Saturday, November 15, 2008

It's been almost a year

Since Dan Fogelberg died. Today at work, while the sky gets blotted out by the ashes of wildfires, I stumble upon web pages about Dan Fogelberg. I am reading posts from his website, announcing that he has cancer, thanking fans for their support, up to the posting from his wife that he has died. In February of 2008, Jean Fogelberg arranged to have the last song that he recorded, a love song from him to her as a Valentine's Day gift that arrived at her door via FedEx while Dan was out of state, to be available via itunes. I don't necessarily enjoy anything after the very early 80's that he recorded, but I certainly enjoyed the story behind this one. The transparency that existed in his life toward the end, and after his death, is a stark contrast to what a private person he had been. I can only assume that when dealing with an imminent death, having a large outpouring of support from fans must be a wonderful thing. Unfortunately most of us will never know, as the majority of people slip into death without so much as a murmur. Don't know what I'm going for here exactly, other than it's still hard for me to hear his music without getting teary, which is very odd because I have never thought that celebrity was worth anything, and it's not like I especially idolize Dan Fogelberg. I guess his music was just really important to me growing up, and that includes going through my 20's, and well it makes me sad. To see that the words spoken in his songs, at least as far as an outsider could tell, appear to reflect the man that he was. For whatever reason, this stands out as being very special to me.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Since we made History on Tuesday

I suppose I should talk about it.

Having had little or no opinion of Barrack Obama until very late in his campaign, I cannot be accused of one of his "supporters", but I quickly came to appreciate his public person. He appears witty, warm, and gracious. This is a huge step up from the Bush Presidency, and is even miles away from the McCain campaign. During debates, Obama and Biden would look their competitors in the eyes, while in return they were largely ignored.

Policy issues aside, (for I cannot imagine being represented by a US President that was in line with policy I would like to see), this man who was elected on Tuesday, appears to be a man of character. Not the bulllshit kind of bought and paid for by daddy character, humility and politeness are vanishing values, that were once considered to be fundamental to America, but have been lost along the way.

In short, I neglected my homework Tuesday night as I compulsively hit the refresh button on my internet browser to see the latest updates. A day that began with me feeling small hope for change in our country, ended with me at the Mexican Restaurant across the street, drinking a beer and watching the first black President of the United States give an acceptance speech. I don't claim that Obama will fix everything, in fact the country has been so effectively run into the ground over the past few administrations that most likely no one could fix things, but at least we have something different.

And after eight years of constant anger, frustration, sadness and disappointment, I will gladly take something different.