bicyclemark91: Zipping Though DC Discussing Issues

I cruise around the US capital with my buddy D-Rock behind the wheel and we discuss important and unimportant issues like two old creepy guys.

AudioCommunique #91(mp3)
34min+, 80kbps, 20Mb+

Discussed:

Me at newark airport about to leave
Drock in the Zipcar
Soundseeing in the heart of the District
The perpetual campaign problem
congress and reform
fiddling with XM radio
my cab ride
an inpromptu debate about free trade and movement of jobs, which I seem to have lost and ends abruptly because we arrived at our destination suddenly.

music:

I’m from New Jersey song
Postal Service – The district sleeps tonight
Interpol – Evil

Return to Amsterdam Pending

24 hours from now I’ll be back to full on blogging about world affairs, injustice, and the occasional story of flying discs. (oh how I miss playing frisbee) As you’ll read about over at Ms. Thingk’s blog, Brooklyn’s internet diva came to New Jersey for some down home Portuguese-American christmas rituals. My family was thrilled to have a guest and I think secretly thrilled that I actually brought a girl home regardless of our relationship to one another. Oh and I also noticed quite a few people assumed she was full-on-just-arrived Dutch simply for her Dutch looks and the fact that she was with me. Fun.

And so I’ve been enjoying catching up with Yeast Radio and Open Source, and I must saying I’m missing my daily podcast listening routine which has been ruined by my so-called vacation. Now I look forward to heading back, seeing my darling Amsterdam, and taking a vacation from my vacation. New Jersey is where I was born and raised, its where my family and countless love one’s reside, but my heart is still in the Netherlands, and you’ve got to follow that most important organ… right?

Holiday Debates Over the Years

It is apparently still jesus’s birthday today, if you’re into western mythology as much as I am. And like so many families, mine too has its get togethers here in New Jersey, where family and friends sit down at a table together and eat food and talk about things. Being the debate and dicussion magnet that I am, you can imagine that every year some kind of debate breaks out at the table where I’m arguing one unpopular opinion against someone else arguing another. Being the younger generation, you can also imagine my opinion is usually a progressive, pinko-communist, radical, leftist one. But this tradition gets me thinking….

Remember that famous quote, maybe from Churchill, that says something like anyone below the age of 30 that isn’t a liberal (that poor misused word) has no heart, and anyone above the age of 30 who isn’t a conservative has no brain? – Well I think of that quote alot. I look at those around me and my own behavior, and I ask myself – has our rhetoric changed? Am I becoming more conservative as I age? Are they? The answer, by-and-large, is NO. I’m, in fact, just as radical and idealistic as I was back when I first awoke from my teenage political sleep.

However I do detect another change taking place. With each passing holiday meal, and plane ride to wherever, I may in fact be getting sloppier with my arguments and – what scares me most – is that I get lost in my own point. This from allegedly well educated and articulate me. -Who blogs everyday.
-Who was instrumental in the founding of pod-journalism.
-Who claims to be a world citizen….

It could just be overeating and excessive northeast travel that is getting to me… but those are my thoughts. -Happy festivus all ye little who’s in who-ville.

DC taxicab Wisdom

In an effort to write something interesting from my DC visit on Tuesday and Wednesday, may I present, the transcript of a conversation I had with a cab driver at 2am in the morning:

BM: 12th street, I forget the number…
Driver: Is it the Shlomo building? (names and numbers changed for security purposes)
BM: It is actually, how did you guess that?
Driver: You’re talking to a human GPS, plus no one is left in this town and thats the only building that might have people.
BM: Everyone went home for vacation? No one lives nearby?
Driver: Man, you are talking to the only guy you’ll meet during your entire visit who is actually DC born and bred. Nobody is actually from this town.
BM: So they come here from all the corners of the country, why? the romanticism of being the nations capital?
Driver: It’s jobs. JOBS. This place is an economic engine on a scale you won’t find anywhere else.
BM: But there are unemployed people, right?
Driver: You’d have a hard time staying unemployed in this town, there’s simply too much work available. Even those who want to start their own business, this is the place to do it.
BM: So twice a year this place empties out and you’re left alone here?
Driver: I tell you where my place is, I save up vacation time, and I go directly to Rio de Janeiro, that’s my place. And I ain’t talkin days or weeks, I go for months at a time, I do it right….. well here’s the shlomo building…
BM: Thanks man. And hey, enjoy Rio when the time comes.
Driver: I will. And you should get down there soon, if you’ve never been.
BM: Absolutely. Cya.

A Philly Portrait Cause Im Busy

Just arrived back from DC, and I have plenty to talk about, but zero time to spare. I actually have a work deadline for tomorrow and I won’t be sleeping tonight. The fun-filled DC stories will come later tonight, for now I’m still reminiscing and looking over photos from my visit to Philly and how nice it was. Here are some photos to tythe ye over:


Leah and I riding bikes back from her work across from the Eastern State Pen.


The three men that gave me shelter, love, and internet during my time in philly.

bicyclemark90: Live from Philly

Here I am in Philly.. or actually.. uploading this from DC.. either way.. its me this morning talking about how and perhaps why Philly is changing. I also get into the NYC transit strike and how the media covers it, as well as a little on the new Bolivian presidente.

AudioCommunique #90(mp3)
29min+, 80kbps, 17Mb+

Im in a startbucks in Adam’s Morgan and I’m due at a party, no show notes, listen to it and maybe I’ll fix it later.