Putting In Your $1.05

One thing people tend to forget is that Freedom of Speech also means that individuals have the Freedom Not To Speak. Perhaps we should all exercise that freedom just a little more often.

We're hearing more and more stories about anti-gay weirdoes spouting off their beliefs in unnecessary or unusual places. Some of those people, like this guy, are being punished for their inopportune and unwelcome comments. And some of those people, like that same guy, are being propped up as martyrs in the fundamentalist Christian community.

The thing is that, while he does have a right to speak his mind, he doesn't have a right to do so without repercussion. We all have rights and privileges in this country, but those come with responsibilities as well. The responsibility to speak about appropriate topics in appropriate ways and in appropriate settings strongly correlates with the right to free speech.

For example, I am free to discuss topics like my bedroom activities with whomever is around me. But that may come at a cost. If I choose to speak of these things with friends at a bar, that cost will be laughs or friendly jibing, but if I choose to do so in front of my boss, that cost may be the loss of my job, or if I choose to do so on Facebook, that cost may be the "unfriending" of family and friends who are not keen on participating in such discussions.

You see, I am free to discuss my bedroom antics, but I am also subject to the cost of that freedom. Conversely, I am free to simply not speak of such things, thereby avoiding any cost, and I am free to selectively share, thereby incurring only the costs I am willing and able to pay.

Clearly, there are people who are unaware of the costs of their Freedoms. Perhaps if people continue to lose focus of the societal costs of their freedoms, we should enact the $1.05 policy advocated by Team America: World Police.

All I Ever Wanted Was A Little Airborne Toxicity

I don't often obsess over a song. I'm more of an album kind of guy. Albums can be great or miserable, and so can individual songs on those albums, but usually the strength or weakness of a single track just weighs in to my overall estimation of an album.

Of course, for every rule there is an exception. A few weeks ago I went on a new music binge. I opened Slacker Radio on my iPhone, fired up their Alternative channel and listened until I found five songs I really liked, then went and grabbed the albums those songs were on, hoping that the albums would be good enough to break me out of my music funk.

One of the albums I downloaded was All At Once from Airborne Toxic Event. This is one of those times that I realize I'm behind on finding this artist, but honestly I just couldn't care. The album is good and I'm just glad to have found it! I love the instrumentation the artists use, the range of sounds they are able to command, and, probably most inspiring to me, their lyrics.

But one songs on the album, All I Ever Wanted, has really stuck out to me. I'm not even sure if the track has been or will be released as a single, but it certainly needs to be! Take a listen:



I can't define what I appreciate most from the song, the lyrics or the arrangement, but I don't think it matters because it's purely amazing. The lyrics take you on a journey of fear and hope and realization and self-doubt and love… you know, all the things us neurotics think about pretty much daily! And the strings came through with such simplicity and the intensity of their delivery is perfect.

It's a song that I know I can relate to, and one that I think so many others can too. I've read the explanations across the interwebs of what people think the song means, and from a literal stand point I'm sure the abandonment idea makes sense, but the beauty of a song like this (as with any good art) is that there is still room for interpretation from the viewer/listener.

When I hear these lyrics, I don't hear a man saying that the relationship is over. I hear a man that knows that shit just got real, as the kids say. He knows the honeymoon-period is over. It's a flash-point perspective on the moment that it dawned on him that he's with someone and that he's not sure he can be everything to them like he always wanted to be. And that leads to his fear that maybe this won't work out, that maybe the person he's with isn't exactly who he thought either and maybe that'll end badly. But in the end, I feel like he comes back and says that he's in love anyway, despite the fears and the insecurities and the short-comings. He's going to defy his self-doubt because he knows that nobody is perfect.

I've been listening to this song a lot. I mean, like on repeat. I've been learning to play a version of it so that I can play it in the short windows of time that I'm not listening to it. I've been reading (*shudder*) fan-site message boards to get other opinions on the song. I'm quite obsessed. And I think you should be too.