RUSH Beyond The Lighted Stage

Normally I do not use my blog for reviews. But I have to pass on this bit of information for other RUSH fans that may be followers. If you did not live in a cool enough city to show this documentary on the one day in June that it was showing, like me, then you have had to wait for it's DVD release. And let me tell you it is well worth the wait! RUSH Beyond The Lighted Stage.

This is a must have for every RUSH fan out there. Not only is it informative with childhood photos and information about the life long friendship of the band members. While that was not new news to me, may be to some of you. But it also is chock full of rare and recent concert footage. Which you would expect. What makes this one different than other rock n roll documentaries is the candid and often times very funny remarks from many. . . MANY other famous rock and roll artists that have been heavenly influenced by RUSH.

I found myself not only connecting with the band in many of the humorous back stage extras, (my favorite being a dinner with the band members at a hunting lodge) but also with the other Rock musicians and singer/songwriters that appeared to remember with me why they loved RUSH as a kid growing up.

The voice that RUSH spoke to me with, was one of pure geek-dome and nonconformist freewill, with a dose of outsider throw in for good measure. And at once, I felt that I was not alone. As an unsure teenager, with their words of intellect and individuality they helped me to remember, at all costs, who I was, and to never sell out.

Something I didn't know and I bet most of you don't either, was that they are ranked third in consecutive gold or platinum albums after The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Wow. . . that's right. . .a Canadian rock band! So there! And I bet with a stat like that you either are a RUSH fan or you know one. We're everywhere, and most of us are hard to spot. We're kind of invisible, until we all get together at RUSH-CON or a concert.

I'm going again this summer when they hit the twin cities Aug. 27th, and if you haven't seen them yet live, I encourage you to do so. As quickly as you can. You never know, this may be the last year. . .

33 days and counting. . .

Here I Go Again, Recreating The Past

Last night the sound of the thunder effected my dreams. Every time it woke me up, my dreams would change from Instant Message screens to him reaching out to me. The dream was so choppy and urgent, and filled with the longing that I feel in my waking hours.

Here I sit, eyes still red-rimmed from crying most the night, drinking coffee and wondering how I'm going to face my life without him in it. How will I get through not being able to share my days and nights with him. The hours we spent together sharing everything. . . the innocent and not so innocent times we remembered our 4 days together, and made up new encounters, hoped for the future, and wished we could be together again. Writers are so creative when it comes to fantasy.

Last night the sound of my tears effected my communication. I pushed him away, like I had two other great loves in my past. I pushed so hard this time, he said he was happy with his life, as happy as he can be, and I pushed. And my heart snapped. His happiness being more important to me than my own. His future with her being more important to him than us.

Here I sit, on the verge of tears and numb for everything around me. And my thoughts are with him, wanting more than anything else to take it all back, and hold him and kiss him forever. . . but his hugs and kisses belong to someone else. He'll be married less than a month, and so I brought our over 6 month affair to an end.

For those of you that believe that an internet affair is not as serious as a real one, nor as damaging, I'm here to argue the point. The four days we had in person together confirmed everything before, and cemented everything after.

I hope I haven't destroyed us completely. I hope he does keep in touch as he said he would. I hope if he's ever single he'll call me. But for now, I must let him go, and it feels like I've cut off a piece of myself. I understand what it feels like now when Stevie sang, "Something in my heart died last night, one more chip off an already broken heart.....Blame it on my Wild Heart."

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

While reading this today I couldn't help but think of my present situations and wonder just how true this statement is. For those of you that know me, you know that I tend to relive the past. . . a lot. And while I do this with good memories for the rush, and bad memories for the lessons, I know it influences my present.

But lately I've been given three 'future' options in the romance department. Very interesting and very unexpected options. Well two of the three are interesting, one of them is just not an interesting enough option to me to go there, and if he actually offers more then just a mid life crisis text message, I'll let him know that road was closed at the divorce. And for the record he's only interested in me when I'm interested in someone else...how he somehow senses that I'm interested in someone else is better left unexplained. (I don't talk to him, so he can't know) And if I start talking about past lives and connections you'll think I'm bonkers. . .well more bonkers than you already do. :D (Three For One - 341)

But I mention him at all because when my romantic live erupts all over me, it usually happens in threes. Kind of like death happening in threes. (there goes my morbid sense of humor again)

And so now I'm thinking about two future options, and honestly one is a much better fit, and I feel a much stronger connection with, but for him a harder decision to make me reality. The other, might not be as hard a decision, but still a hard choice and the connection is not as strong. But well, it's me, so it's complicated.

Apparently it can never be easy in this life for me romantically. . . and my future options I find are keeping me thinking about my past and when this happened before, back in the 80's. The choices I made then, in the end proved to be the wrong choices, hence the divorce. Now I find myself saying the old adage, "Life gives you the opportunity to make the same mistake twice."

Here is where it gets hard for me. . . I see the similarities, in the two choices I'm contemplating, with the two choices I had in the past. . . and life is saying. . . okay, you thought it was hard with just the one you are in love with. . . now we will get down to it, and you can try to do this the right way this time.

Funny. Fate is funny. Only which is the right way? Only the future will tell. Good thing I'm patient.

Big Brother and Big Business

I recently got the chance to get extremely pissed off at a bill that Senator Joe Lieberman is trying to push through congress. It's been called the Internet Kill Switch. Follow the link if you'd like to read the entire bill. Its a long one, and I can tell you it's very vague, in so many ways that it's scary. http://www.docstoc.com/docs/44104910/Internet-Kill-Switch---Protecting-Cyberspace-as-a-National-Asset-Act-%28PCNAA%29

How is it scary? Well it's scary to me because it give not only the President, who, by the way had nothing to do with creating this bill, but the media is blaming him, but it also gives an appointed Director absolute power to kill the internet, whenever a financial threat is imposed upon us by terrorist. Actually the bill is so vague they don't even go into detail about what the parameters to be considered a threat. Could be ANY threat....And while we're at it, wouldn't shutting down the internet cause more damage to our financial structure than the threat?

I've talked about this to several of my friends, some of them posted their own blogs on it, others reminded me that this kind of thing is not new, but has been in effect since 1934 for all forms of media. I didn't know that, and that completely bombards my argument on why haven't they tried to do this with radio, television or telephones....apparently they have and can. So Big Brother now is striking a deal with Big Business, wouldn't be the first time, to control our basic freedoms. This makes it very hard for me to feel good about any of the people we have in power. And it makes me wonder how much more as citizens we will stand before we say, enough is enough. And if Big Business, say wants to make even more money, whose to stop them from regulating the internet into a form of media, instead of communication so that it can be handled differently. And then charging us to use it even more than they do now.

Some of my friends have said, it'll never happen, because the porn industry would never allow a kill switch for the internet. Many have argued that it's impossible to 'shut it down' when it's not a centrally located thing. But the bill refers to very high fines to the internet providers and three most popular search engines, yahoo, google, and youtube, if they did not shut down.

But the vagueness of the bill is perhaps the scariest to me. This director will have all departments of government reporting to him, even military and intelligence, and what they find they will then determine if the internet would be shut down. Now I wonder, where does this end? How much do I have to say in lets say my blog, before Big Brother decided I'm a threat to our financial community, or even just a threat, and came and carted me off.

I won't stand for it! What about my INTERNET AFFAIR! What about my facebook account? Not to mention any real work I might need to do to, oh I don't know MAKE A LIVING! This is against my constitutional rights. And if we don't stand up for our rights no one else will. The time for revolution is now! Write your senators and congressmen, go to your state's website and send them an e-mail that says you are against this. Or if you are for it then do that too. But do something other than just blog and complain. Make a difference. It's one of the only freedoms we still have....to vote and to let our voices be heard through the political system. The more we let our representatives know how we feel, the better chance we have of not letting this pass.

Oh and while I'm at it....Stop listening to the news or reading the paper until they decide to tell it like it is instead of making up headlines or news bites that sound good and are geared to give them good ratings instead of telling you the truth and keeping the public informed. The media is more to blame for this than anyone, by slanting stories.

If they don't cart me away I'll see you next week.