So I just read this AP article about a 13 year old in Rockford who died of alcohol poisoning. This happened in the company of his 19 year old cousin. The kid was on a baseball team, and said team will now be wearing black armbands in tribute to the boy.
So, all this is tragic, but here's the question: We tell kids all the time not to do stuff like this, but it's okay for all of these other kids to pay tribute? I'm trying to figure out what's positive about that. Wear the armband so you remember the kid, or wear it so you'll be reminded all the time - don't do what he did?
Meanwhile, they have charged the cousin and his buddies with misdemeanor alcohol charges. So where are the parents of the kid who died? And why not charge the 19 year old - adult, by legal standards - with involuntary manslaughter?
Maybe I'm just seeing this all in a very cruel light. I don't know. Maybe it's just symptomatic of the complete loss of personal responsibility for one's actions. Nobody is held accountable anymore.
Sigh. Stupid, stupid, pointless death.

When does music stop being "ours" and become "theirs" relative to age? Is there a formula? Is it based on when our old posters start to fade, or worse, when we find them rolled up in a corner of the closet and finally reliquish them to the trash? Does it happen when you've "made it" in the world, and traded in the cast off furniture for a set that matches? Is it the moment when some skate-punk band with an average age of 19 covers some song that we played so much in our youth that the tape eventually gave out and snapped? Or is it simply just a loss of that desire to hear something new? And does that correlate to tendencies more sinister, such as turning Republican, or being too lazy to push the shopping cart back to the corral, or hearing yourself utter the words "those damn kids"? Than again, I do utter that phrase, but that's perhaps more a result of working in a school rather than having lost an ear for good new music. Maybe what drives me most insane is that radio stations are tailored for kids who were just born when I went to Lollapalooza I. Where's my station? Why do I have to do my own digging to find anything worth hearing? I have disposable income now, people; that makes me a target market, so how come nobody is marketing to me? I think from now on I'll refer to a certain behemoth as Clearasil Channel; makes more sense that way. I'm not bitter, I'm just disappointed. Meanwhile, I'll keep my discoveries amongst my friends, and be able to go to shows in nice, small venues...at least until the tinnitus kicks in and I can no longer remember where I left my cane.

Every once in a while I glance wistfully at the Yamaha keyboard placed a few feet away from where I now sit. When you love music, it is not uncommon to feel as though you ought to be able to play as well. If I had more expendable income, I'd have guitars and amps and a drum set and possibly a saxophone and an accordion just sitting around, not being played, just as the keyboard with two ancient beginning piano texts on the music stand sits there, not being played. The texts are: The John Brimhall Piano Method (1968) and John Thompson's Modern Course for the Piano (1936). My aunt, who taught piano for a number of years, probably had high hopes when I requested the use of some lesson books over a year ago, and what progress has been made? Very little. I'm hopeful, at this point, that I'll learn to play some simple songs by the time I retire.