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First, read this...Mysterious Piano – CNN

And the resulting conversation…

(3:12:47 PM) A-Ron: I bet it was a Thievery Corporation video shoot and someone forgot the piano….it’s all very Edgar Allen Poe.
(3:13:57 PM) Mr.Scruffs: hah, yep – but if someone plays a piano in the woods, does it make a sound?
(3:14:47 PM) A-Ron: I almost started to answer that with logical argument until I heard Picard saying “shut up Data”.
(3:14:58 PM) Mr.Scruffs: hahahahahahaha
(3:15:41 PM) A-Ron: That’s the whole argument where the world is a working figment of one imagination or consciousness. I spent a couple years on that one….very eggshell issue to argue
(3:16:12 PM) Mr.Scruffs: i’llll betttt
(3:16:26 PM) A-Ron: grad level philosophy of AI – nuts when you think about it
(3:16:34 PM) Mr.Scruffs: one morning i ordered a chicken biscuit at mc donalds – and the woman asked if i wanted egg on it
(3:16:49 PM) A-Ron: wow………
(3:16:55 PM) Mr.Scruffs: and i said no… but if i did, which would you put on the bun first?  — she didn’t get it
(3:18:42 PM) A-Ron: *hangs head*
(3:18:47 PM) Mr.Scruffs: hehe

On November 17, 2003…I asked Josh out to dinner.  At the end of the night, I asked if he wanted to try “us”.  His response was (and I quote), “I’m not doing anything this month.”  Nor was I.  The resulting first kiss (and yes it was the first one contrary to popular belief) was pretty f’ing sweet.

Through the sure bets that we wouldn’t last a month, let alone a year…we did.  Five years later, here we are, having only slept apart a small handful of times since we started.  I won’t go into how awesome this guy is if you don’t already know.  You’d be reading for hours.

Happy anniversary, Boo.  I love you a lot.  See you tonight for dinner.

(Image altered from photo taken by Ryan Dorman @ Central PA Pride Weekend.)

I asked Aaron Carruthers of Sacremento, California to comment on last night’s passing of the infamous Proposition 8 in California. I’m a 5th generation CA-born former resident of the greater Sacramento area. So I thought of him…and his husband…and their adopted son we in the blog world have watched grow into someone we know will be a great man someday.

Aaron had a blog once.  You may remember Aanthems.com – it’s how I found him.  The site has since been taken down, but was a great chronicle of everything Aaron and his partner went through together in their quest to adopt.  He was also the 4th contributor to the Subway State Guest Room, delivering a set I still listen to all of this time later.

I wanted to know his opinion on the issue, so I Facebook’d him.  Instead of the narratives I so miss, he sent me a letter he received from a friend.  He thought it should fit the bill for my entry today.  And I couldn’t agree more.  What are your opinions?  I am still processing what the letter says….

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An Open Letter To My Gay Friends:

I want to apologize. When a majority of Californians voted yes on 8 – out of fear and myth and superstition – and bowed their heads to priests and popes and other vanguards of dead religions, they spit on you. They spit on your children. They told your children “you do not deserve to have married parents.” They told you that you, despite national service, despite your years of paying taxes, despite your lack of criminal record and involvement in your community: “you do not deserve this right that we have.”

The majority of Californians showed that they are more easily swayed by fear and superstition and, yes, hate – they are selfish and they feel that if you have this right that they have always had, that their own marriages, perhaps, will be worth less than they are now. I am sorry for that pathetic childish fear, and I hope you can forgive them. I’m going to spend a long time trying to do that.

But it’s not just them. The rest of us didn’t fight hard enough either. We stopped at yard signs, or standing up for our gay friends in conversations with conservative voters, but we didn’t do what we should have. We should have phone banked, and walked precincts, and put up more signs, and talked to more conservative voters. And we should have done this every day. We didn’t, and because we have allowed those who could not defend themselves to be stripped of their rights, we may not deserve to have them ourselves.

My real apology is not for those who voted yes, but for myself, for not doing enough. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t blame you for not being able to forgive me, because it’s too little and it’s way too late.

Yours

J L-T

I’ve always had bad circulation.  Not like…the kind you go to a doctor for really.  Just every now and then my feet go cold or my arms, or my whole body….the same way it happens when I start to feel like I’m on fire from the outside.  So I didn’t find it too odd when my hands went cold this morning.  But it was a little different than normal.

My hands went cold fairly quickly.  That never happens.  It’s always over time with me.  It was like I had a sudden rush of blood to someplace else, pick a place.  But I took a breath, felt normal…my hands were just cold.  I kept very still.  I looked around.  I listened.  And here’s what I gathered….

People were silent.  They sat very still.  The looks on their faces were non-descript.  They would have seemed blank to the naked eye, but then I started feeling (what would probably be explained as some simple subway breeze blowing past) a sort of glowing in my hands.  A cold glowing.  It radiated very mutedly.  It was sorta nice.  Surprising, but nice.  Peaceful.  (And a little scary too because the practical side is saying “that’s not right you should get it checked out”.)  Funnily enough it reminded me of what a frost mage might feel like in the World of Warcraft.

So I thought about it for a minute.  Not too long.  My stop was coming.  But during that moment, I wondered whether what I just felt was extremely positive energy concentrating itself in the air, just enough that I could feel it in my hands.  Was everyone in that subway car in tune with each other to have stopped worrying and started relaxing for once in the last several years?

Or were they all just hung over?

I know California is hung over this morning.  And I would be too!  As a Californian-born citizen, I am ashamed of my home state.  I hurt on behalf of the hundreds of gay and lesbian couples who lost their marriages last night to yet another selfish California Proposition – number 8.  California, I guess I sorta understand – you never played well with the other kids in the sanbox to begin with.  You never let yourself have it both ways, do you?

Voting day is here!  So here is some music for you to consider in your oh-so-choosy ways.    The Subway State Lounge series returns after hiatus with its 17th volume: Vobama Day.  This volume features some things from compilations that actually did a good job, so album variety isn’t the highest.  But the artists featured here are top banana.

Click here or on the picture to preview / purchase the set.  We here at Subway State promote the purchase of music unless you’re actually dirt poor in which case you can ask a friend for copies just don’t go to the pirate sites.

NOTE:  The links require iTunes to function.

Click ‘read the rest of this enrtry’ below to read my cabinet campaign article to become Secretary for Music Education in Ben Carver’s bid for the presidency. All similar articles related to the Carver Boom 08 campaign can be found here.

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