one of our most popular offerings. A nice touch in this recording was that I got to play on a vintage Hammond organ. (mp3, streaming)
• Seasons Change (Ben) – This is the last pop tune I wrote. It’s a wistful piece about how change is eternal, and yet everything comes full circle in the end (a point well illustrated by the fact that 15 years later, we’re all chatting). (mp3, streaming)
• Famous Band/A Day That Ends In Y (Sam) – These remain two of my favorite WS tracks. Famous Band is a semi-comical look at our own dreams, while A Day That Ends In Y is about the mundanity and boredom that ultimately creep into any serious relationship. Pay close attention to my awesome bass-guitar work. 😉 (mp3, streaming)
• Spoken Echoes (Sam/Katy) – Sam took an old poem of my sister’s and created this atmospheric tune. It’s anyone’s guess what it’s about. I remember Kevin throwing a fit when we suggested using a drum machine for the beginning of this tune. Temper! (mp3, streaming)
• Hoped to Be (Sam/Ben) – A collaboration from Don’t Try This At Home, it was nice to get to do this live – I think it’s the only time we ever did. I remember cowriting the lyrics with Sam at my mother’s house, trying to fit words around the complicated internal rhyme scheme we’d worked out. Again, Sammy on piano, me on the bass. (mp3, streaming)
• I Will Wait For You (Kevin) – A WS switcheroo! Kevin on acoustic guitar and lead vocals, me on the bass, Sammy on drums. This was a happy little tune about whoever Kevin happened to be dating at the time. (Note: Due to the recording engineers running out of tape, this song fades out about halfway through.) (mp3, streaming)

Stream the entire concert!

Slow day at work today, so I thought I’d talk a little about my current circumstances, if anyone is interested. And even if you’re not. So there.

I came to the conclusion about 6 months ago that the music industry really sucks. Not necessarily every part of the music industry, but definitely the parts that center around being a performer, and more specifically, the opera industry.

After 6 years of pursuing a career as a professional opera singer, and doing fairly well when compared to the legions of other NYC wannabe opera singers, I’ve decided to call it quits. I’m tired of going to auditions and being rejected over and over. I’m tired of having to kiss the behinds of complete jerks just to get the few jobs that are out there. And I’m tired of being poor. This starving artist stuff is for the birds. 🙂

Basically, I came to the conclusion that I was no longer interested in a career where, if I were lucky enough to be the 1% of 1% who actually go on to viable, successful singing careers, I’d be away from my family 6 months out of the year. That dream no longer hold the allure that it held for me when I was 22.

So, it’s time for a huge life change – woohoo! I’m currently preparing to apply to law school. Yes, quite a change, huh? I’m studying for the LSAT, reading up on school, etc. So we’ll see what happens. At least I’ll be able to use my brain again.

So, there we are.

Why is this need inside me?

Last night I watched the extra features on the DVD for “Once Upon A Time In Mexico”, which is the wonderful follow up to one of my favorite all time movies, “Desperado”. The trilogy of movies in this series was done by a guy on the cheap, mostly produced at home, and all out of this need to create..

Man, I want to do this. I’ve been listening to old Wayward Sun stuff, cleaing it up for this site, watching movies like this, even revisiting my old stuff.. and I realized, I am part of this group driven by a need to create.

Not everyone feels this way. Most people are happy with their lives, but I am not, unless I feel I have put some new peice of art or music or film or writing or acting on this world.. but its a bit of a curse.

I would love to be one of those people who are happy with going to work, having a house, some money, some kids, a simple life.. it would be GREAT! But I am driven at 3am to go into my basement and hit the keyboard.. or to spend a summer editing a film. And to be honest, its an addiction.

At one point I thought it was about the attention.. being told how “talented” I am.. but now I find myself just creating stuff and never listening to it again.. or writing stories no one ever reads.. And I’ve realized, its more just this force that moves me to lose sleep, lose time with my family, lose time I could be studying.. and well, hey.. why do we all feel this need to post here.. we need to create.

Maybe its a blessing.. maybe its a curse.. but honestly, I seem driven by this vision of a great great grandson finding a box of pictures and CDs, and listening, and suddenly knowing me as more than just a name and two dates… Is that it? I don’t know.. why do YOU do it?

TODAYonline brings us this little tidbit:

“A CURIOUS, anti-brassiere advertising campaign begins today. Printed against a light blue background, the print advertisement has no pictures and tells readers to “stop wearing bras”.

The striking caption is accompanied by research findings about how wearing bras can cause cancer.”

Read the article: Stop Wearing Bras

I’m posting on the front page. Why? Because I can. Thanks Matt. I’m honored to be a Barnson.

EDIT by matthew: Check out Paul’s blog at murphymaphia.com. From time to time, he writes some pretty cool stuff, though like barnson.org, most of it’s pretty mundane 🙂

By the way, if anyone is going to be in the Washington DC area in the next two weeks, I am in a show that opens tonight and runs the next two weekends.

Its a black box performance of a new play called “Symbolic of Love” by Lee Wilkinson.

Please feel free to email me for information, or call 202 333-2202

Interesting statistics for your viewing pleasure:

• Most popular search term that leads people to barnson.org: Rice Pudding“
• Second-most popular term: “Cream Cheese Frosting“
• Most commented-on article ever: “Where do you really stand on politics?“. (closed to further discussion)
• Second-most commented on: “Autism or Demonic Possession?“(closed to further discussion)
• Average requests per month: roughly 100,000
• Percentage of bandwidth used by serving mp3’s: 43.39%
• Post that has gotten me more hate mail than any other: “Garageband, Reviews, and my take (I think because of my fairly high google ranking for some bizarre reason is why)
• Most registered users ever online at one time: 5
• Most unregistered users ever online at one time: 33
• Most mystifyingly-popular post: “Back by popular demand: The art of tying shoes“.

Hope you enjoyed the list!

It’s that time in life when I need to pick up a new bad habit. Due to circumstances, nothing seems more appetizing than beginning a drug addicition. To date, I’ve never smoked a cigarette or taken an illegal drug. But it’s never too late to start destroying my life via a helpless, ugly relationship with small pills.

Since turning 30 I’ve realized life becomes more interesting because people are more interesting. Socializing and interacting wth people my age carries far more interest because older folks have responsibility and what I consider “contribution implications”. My friends are no longer talking about hot bars and latest flings but issues and social trend and grown-up stuff.

However, after months of doing the couples-nights and weekend social entertaining, I still feel stagnant and dull. I never walk from these gatherings feeling enlightened and challenged. Thus, I need to begin a terrifyingly addicting drug habit for two purposes:

1) Make other people more interesting 2) Make me more interesting to other people

I’m not into health and happiness. I’m into eccentricity.

Anybody got some good suggestions? Also, I need drugs that can be concocted at home. Ideas that fall in the “meth” vein are good. Basically, I don’t want to have to get sold-out by some flaky street pusher who’s looking to score snitch points by turning in Mr. Sammy G Suburban Whitey to the cops.

As I was reading the blog on the old, old Wayward Sun tapes, I figured it would be nice for Matt to know how I came to be a part of the Barnson.org family 🙂

Back in the day (fall ’91), I embarked on a journey to get a degree at UMBC. My degree was to be in intramural sports, however, due to a communications error, UMBC thought I was going for a Mathematics degree. The resulting snafu added 3 years to my undergraduate career.

So my freshman year, I meet this tall dude with a definite Jewish nose who I immediately disliked. He was loud and arrogant, had no respect for anyone who didn’t like the Redskins or Capitals, and carried his bass guitar around everywhere.

(Side note: All the parents out there familiar with The Wiggles…doesn’t Sam remind you of Murray Wiggle?)

However, this fellow and I had a common interest in sports, and we spent many a classtime battling over Sega NHL 91. Next thing, we’re playing hockey together, and we become friends. I remember a road trip to Towson with young Samuel to watch some high school girl in a marching band competition. Her name was Jennifer something or other and she was from Canoctin (sp?)…

So our Junior years (cronologically, not necessarily in credit years ;), we move up to the UMBC apartments with Sam’s friend Ben and some dude Mike. So we had 3 Jewish dudes and the poor Catholic boy (me) living together. I never managed to eat mahtza (sp?) ball soup that year…

Now Wayward Sun is playing gigs and having a good time. I tag along when I can ( apparently taking Justin’s place, although I was the short, stocky groupie ). Ben, Sam & I live together the next year as well, replacing Mike with Jason Smith, one of the manliest men ever to walk the planet. Captain of the rugby team, Special Forces medic, going for his masters in Mechanical Eng, and quite the ladies man. You can ask Sam about the J/K’s snafu one day. (I want my two dollars!!!) Alas, J/Ks is no more…

Not to brag, but that year we pulled off the best on-campus party UMBC has ever seen. It was the first weekend in February, it was snowing, so we threw a beach party. Put Tide on the walls and hung black lights (Try it). Had a mixed drink bar and a frozen drink bar. Put a bowl of Coppertone in front of a fan to get the aroma correct. We had one of Jason’s rugby friends as a bouncer. He was 5’9″, 350+, and in nothing but a grass skirt. Jimmy, Bob, and the Beach Boys were on the stereo.

We had a line to get into our apartment. We made over $240 that night, and only got wrote up for a fire code violation. All I remember is Jason’s brother trying to pay for drinks with a Ski Liberty card.

So after that year, Sam graduated, but we stayed friends. I still claim that “Wrong Words” is by far the best WS song ever, for it’s simplicity. Plus, Ws would have made it big if they would have incorporated a rapper into the mix, but they were down with that 😉

I actually found Barnson.org googling Wayward Sun, and found some of the old music here.

That’s how I became part of the Barnson Bunch! My $.02 Weed