Michael Braun's Blog

Sure, I don’t get Spring Break anymore, but that did not stop me from taking a vacation next week, starting this Saturday. I’ll be flying down to North Carolina with my mom, her husband, and my sister. Sadly the trip was planned too early for Lauren to be coming too, but that’s alright, though I’m sure to miss her. Anyway, being down in NC means I won’t have internet access, so let me apologize in advance for a slow down in posts. Expect a backlog to pop up when I get back.

In other news, some great new diss lyrics by CellBlock can be seen on my facebook page. Check them out!

Thank you, no longer a dependant status! I got to take my tuition off of my income taxes this year. That means I went from owing $4 to receiving over $1000! How does that work? I don’t know! But I’m happy like some sort of little child. Now, am I glad that ol’ Uncle Sam has been making interest off me all year long? Of course not! But I am happy that he’s agreed to give it back! That’s my money, goddamn it!

Now, I do happen to know that Lauren got more money back on her return, so I am a little bummed about that. But, you know what? Taxes are not a competition. In fact, they are a time of celebration, when Americans can unite over supporting the wonderful institutions of government! Everytime you walk into a library or get arrested by the police, you should be thanking the government for providing these services thru money that you paid!

Anyway, enough about taxes. And enough about death, as well. I’ve got some interesting things to posit on: the death of the album! Yes, with CD sales down 20% last month from a year ago, it seems like the music industry may be in trouble. I read a recent article that suggested this might mean record labels will be less willing to sign artists to a deal to produce an entire album and instead will contract with them to produce just a couple of tracks. I’m sure some people out there are panicking over this, but I am rejoicing!

Think about how many songs come out every year that you can really enjoy. They come on the radio and you crank the volume up. The video comes on MTV and you sit, enraptured. But, when you decide you want to buy the artist’s album, it ends up a complete disappointment and you wonder, why would a record label put out this garbage?

Then think about the latest album you bought and thoroughly enjoyed all the way through. For me, that was “Youth and Young Manhood” by Kings of Leon, which I just bought this morning and have since listened to 7 times thru. It’s a fabulous album. You know what kind of radio play it got? NONE! Not on any major commercial stations anyway. But a local label is still going to put out an album like this and make money on it. And I am still going to buy the whole album and enjoy it.

So we get the best of both worlds – good albums that come out of small labels and good singles that come out of big labels. And sometimes, you’ll get a solid hitmaker who is able to sell a million copies, but not that often. Now, one can certainly argue that the small labels can’t afford the type of distribution that the large labels can. And the large labels can’t afford to put out small selling releases. Well, that’s where digital media comes in! I buy all my music (nearly all, anyway) on the iTunes Music Store, which means no one has to go thru the expense of pressing and distributing actual albums.

And, of course, there is one other point to make here. It’s a lesson to the big music labels. When you give your artists complete license to spend whatever they want, do whatever they want, all in hopes of having them produce a good album, you are wasting your money. An artist has to stay hungry. They have to constantly be on the edge of something great. You should pay them well for their time, as they are going to make you money, but in the end, you should not cater to their every whim! This is called throwing profits down the drain.

For those of you looking for a good example of a record label throwing money away, I recommend the documentary “Dig!” about two bands – the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Brian Jones, front man for the latter, had record labels eating out of his hand. They thought he was a musical genius. Trouble was, his violent and wild mood swings kept the band from being productive. So the record label paid to have a top of the line studio built in Jones’ house, so that he might record whenever the mood struck him. That didn’t quite workout, however, and the band failed to make it big.

Anyway, get rid of the crap, leave us the good, but still keep us with the jams we love to hear on the radio and in the club. It seems like the perfect solution to me! Yahoo for downturned music sales!

My apartment is over 80 degrees and it’s just March. Sure, the temperature is scheduled to drop these next coming days as a cold front brings up rain as well, but I’m okay with that. Today, after work, Lauren and I went for a run. After dinner, we went down to State Street and stopped in at Espresso Royale cafe. We grabbed our drinks and sat on the Terrace, where it was poppin’. Reminded me of good ol’ summer days where the same thing happens. It very much felt like summer today.

I’m saving the real meat of posts for tomorrow evening (probably, as it might be a bit of a stretch to say I’ve been overflowing with great ideas for things to write about). But I wanted to make a quick comment on the weather, especially as it was so absolutely gorgeous. Being cooped up inside working all day was certainly a well-designed torture.

I’m seriously thinking about the next CellBlock album, though it’s been a bit slow in coming together. Once again, I’m lagging behind with the beats. Here’s a call to all producers out there: make some beats for me. I put in a lot of time writing my lyrics, and while they are not nearly as clever as a lot of people’s, I like to think that they aren’t lame and that they have a purpose. I have yet to do a club-oriented track. So, while I’m not adverse to the idea, you can pretty much bet that the lyrics I put over your track will be serious and well thought out.

You flex your arms, making to lay a beat down
But what you gon’ do when I lay the beat down
And say freestyle, not fighting, use your words.
You stumble and mumble, pretend you ain’t heard,
The music’s so loud, I start in with my verse
After 16 bars, you get carried away in a hearse.
So, big man gorilla, swing your punches at me,
My words float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

And that’s the truth.

Funny how the suggestion that I take heed to curtail my expression launches me into a frenzy of thoughts. The catharic nature of public expression may be a dangerous cure for my ails, but I’ll take it and damn the consequences. I picture the audience, all naked, of course, ’cause they’re at home with their laptops to keep them warm. And the bumbling Google-munchers? They stumble here and find something they like. They like to feel dirty. 50 years ago, they would have climbed a tree to see a girl unbutton her shirt. Now they check out kiddy porn and hope they don’t get found out by the feds. Then they read random blogs hoping for something titillating. Once, there was someone reading my blog who had found out about it from facebook. She said she had read all my posts. I wonder if I came across as “real.” She gave me the address to her blog, and I did the same, reading all that she had written. Later it all came to annoy me.

You ever look at my photos? The ones I have online are not hard to find. From my main page, there’s a convenient link. It was broken for a while, but I fixed it a few months ago. I thought it would be difficult, but it wasn’t. So if you don’t know me, and I mean know me, what did you get out of those pictures? Did you feel strange looking at my cousins as little kids? Did you get weirded out by the pictures of people you didn’t know? Would you consider it voyeurism to look… just to LOOK? Honestly, officer, I stumbled on that page by accident!

I like the iTunes Music Store. It’s an excellent way to find out about new artists or receive instant gratification in purchasing. Often, when I read reviews on sites like the Onion’s AV Club, I like to go check out the artists that they write about. There is no easier way to do this than the iTunes Music Store.

I also love the name of the store; it’s perfectly and absolutely factual and descriptive. I think Microsoft named their music store something like “Urge.” Okay, that’s a decent name as it describes the way that I use iTunes, but it has this aura of forced cool. Like they had a focus group of teens, and they said, tell us which name sounds coolest – The Windows Media Player Music Store, Urge, or DRM Galaxy. Lo and behold the teens picked Urge and so that’s what they went with. But how long will it survive? No one can compete with iTunes. No one can do it better (not yet anyway).

One final thought – a beach may be a public place, but that still means you have a right to not have someone oogle you with binoculars for hours. There is still a thing in this world called respect for privacy. Thank goodness.

The stock market’s been broiling for a while all over some difficulty with sub-prime loans. What is a sub-prime loan, you ask. A subprime loan is simply a loan granted to an individual who does not qualify for a loan at the prime rate. This individual is still lent money but pays a higher interest rate, to compensate the lender for the increased risk. In this case, banks had made many of these loans in the recent past, then sold them to others as a way to manage risk. In some cases, however, the mortgage companies, knowing they could manage their risk by selling off the loans gave out money to people who should not have been allowed to borrow in the first place. Thus, as the economy turns sour, one of two things happen. Either people find their income decreased, forcing them to default on the loan, or the lender increases in interest rate (for adjustable rate mortgages) forcing the borrower to default. And of course, as a lot of the groups who bought these mortgages from banks and other lending institutions did so for an investment, this is leading to some volitility in the markets.

On an NPR program called Marketplace (which I used to not like, but am finding more interesting as time goes on) they discussed the story of a woman who had used subprime mortgages and the booming house market to make herself a bit of a killing in the real estate world. Trouble is, now that the housing market has cooled off some, she got stuck with properties that weren’t selling and rising interest rates on her loans (especially as her risk value increased). She’s looking at defaulting on 3 properties. Ouch!

Now, obviously hers is a bit of a sad story – someone looking to take some risk and work hard all for the benefits of some money. We can all admire that kind of work ethic and be sad when we hear how it didn’t work out for her. But I got to thinking about her story and its relation to the American Dream, and I have come to see some disjunction in the tale. One question that pops in my mind is, where does greed factor into capitalist economics?

Working hard is not the same as being greedy. A person who puts in extra hours at work is not necessarily being greedy. But where do you draw the line? Where does the simple motivation of extra money end and the motivation to work harder for an external force begin? Whereas the desire for more is what drives capitalism, an occupation without additional compensation for more work goes against the American Dream.

If you are surrounded by people who put in hours upon hours of work above and beyond 40 hours, while you are content working 40 hours a week, where do you fit into the American Dream? In an hourly wage system, you are the loser. You are bound not to make it. Other people make more than you because they work harder. Your earnings are small by comparison. But on a salaried compensation scale, you are the genius. You have time to pursue other things, be they recreational or occupational. Working fewer hours in one place means more time to spend on something else.

Thus, when working extra hours in a salaried job, you are going against the American Dream. You have the desire to work more, but you are not working for your own benefit. The only thing that your extra hours earn you is a feeling of pleasure you get from making yourself suffer for your job. Certainly one could argue that you are working towards a larger bonus or a promotion, but the American Dream is based on more than simply long-term goals. While it is nice to think about buying a house, a new car, sending the kids to college, and so on, there must also be an immediate reward of a larger paycheck to drive people to work harder in hopes of achieving their dreams.

So, if you are breaking your back right now in a salaried position, not taking time for yourself to explore other jobs or hobbies, stop going against America. If you are finding that you don’t have time for family or friends, or that you are constantly stressed out at home, quit! Get a job that allows you to live what America is all about. Get some freedom.

Now, how does this all relate back to subprime mortgages? Therein lies the careful balance. Just as you desire to work harder for immediate material gain, take heed! Risk is never mentioned in the American Dream narrative. Nowhere does it say that James O’Malley, the Irish immigrent decided to stop wearing a safety helmet in the coal mine because it meant he could chip more coal. Mr. O’Malley died from that kind of risk.

Anyway, long and boring story short, working yourself to the bone for no immediate reward hurts America. Don’t let the corporations win. Make sure you have time to live the American Dream, not be sucked into the vortexes that dream has created.

In other news, my next album, under the band name Your Mother Is Dead has been put on somewhat of a hold. For one reason, I’d rather be spending time with Lauren than working on learning how to play the guitar better and writing songs like that. For another reason, due to some recent events, I’ve got some motivation to begin working on the next CellBlock album – Life on the Outside. I’ve got some lyrics that I’ve recently written. You can check out those lyrics on Facebook. Not my Facebook friend? Guess you are out of luck. Ha, ha, and double HA!

I’m somewhat torn. At what point is an opinion no longer an opinion? At what point, without regard to the realm of legalities, is something one writes appropriate/not appropriate? At what point in time does one’s personal actions affect one’s work? At what point in time does it become a company’s right to censor its emloyees’ personal comments? At what point in time can a connection be drawn between a person’s name and a real person? At what point in time should personal information affect the workplace?

Let me propose some scenarios:

Before the scenarios, let’s say that the person involved in each has taken pains to not mention his place of work in any public place.

After each scenario, let’s say that a co-worker finds the content by searching for information on that person out of curiosity. The co-worker finds the information disturbing and now feels uncomfortable working with the person. Let’s further say that the person has ask yourself A) can this affect how the employee is able to do his job? and B) is it appropriate for a company to take action to remove the content from the website?

1. A person posts sexually explicit photographs of himself on his personal website.
2. A person mentions using illegal drugs in his blog.
3. A person expresses extreme opinions on politics.
4. A person expresses extreme opinions on religion.
5. A person writes about having difficulty working with another employee and mentions that employee by first name.
6. A person writes about having difficulty working with another employee but does not mention that employee by name.
7. A person writes a complaint about his place of work, citing internal events.
8. A person writes a complaint about his place of work, citing external events.

Obviously there is a reason for this speculation, but beyond that, where should the line be drawn? How much impact should a company be allowed to have on its employees personal lives? Where does work stop being work and personal life stop being personal?

I can understand the idea of not wanting your personal life to have a detrimental impact on your work life. But, as the saying goes, if you go looking for trouble, you’re going to find it. If a person seeks information on him or herself, they will most certainly end up finding someone who doesn’t like them. But it’s a two way street, in that, if one writes something that one views could be controversial, shouldn’t one be prepared to deal with the consequences? On the other hand, if one has made every attempt to keep work and home separate, where can the line be drawn?

In the end, I suspect that I will find another forum for expressing certain types of discontent. This may solve most problems here. But, at the same time, how much trouble should I have to go thru such that I can express personal opinions and accept other people’s opinions about them without an offical chopping block hanging over my head? Is it enough to never mention place of employment in a forum, or do I need to go further and remove any identifying information?

And what about bloggers who do not use their real names? They remain protected doubly, in that no one can locate them to find out who they are, and they cannot be found via a search on their real name. I’ve never been about that kind of deception, viewing my own opinions as generally well-supported and willing to accept criticism of them, but I am starting to see the appeal.

Now, to you, the reader. In this case, I would ask you to risk the potential of having someone else see your name and your opinions. I seek your opinion on these matters. Please, unlike all the times you have ignored my pleas for comments, tell me what you think. I would really appreciate it.

Okay, so I’m as anti-war as the next person. And honestly, I think we would be a lot better off if we had more of a hands-off approach to the Middle East. And I would like to see our troops withdrawn soon. But, I have been saying for quite some time now that it’s the mess we made, and now we have a responsibility to clean it up. That doesn’t mean more US troops, it means more international involvement. Once we get the world community involved, we can then start taking our troops out.

David Obey was recently caught on film yelling at an anti-war protester. Now, David Obey is from Wisconsin and has long been a good liberal. But in the video, he yells at the woman, telling her that “stupid liberals” need to understand he will always support the troops. When I first heard this story, it seemed to be presented as something Obey had done wrong, something inappropriate. I’m not sure if it’s still being spun that way. I hope not, as I view Obey’s comments to be right on.

Too often, we liberals are portrayed as weak, wimpy, little delicate flowers, incapable of surviving a strong gust of cold hard conservatism. We let our hearts bleed for each and every cause that comes our way. But David Obey completely refutes that. He also refutes that we don’t support the troops, that we would ever cut funding to them, and that we can’t deal effectively with war policy. And all he had to do was let loose on an anti-war protester.

Now, shame on me, but I haven’t had a chance to view the video repeatedly. I’ve had some trouble finding it online. But, I believe the scenario goes something like this. An anti-war protester comes to Obey asking him to vote against funding for the war. Perhaps there was some badgering, perhaps Obey was merely annoyed, but he tells the woman, in no uncertain terms, that stupid liberals need to learn he will never cut funding for the troops. And that was all it took. With that simple statement, unrehearsed and unscripted (I think), David Obey does what President Bush can’t, he told the truth from his heart.

And thanks to the wonders of YouTube, the video swept the airwaves. Proof that Obey means what he says. Proof that liberals can be something more than a bunch of peaceniks. And proof, once again, that the Democrats have the right vision for America. Sure, there may be some squabbling among members about what is the best path forward. But while Democrats align on these issues, Republicans struggle to find a voice outside of their scandels (Scooter Libby, firing of US Attorneys).

So three cheers for David Obey, a hero for the left!

In other news, I had a nice long weekend with Lauren. We both took Monday off for some much needed relaxation time. The last day I had taken off was after Christmas, and the last long weekend we had had was New Years. On Saturday, we headed down to Illinois to do some shopping at Ikea. After finally making it there after some terrible Illinois traffic (when it’s it terrible, what with all those stupid tolls), we had some excellent shopping. I bought a small table with four chairs for my apartment. It will be nice to have something to eat on, work at, et cetera. It’s still in my car, waiting to be hauled up here and assembled, but that will happen. We also went over to Woodfield Mall, a huge place with a lot of nice stores. Our plans for dinner (Cheesecake Factory) fell thru as the place was packed. But we found this fabulous Indian Resturant a few blocks away and had a great meal.

On Sunday, we headed up to Oshkosh to Lauren’s grandmother’s house. A whole bunch of her family convened. It was great to meet a lot of people all at once. Her family reminds me a lot of my family, just in terms of interactions and so on. It was a lot of fun. We left there around 5 and got to walk around Ripon’s campus, where Lauren went to college. The weather was perfect, though the campus empty as it was Spring Break.

On Monday, we bummed around UW’s campus and walked on State Street, throughly exhausting ourselves in the process. Lauren also bought an iPod Nano, to go with her beautiful MacBook. So many fun toys, I’m starting to get jealous. Not that this computer is falling apart, but I think the time is approaching for some new equipment.

Anyway, so that’s about it. Thanks for reading all this. Stay tuned for next time, as you never know when more exciting things might happen in my life. Someday, something exciting may indeed happen.

Yah, …ZZZ, Badgers. What a boring way to end the season and way to blow that number one ranking. For the first time in ever, the Badger Men’s Basketball team was ranked number 1 in the country. That means they were viewed as the absolute best college team in the nation, capable of crushing anyone. Then they lost two games in a row and tumbled down to number 4 or 5. While they plowed thru their opponents in the Big Ten Tournement, by the time the had to face Ohio State again in the final round, they lost by double digits. So, with a strong start on the season, the Badgers finished disappointingly and now will enter the NCAA tournament with a second seed draw. Not bad, but not what a lot of people had hoped for.

I’ve stopped watching most sports lately. I’m busier than usual, spending a lot of time with Lauren, but also find that when I do watch sports, while I get pleasure out of them, in the end, I get too riled up. I find myself engrossed by the competition. And without the social aspect of watching sports, I find I don’t need that kind of emotional involvement on something over which I am completely powerless. I do still like to follow sports, and I like to keep up to date on what is happening so that I can stay a part of sports conversations. But I haven’t watched any sports games since sometime in December.

This may all change when the NBA playoffs roll around, as the Mavericks are once again the powerhouse team in the west. I’m not sure if they will make it to the finals again, but if they do, I think this will finally be their year to win it. The Heat are not dominating as they did last year and no other team has really stepped up to take their place. Also, with the beauty of non-single game elimination, the strength of the Mavericks’ bench should be able to propel them past other teams.

Anyway, that’s it. I’ll have some more news, including an update on the weekend tomorrow or Wednesday, so stay tuned!

The United States is the only country in the world where speaking another language is considered a sign of stupidity. In other countries, around the world, the ability to speak multiple languages is considered an asset. In fact, in most European countries (and I can only assume, other nations around the world as well) it is expected that you learn multiple languages in school.

But, this is the country we live in. Today, at lunch, a co-worker of mine clumsily related an anecdote about the DMV, involving many people taking written driver’s exams in… DIFFERENT LANGUAGES! What could have been an interesting commentary about our multi-cultural society because a complaint against bad drivers, most of whom, she inferred, are Somali or Hmong (at least in the Twin Cities. No doubt Mexicans are the biggest offenders in other parts of the world).

The conversation then took an interesting turn. While I attempted to expose her faulty logic and another co-worker attempted to make jokes in ridicule, a third co-worker chimed in, noting that, “unlike [me], [she does] not believe driving is a right.” My hunch is that she also does not believe in rights to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. Not if your skin isn’t lily white anyway.

So there I was, again, caught in the line of racial hatred. What the fuck am I supposed to do? There’s ignorance all around us, no doubt. Turn on a great deal of comedy programs and watch them stumble over racial issues, trying to be Dave Chappelle and ending up as KKK rallies (Sarah Silverman, Carlos Mencia, even The Daily Show in a couple of recent episodes). But how often does that ignorance get passed off as witty observation or political commentary by friends and co-workers? Once is too often for me.

I forget how good I had it. When my everyday associates consisted of liberal, open-minded, racially diverse people (oh, college, how I miss thee), I never had to endure these shallowly disguised bits of racial hate. And, when I came across them, I shared them with my friends and roommates and we laughed at racial ignorance and bemoaned how stupid people are. Now, I’ve got people around me who believe the notion that “all stereotypes are rooted in truth” is a justification for using those stereotypes as basis for personal discrimination. And people who believe a casual observation means a stereotype is okay.

Let’s break this thing down for a moment. It so happens that there are few bad drivers on the road. Most drivers do not irk us with their poor skills. It also so happens (god bless the midwest) that there are few people with brown skin. Thanks to the human brain’s desire to organize and categorize and a nice phenomenon called the illusory correlation, it seems like a higher percentage of bad drivers are people with brown skin. And because the people in the DMV taking their driving tests in another language happen to also share this brown skin, people who don’t speak English as their native language must be bad drivers! Proof positive!

The conversation began to degrade soon after it started. It became clear that I was only going to get more riled up over the whole situation. And the person who made the initial comment also noted that driving is very different in other countries compared to the US. And the person who noted “driving isn’t a right” went to guard the US/Mexico border with her shotgun in tote. But that still left me shaking my head.

I think if everyone stepped back before saying something about a different group of people and asked themselves, is what I believe due to honest fact, or is it possible (just possible) that I may be making some incorrect groupings simply because I notice the color of people’s skins? It’s fine to notice; we all do that. But when we don’t stop and question our stereotypes and assumptions, that’s when we get bugged that someone would actually take a driver’s examination test in another language. What has the world come to?!