Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

I was driving home from work Wednesday night, enjoying the night, totally relaxed, and I had a realization…

I can’t even begin to remember when the last time I drove home from work relaxed.  The daily grind of churning out fodder for the news beast just beats ya down, to where eventually you can’t take it anymore.  I’d be cranky, or irritable, or tired, or all of the above after a day in the newsroom.  I haven’t felt any of that since I left.  And I like it.

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And now for something completely different.

Tonight driving home, listening to my Ipod,  I heard “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” from Styx for about the millionth time.  The song is from “Brave New World”, and I’m pretty sure it didn’t sell very well, but being a huge Styx fan, of course I bought it.  And I like the album.  Sadly, it was the last album before the big split with Dennis DeYoung.

Dennis wrote “High Crimes”, and it was mostly about the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.  But, listening to the lyrics, you can see that the song can be applied to just about ANY politician, especially now with the election year politics hitting high gear.

Here are the lyrics…

High Crimes and Misdemeanors (Hip Hop-Cracy)
Written by Dennis DeYoung
Lead Vocals by Dennis DeYoung

They want you to believe
The unbelievable
They say you should accept
The unacceptable
Forget your common sense
It isn’t sensible
Good times for fools and dreamers

Watch ‘em all deny
The undeniable
See how they refute
The unrefutable
They’re ready to defend
The indefensible
High times for lawyer schemers

They say we must forgive
The forgivable
They want us to respect
The unrespectable
The pious and the hip
So hypocritical
High crimes and misdemeanors

Hip hop hip hop-cracy hip hop
Hip hop hip hop-cracy hip hop
Hip hop hip hop-cracy hip hop

See how they explain
The inexplicable
Watch ‘em debate
The undebatable
Apparently a lie
Is never liable
Prime time for talk show screamers

They say we constitute
The Constitutional
With justice here for all
So justifiable
I’m tryin’ not to laugh
But man it’s laughable
High crimes and misdemeanors

Hip hop hip hop-cracy hip hop
Hip hop hip hop-cracy hip hop
Hip hop hip hop-cracy hip hop
Hip hop hip hop-cracy hip hop
Hip hop hip hop-cracy hip hop

And so
Today we find
They’ve changed their minds
They’ve switched their points of view

Oh what tangled webs they weave
When their beliefs ain’t really
What they believe

They’re trying to divide
The indivisible
Because they think we’re fools
So foolable
I’m tryin’ not to laugh
But man it’s laughable
Boom times for Wall Street dreamers
They want you to believe
The unbelievable
They say we should accept
The unacceptable
The pious and the hip
So hypocritical
High crimes and misdemeanors

High crimes and misdemeanors
High crimes and misdemeanors

Hip hop hip hop-cracy hip hop
Hip hop hip hop-cracy hip hop
Hip hop hip hop-cracy hip hop
Hip

This isn’t the first time lyrics from Styx has made me think.

A few months ago, I heard”Fallen Angel” by Styx.

Now, most of you probably haven’t heard the song, but listening to the song got me thinking about stuff.

For instance, here’s the beginning of the song…

Hell nobody’s perfect
One hundred percent
No saint, no Pope, no King no Queen
No President

But our hunger for heroes
Has made us blind
We seek salvation
From the cup of human kind

But every time we hear the voice
Of some new Abraham
We wake too late to realize
It was just another scam

I’m a fairly independent kinda guy. I do my own thinking, trying to find things out for myself instead of following some other person’s ideology blindly like a lot of people do today. In my opinion, that’s a huge part of what’s wrong with society today. Republicans are blindly following their logic, while the Democrats blindly follow theirs, with nothing of significance getting done.  And, again, with the election coming up, it’s even worse.

I guess I’d like to see politicians actually do what’s best for their constituents, not necessarily what will only get them re-elected.  Pie-in-the-sky dreamin’, I know.

Wow, kinda wordy tonight, huh?

Update

I know you all have been waiting, breathlessly, for an update on the new job.

Well, wait no more.  Here ’tis.

I walked.  I walked a lot.  I mean, I walked A LOT!

Mott is not a big campus.  Walking from one side to another takes about ten minutes.  But when you walk back and forth, numerous times, the mileage quickly adds up.

The first day I met about a thousand and a half people,  of which I remembered about a dozen.

The second day, I worked a thirteen and a half hour day, minus a half hour for lunch.  It made me nostalgic for news again!

Morris Dees, a prominent civil rights attorney, spoke on campus that evening.  Which meant we spent a sizable part of the day setting up.  We set up the audio system, including a mult-box, and worked a long time getting the hum and hiss out of the audio.

Then, we set up the modulator to sent the video and audio to a second location for the over-flow room (which, it turned out, we didn’t need), and had to spend another sizable period of time getting the static out of the video.

He started talking about 715pm, finishing at about 830, and we spent an hour tearing down everything. That was a long day.  When my head hit the pillow at home, I was out like a light.

Friday was a relatively easy day, just trouble shooting stuff, getting acclimated to the  campus some more, until just before quitting time when we discovered a problem in a conference room.  We decided it didn’t need to be fixed ’til Monday morning, since no one would be using the room ’til then.

I like the place.  The people are friendly, the campus nice (of course, autumn is my favorite time of year), and the hours are good.  I’m happy to have made the move.

Last Day

So, should I call myself “ex-photogguy”?  Nah.

Some pics to help me remember the last day…

Exciting stuff, huh?