Women who Rock: Part 3

We left off with the beautiful Janis Joplin and Tina Turner, who ruled the era of the Summer of Love as Queens of rock n’ roll.  From here, Rock in general exploded into about 10,000 genres, subgenres, and crossover genres:  Funk, Soul, Pop, Punk, Metal, Alt, Grunge, Classic, Soft, Hard, Prog, and I could literally go on forever. Consequently, I debated for a long time where to go from here.  The Funk mavens of the 70’s? The acoustic ladies who hung with Cat Stevens and the like?  80’s/90’s feminist folk?  Pop divas?  Punk princesses?  The options are endless!**

Consequently, I’m just gonna try to draw attention to some female musicians that I am particularly inspired by.  Who better to start with than two women who were born at the exact time that Janis Joplin and Tina Turner were tearing it up?

PJ Harvey (b. 1969)

That link is to the video that made me fall in LOVE with this chick by her sheer badass-ery.  (Sexy white suit + Bejeweled High Heels = Hell Yeah.)  After then tumbling down the rabbit hole that is her collective musical output so far, I discovered that PJ Harvey was Gaga before Gaga was Gaga, in that she does whatever the hell she wants without apology, and her stuff is wacky.  …Except for the fact that her music/style is completely different. There is no couple of songs that encompass PJ’s sound because she has varied so much over the course of her 20 year career, but shes' generally pretty punk.  (Here's another song, if you just can't get enough.)

Neko Case (b. 1970) 

Quite a bit better known than PJ and significantly more folk/country influenced, Neko’s powerful and unique voice totally captivated me a few years ago and I still haven't stopped being hypnotised by it.  For a hilarious autobiography of this lady, check out this link. 

The thing that inspires me about these two artists, and which links them in my mind, is that they both have a really unconventional feminist viewpoint without being militant or even really promoting Feminism as a cause. (Which often puts people off.) These women have game-changing ideas simply by being awesome artists who aren’t afraid to share a unique and intelligent point of view through music. 

(See also: “Lady Pilot” and “People Got A Lotta Nerve” by Neko Case;

“Dress” and “ Working for the man” by PJ Harvey)

**The historical stuff I have talked about heretofore was based on Dr. Ken Kleszynski's History of Rock n' Roll class at University of Portland.  AWESOME class, AWESOME professor.

A special day at the Office

Something happened at work on Monday that I had not previously experienced in my role as Office Monkey.  For every one of the 8 hours in my workday, I gained true satisfaction and enjoyment from the work itself.  Don't get me wrong, there are many things I enjoy about my job—listening to music and audiobooks, hanging out with my coworkers, running into adorable pooches around the office, getting free food—but most of the time those things have nothing to do with the tasks for which I get paid (mostly fairly-complex data entry). 

But there was something different about my work on Monday.  A lot of my job involves sifting through and gleaning bits of information from massive computer-generated databases, and entering that data into various other forms and databases.  A lot of the time, my mind gets a little boggled by the fact that no one has written a computer program to do my job yet.  At that point my mind wanders away from my job and into fantastical daydreams.  However, the part of the job that is interesting is when errors and inconsistencies come through in the data that only a human brain can catch and deal with. 

On Monday, my team was absolutely flooded with work.  I’m told that the end of the year usually brings a flurry of activity as hospitals all across the country scramble to get their books in order and do housekeeping to clean up for the new year.  We had dozens upon dozens of envelopes to sort containing forms and letters from dozens of states about dozens of cases.  As I simultaneously tried to help distribute documents, close out old cases, and feverishly log incidents with OSHA, I miraculously encountered countless instances of computer glitches that needed intellectual engagement to unravel, keeping my brain hopping with activity and solving problems.  I actually got more done on this busy day than I do on a day with a more manageable workload. 

Last night I was chatting with my friend Katie about work, since she has a similar kind of job at a different company, and the things that she enjoys about her job are essentially the same.  And it occurred to me that, within Corporate America, the times of most authentic work and true enjoyment are the times that demand a special glimmer of Humanity in an otherwise mechanized world.  In “The Adding Machine,” Mr. Zero’s most special moments are the moments of love he shares with the lovely Daisy, turning him from machine into man.  The thing that is so charming about “The Office” is not a bunch of Scranton-ites working in efficient silence, but the group of glittering personalities that sparks stories of real human humor and drama while bound together by common work.  What made Monday a special day was getting to really engage my unique brain in solving problems that a machine would balk at. 

It makes me think that perhaps the key to transforming the American economy and workforce is allowing humanity back into our careers and abandoning the idea that a corporation is fundamentally the same as a human being.  Corporations today demand anonymity and deny personal responsibility, rather than valuing personality and personal accountability.**  However, people give their best work when they labor from their true self—genuinely giving their best human effort. 

**Notable exceptions appear to be Google, Apple, Nike, and Starbucks, who have loyal and creatively engaged employees.  May be good models for companies of the future, if the future of the American economy must include large corporations. 

Adventures with guns

First of all, I must make a confession.  Although I grew up in the proud state of Idaho where I learned how to kill gophers, wrangle llamas, plant potatoes, paddle a canoe, identify edible things in the woods, gut a trout, vaccinate salmon (true story), and any number of random rustic things, until this Autumn I had never shot a gun.  Never.  Not even once.

So when my coworkers at Banfield set about choosing the yearly team-building activity that would bond us together in office camaraderie, I was delighted when we decided on doing an Immersive Tactical Shoot at a place called Threat Dynamics in Tualitin, Oregon, followed by happy hour at a Western-themed bar called Bushwhackers.  …AKA shooting guns and drinking whiskey. Perfect. 

Threat Dynamics outfits you with a 9mm Colt semiautomatic handgun, but instead of using bullets or blanks, you use CO2 cartridges which release a burst of air, giving you the kick of a real bullet without the danger.  Then, you shoot at these huge screens with crazy interactive software.  This software was developed for military and law enforcement training so that people could actually practice their shooting with interactive scenarios, rather than just shooting at targets.  For example, my boss and I (ironically) had to try to talk down a disgruntled/fired employee holding their boss at gunpoint, and decide when it was necessary to take him down.  The first time around, we missed the guy and the boss died. (Yikes!  Fake blood!) But the second time around, we shot the right guy down.  (Yikes again!  Different fake blood!)  Another coworker and I stepped into the 300 degree screen (you are almost totally surrounded by 6’ X 8’ screens) to try to handle a couple of guys who were attempting to break into a car.  Unfortunately, we weren’t vigilant enough, and I got shot from behind by a third guy who snuck up on us.  Also unfortunately, when this happened I was wearing a “zap belt” that jolted me with electricity to simulate a wounding hit.   It freakin’ hurt. 

Over Thanksgiving, I was telling my family about this little adventure, and I pointed out to my gun-toting Father and Uncle that I’d still never shot a gun with bullets in it.  So like any self-respecting Idahoan family, the Saturday after Thanksgiving found us in the middle of the desert with five different kinds of guns, random crap we wanted to shoot at, and some snacks.  I was super glad that I’d gotten to shoot the CO2 cartridges before I shot bullets, because damn that shit is intense.  The kickback is much more violent, and I fully understood for the first time how muscular shooting a gun is.  My hands and arms were hurting! And it was much more of an adrenaline rush knowing that you had to really be careful so you didn’t, you know, kill someone. 

So what’s the verdict?  What did I learn from this experience?  The old saying is true:  Guns don’t kill people.  People kill people.  Shooting a gun is really hard! Generally speaking, you have to be super focused, in control, and physically determined if you are going to hit your target.  Otherwise you're gonna miss.  It’s not like you put a gun in your hand and automatically become a killing machine; I think you have to find the killing machine inside of yourself in order to pump something full of lead.  My favorite gun to shoot: My Dad’s Smith and Wesson revolver.  I felt like a was in the wild west totin’ a six-shooter, and it made me want to go back to Bushwhackers with my crazy coworkers tellin’ dirty jokes and drinkin’ whiskey under a mounted buck head with a beautiful rack. 

Thing I've learned at work. Part Two.

So the other day I posted about the Flying M in Boise, but when I started writing I actually wanted to write about a book of postcards that I found in the gift shop at the M.  I don’t remember who published/wrote them, but they were postcards of “Office Humor” that hit disturbingly close to home.  It occurred to me in that moment that this blog (at least some posts…I’ve been pretty random) is part of an entire genre of office humor used amongst people who work 8-5 in cubicles. 

As early as 1923 Elmer Rice was writing “The Adding Machine,” a play about a hapless corporate drone.  Similarly, Sophie Treadwell wrote “Machinal” in 1928.  In the late 1990s a little gem of a movie came out called "Office Space."  Umm…Can I get a big Duh for a little modern sitcom that jumped across the pond called “The Office”??  I also googled Office Humor and found such websites as officehumor.com, ishouldbeworking.com, and mycorporatehell.com.   (I didn’t link to any of them because I didn’t actually find anything super entertaining.  But then I didn’t spend a whole lot of time.)  So I guess my point is that many people have been having a hard time with office jobs since the 1920s, and there is an entire genre devoted to it.  Thankfully for me (a modern lady), the internet exists nowadays to entertain me!

On that note, I’ll share some more random things I’ve learned at work…

1.       Having painted nails makes typing more fun, for some reason. Just look at those pretty nails go!! 

2.       Add to the list of things that make data entry bearable—Podcasts! 

3.       One of my superiors advised me that, if I turn my monitor, people walking up the aisle can’t see that I’m on facebook.  Niiiice.

4.       Divorced women age 30-40 can be some of the funnest, wildest, most awesome, and simultaneously nurturing people on the planet. 

5.       Just because you have twin boys and work an 8-5 job doesn’t mean you can’t party as hard as the single divorced 30-40 year old women.

6.       Nothing perks up an office like a little holiday cheer.  My cubicle is adorably decorated with lights and tinsel, and the building is home to two proud trees and lots of wreaths and garlands. 

7.       Grandmothers make the best bosses.

The best Coffeeshop on the planet.

This Thanksgiving I took a super-quick trip to Boise.  I was in the city for about 48 hours so I had to cram as much family time/Boise in as possible.  I only saw a couple of friends, and we made sure to go to our “place”—my favorite coffeeshop on the face of this planet.  The Flying M not only makes a mean latte, but has mastered the creation of my ideal coffeeshop atmosphere.  The mismatched chairs and tables are worn with love, and one L-shaped sofa is always cozily occupied, even during the many cold Boise months that may invite a draft where the couch sits by the door. 

The best part about the Flying M is that, no matter what you want to do, and no matter how crowded the coffeeshop is, you can do it and no one will look sideways at you.  You can chat with friends for hours on end, your raucous conversation getting louder and louder as you all get more caffeinated.  You can sit quietly in a nook with your laptop or a book and wile away an afternoon.  You can bring your kids in for a delicious post-Church pastry on a Sunday.  All of these things can happen at the same time and no one will question it.

I own three Flying M t-shirts from the adorable gift shop that takes up a third of the coffeeshop, (that’s right—there’s a gift shop too!)  and I often get asked about them outside of Boise.  ((Yes, it may be a little ridiculous that I own three, but they are all totally different from one another and once you’ve slipped into a shirt that soft and cozy it’s hard to live with just one. ))  Whenever I get asked about it, I just say that it’s my favorite coffeeshop, but it really means much more to me than that.

One reason I consciously chose to leave Boise was that, being an “artistic soul” in one of the most Conservative states in this country, I didn’t feel free to express my opinions in most places.  I also went to 12 years of Catholic school, and that in its nature does not encourage thinking outside of the box, in many ways.  There is something so unapologetically genuine and beautiful and intrinsically good about Idahoans, but many Idahoans seem to think that there is only one way to live your life.  For some reason, the Flying M represents to me a little place where very different ideas can cohabitate without coming into conflict. 

Over Thanksgiving I saw one of my friends in the morning, and we were seated next to a nice old couple.  The man was a classic Idahoan with calloused hands and a bright orange trucker hat, and he joked with us jovially as we settled in to the table next to them.  We were charmed.  I saw my other friend in the evening, and a group of young gay men came in to hand out free condoms creating awareness for World AIDS Day.  We were charmed.  And both in the morning and evening every seat in the place was occupied by someone as different as their neighbor.  I don’t know any other place in Idaho that hosts a Pride night once a week, providing a safe warm place for young GLBTQ people to socialize, and that also hosts highly traditional Christian families for cookies and board games on a Sunday afternoon.   I’m not sure I know of another place in the world like that, and that special home-y feeling has welcomed me back to Boise every time I’ve returned home since I left four and half years ago.  (Note: I have a personal rule to always have a receipt from the Flying M living in my wallet.)

Women who Rock: Part Gaga

I couldn't resist. This is badass.

People who get bitten by pets

Before I get into this, may I remind you that I file worker's comp claims for the largest Pet Hospital in the country.  That is, my job is to help my company to compensate people who get hurt on the job. "Who gets hurt at a pet hospital?" you may ask.  Well...
 

Practically every little kid goes through a time when they think that being a Vet would be the coolest job ever.  Little boys and girls all across America dream of hanging out with kitties and puppies all day long, saving all of the sick pets in world.  A few of these kids actually grow up to be Vets, and some of them become Veterinary Assistants or Pet Nurses, fulfilling their childhood dreams.  While this is a thing of beauty, I see a few problems from where I’m sitting…

1. That sick cat has no idea what a doctor is and your office smells like dogs.
2. That sick rottweiler does not understand what a thermometer is and doesn’t like where you’re putting it.
3. Animals on drugs are even less in control of themselves than humans on drugs.
4. No pet understands what a vaccine is, and even humans hate needles.
5. After a couple of visits, they’re onto you. They know what this place is and what you might do to them. 

Consequently, this profession has some built-in risks.  All of those factors aggravate animals and can make even the nicest pets unable to resist the urge to retaliate.  Vet offices are stressful!  And cats and dogs have pointy teeth!

 However, pet doctors have been around for a while so they have some ways of keeping sick pets as comfortable and non-violent as possible.  Which brings up a second point—who are the people who get bitten?  When is it that an animal senses that something vet-like is up?  On that note, I thought I’d share a few illuminating stories. Please note, IA stands for Injured Associate and is corporate jargon for employee-who-was-assaulted-by-an-animal. 

1. A pitbull is in a cage in the break room, for some reason.  IA sticks her finger into the cage and makes some “dog sounds” at the dog.  That is, at the pitbull.  The finger gets bitten. Pitbull did not dig that.
2. An IA begins to approach a rottweiler with the dreaded thermometer in hand, places their free hand on the back of the dog, and gets their hand chomped to oblivion.  My thoughts: Just don’t try to sodomize a rottweiler. Not going to end well.
3. IA reports that he had a kitten walk up his left arm, resulting in a bunch of scratch wounds.  The tone of the report was that this poor guy was squirming in pain but torn because of the adorable-ness of the kitten and his delight at having a kitten on him.
4. Often, someone will get bitten twice in the same day by two different pets.  Those who are bite-able will be bitten again.  Once you have the mark on you, you're toast.
5. Almost every claim begins with “IA was restraining a pet…” I mean, would you want to be physically restrained during a mystery procedure from a strange human?  I’d probably bite a few people if it were me. 

Occupying the legislature

I wrote a letter to the President of the United States last week.  He hasn’t responded yet for some reason...  Baha.  But what inspired me to do this?  I watched Obama present the American Jobs Act to the Senate. 

Obama called out all of the sh** that Occupy Wall Street is protesting 9 days before the protest even began.  He listed various ways of stimulating small business and entrepreneurship.  He wanted banks to help people refinance their homes. He called for fostering the production and exportation of American goods.  He suggested hiring privately owned construction companies to mend our roads and bridges. He asserted the necessity of an overhaul of our tax code to pay for it. He also called this “simple math” and asserted that these are REAL choices we can make and REAL things we can be doing.

But through all of this Occupy Wall Street wildfire, people got distracted from debating, refining, and implementing this legislation meant to help out the 99%.  Congress and the media have also COMPLETELY ignored this speech and this bill.   It’s really quite mind-boggling. 

It’s not a perfect piece of legislation.  It needs refining and it needs to be discussed by the people and our representatives.  To me, the bottom line is that the bill is based on being funded by a tax code reform that would eliminate loopholes for oil companies and the like, and make it so the wealthiest pay their fair share, something which for some reason makes our Congress REALLY uncomfortable…  And that is presumably why the media (owned by corporate giants) and Congress (also owned by corporate giants) are not discussing it and trying to let it fade away into nothingness. 

Obama’s getting frustrated with pushing this, guys.  He is a weary man.  So I wrote to Barack Obama to essentially tell him, “Dear Mr. President, I understand that you are working within a corrupt system.  I have noticed your American Jobs Act and I appreciate your efforts.  Let's talk about it and get Congress talking about it. Love and kisses, Danielle.”

After all, the only thing that’s been said about the bill by the Senate is that their economic discussions are focused on China right now, since obviously China is the real source of all of our problems in the U.S. (Ummm…really?) The House of Representatives has already vowed not only to vote a flat out NO on the bill, but also that they won’t even let it get to the floor to be discussed. 

So I have to conclude two things from all this.  #1: That our representatives aren't even going to talk about the issues that Occupy Wall Street is screaming about.  They are going to ignore this protest with the hope that the collective rage will fizzle out.  #2: They are going to ignore this bill that attempts to address many of the issues fueling the protest until it becomes a vague memory of a dream. 

But here's what I want to know:  IF 99% OF US WANT TO CHANGE OUR SYSTEM SO BADLY, WHY AREN’T WE TALKING ABOUT THE AMERICAN JOBS ACT???  This bill appeals to me because it is an implementable set of actions--it's a place from which to start a real discussion about the kind of changes we want in our society, and it works WITHIN the governmental system set up by our founding fathers.  I have watched OWS from afar with burning empathy in my heart but with wariness about the message and about the people who are unwittingly discrediting the cause.  I have wondered why so little of the protest is directed at our governing bodies as well as corporate fat cats.  I love the passion behind OWS, I'm inspired by impulse to fight our system, but seriously, it’s time to get down to brass tacks and make a freakin plan.  Lamenting the past and the present is only worthwhile if you also work towards changing the future. 

A foggy day in Portland town

Foggy morning.  November 15th 2011.

Allowed myself to sleep in this morning, my mind busy with strange and fitful dreams.  I have brain cancer so I throw a 1950s pool party by a lake.  Barbra Streisand sings her Swan Song in an elaborately fluffy pink gown.  I talk in my sleep for the first time in years.

Standing in the kitchen, I get my first text message of the day, from a friend, the essence of which is “Work is pissing me the f*** off right now.”  I respond with sympathy.

Stopped at a red light, glowing like an eye in the fog. I see a scrawny boy on a skateboard (attempting to cross the street) get tangled in some leaves and land in a heap on the asphalt.  He painfully dusts himself off and, shamed, retrieves his skateboard to recover and wait until the next Walk sign comes on.  As I drive past him, I see that he is not a young man, but closer to 40, with sickly pale skin, wire-rimmed glasses, and a platinum blonde mustache.  He is not having a good day. 

As I near my freeway onramp, a homeless man has an enthusiastic and friendly conversation with an invisible person, leaning against a street sign with his mostly-empty black trash bag slung jauntily over his shoulder.  It is clear that this invisible human being is providing engaging and original conversation to his/her hobo friend. Homeless Man is having a great day.

Meanwhile, representatives from Occupy Portland are on NPR, or OPB I guess, talking about their recent eviction from the parks downtown.  It was peaceful, and now the movement is getting more organized as they decide their next move.  They express the need for the movement to stay in campgrounds in order to stay visible.   When the moderator gently reminds that maybe it would be easier to talk policy if they weren’t worried about providing people with food and medical care, a representative seems to blame the lack of food/medical care in the camps on the city government.  (Did I misunderstand? Did she really say that the city should be providing those things? I must have misunderstood.  I hope to God I did.) When asked if they might gain wider support if the movement stayed on-topic (Flaws in our economic system creating built-in Injustice) representatives completely agree.  Good.  When asked if they would perhaps get more of the middle-class to join if they weren’t living in squalor and interrupting public services, they advocate the need for sacrifice.  “If you were a farmer in India while Ghandi and his people were making their historic march to the ocean, would you have been upset that you couldn’t cross your road to get to your farm when you knew that this movement would change your whole life?”

I smile grimly as my journey to work ends, these events entering my perception as symptoms of an impending chaos that may soon grip our little world. 

The overwhelming mood in the office today:  Jovial, Congenial, Energetic, Positive.

James Franco's own private Idaho

Back in September I was sitting in my lil' cube on an afternoon much like today and I got a message from my lovely friend Hannah, saying, "Hey! You wanna go see a cool movie and hear Gus Van Sant and James Franco talk about it?"  Of course, I said, "Hell yes."

Apparently, when James Franco and Gus Van Sant worked together on Milk a few years back, they got to talking about River Phoenix / My Own Private Idaho, since that is Franco's favorite film of all time, and it inspired him to go into acting.  Eventually, Van Sant ended up showing Franco some footage that they'd cut from the movie, and Franco had the cajones to ask if he could use that footage plus the actual movie to come up with his own cut of the film, with Van Sant's more developed directing style in mind.  Cool idea, right?

Fast forward to the September 24, 2011, and Hannah and I are posted up for the evening to watch Van Sant's original 1991 film  in preparation for the exciting movie event to take place the next day. 

The movie was fabulous.  Keanu is actually really great and River Phoenix is BOMB. Also, Hannah and I kept commenting on the Shakespearean flavor of the dialogue until we realized that the movie draws heavily from Henry IV, and even borrows some dialogue from the Bard.  Not only did I nerd out over that fact in particular, but I loved the story, the style, the acting, the whole shebang.  Great stuff.

So what the hell did Franco do with it?  Well, he made My Own Private River -- and it ended up as a lovely free-form tribute to River Phoenix, to the original movie, and to one of his favorite directors.  If we hadn't watched the real movie the night before it would've been totally unintelligible, but since we were familiar, we were able to appreciate it as a genre-defying-film-art-tribute thing that was quite nice.  After seeing it, it totally made sense that they showed it in a couple of art galleries before it was seen at the Hollywood Theater in P-town.  It was moving art. 

But!  The part of the day that I found the most interesting was Memories of Idaho, a little pet project of Franco's that he made in LA with an earlier version of the original script of My Own Private Idaho, and which he screened for funsies following the main event. (Are you starting to get how obsessed this dude is with this movie?)  He wanted to make it with "non-actors" -- he was in search of a couple "chicano" boys to play the leads and make the flick real and kinda gritty.  Alas, such is the curse of being super-famous that he does not have access to such people... He ended up with two polished LA rich kids --very sweet but totally clueless.  Even the dog was played by a ridiculous purebred St. Charles Spaniel with a bejeweled retractable leash.  I kept thinking, "These kids cannot begin to imagine being homeless, and why don't they just sell that $500 dog?"  It was sort of a surreal hour of my life, I have to say, sitting through this movie star's pet project and realizing that, when you are at that level you can't flow between strata so easily, and you're kind of isolated from different worlds because of your success.  While Franco was very PC and polite and positive in talking about the project beforehand, I definitely sensed that he knew he had fallen victim to himself a bit with the project, and he also admitted that he was showing it simply because he had a captive audience.  Ah well.  It was a nice try.  And you're still super fly, Mr. Franco.  Keep doing cool projects and getting random degrees in stuff and kickin' ass. 

Data entry as Buddhist meditation

Today, I finished filing all of Banfield's unfiled OSHA logs for the past four years!!  That may not mean anything to...well, anyone, but this project I've been working on for two months is finally over.  I did four years worth of OSHA reports for 442 pet hospitals in 37 states.  And probably no one will ever look at them again.  But!  I did personally gain something from this project, I think. 

First of all, I often thought about Buddhist monks who will do one single, simple action all day in order to reach a meditative state--for example, hitting a gong with a mallet all day long, or repeating one word over and over again.  I thought about the actions and keystrokes that I repeated time and time again with each OSHA form with only slight variation, and hoped that on some level what I was doing was meditative.  Once I got past the frustration and monotony, I think I did learn something about patience and repetition.  (And I balanced silence with listening to a lot of music and books on tape.)

Second of all, I typed a lot of dates.  On each OSHA form, I typed in every "date of incident," every "date of birth," every "hire date," and every "date of closing," so for the past two months I've revisited countless days between 2006 and 2009.  In a strange way, it became a sort of tour of those years of my life.  While we were celebrating my Dad's birthday in Idaho in 2007, someone in Mississippi was being bitten in the face by a pitbull and lost two weeks of work.  Around the time that I was graduating from high school, a hospital on the Eastern seaboard had almost every employee exposed to leptospirosis.  Someone in Michigan got their first job out of Pet Nurse school on my 19th birthday. I guess it was sort of surreal to think about what myself and my loved ones have been up to, and to realize that countless people across the country were simultaneously living completely separate lives with completely different problems.  That sounds kind of obvious when I say it out loud, but it is the specificity of all of these stories that made that seem overwhelmingly real to me.  After all, I read the stories of at least 1000 injured employees of one company, which actually is not that many when you think about how many people there are in this country/this world.

All of these dates also began to form almost tangible patterns.  Three people at this one hospital were hired on 6/6/06, a woman at that hospital was injured on the same date at the same time two years in a row and probably never realized it, a seemingly disproportionate number of people tend to get hired around the time of their birthdays, and the coincidences go on and on and on.  I sometimes wished I was that guy in "A Beautiful Mind," because there seemed to be so many strange patterns and syncronicities in the things that happened and the dates they happened on, and I bet if I was a genius and/or a schizophrenic I'd find some incredible mathematical formulas that could explain all these things. 

...Or it could mean nothing.  Or it could mean that if you take a step back from looking at each individual story, each individual detail, if you take 100 steps back from each human experience, our collective lives form a big, beautiful pattern... like countless grains of sand in a mandala.

Women who Rock: Part 2 (Meet the Co-Queens)

The initial pioneer-esses have broken into Rock!  The blues mistresses crooned the inital battle cry, a couple brave ladies took up the mighty Axe, and one or two more joined the ranks with the power of Country. 

Now what?

...girl groups.  Yikes.  I mean, on the bright side more and more ladies were getting involved with this new-fangled music, but things got pretty Sugar Pop-y for a while.  Let's just move on, shall we?

There are two women who, to me, totally revolutionized what women could do and say with music:

Janis Joplin and Tina Turner.

I've gotta start with Janis Joplin because I fell in love with her first.  There is absolutely nothing that can compare with her total freedom of spirit, raw blues instinct, and raspy screech.  She sounded like she drank whiskey from the bottle and smoked cigars as soon as she could walk, and she sang from the fathoms-deep depths of her freakin' soul.  Her songs also contained an insight and intelligence that female singers hadn't possessed before--certainly not in their songwriting, anyway.  Check out Get it while you can, one of my favorite songs of hers.  I won't even begin to go into her bio, because many people have done a much better job of documenting her life, and google will yield you a wealth of info.  There is supposedly FINALLY going to be a biopic about her starring Amy Adams entitled "Janis Joplin: Get it while you can" in 2012.  We will see if it actually happens though...There appears to be some behind-the-scenes drama over who gets the biopic.  Zooey Deschanel was supposed to play her in another flick a few years back, but that fell through.

Anyway!  In the parking lot of a Taco Bell somewhere in central Oregon, my friend Jamie told me about Tina Turner's incredible life story, and piqued my interest in this incredible woman who, like Janis, has been called by various publications at various times, the "Queen of Rock and Roll."  Since then, I have discovered that Tina Turner is an awesome and inspiring human being, as well as an incredible entertainer with a voice that ROCKS.  (<< I don't know what I like best about that video... The costumes, the dance moves, or Tina Turner's high level of badass. My favorite might actually be the tall white guy.)  Anyway, check out her biopic "What's love got to do with it?"

Personally, there is no way that I could choose one of these two fabulous, revolutionary women upon whom to bestow the crown designating the "Queen of Rock and Roll," so I hereby giving them matching crowns, and thank them for fully bringing women into the world of Rock. 

Things I've learned at work.

At the risk of jeopardizing my employment, I am going to talk about my job.  Hopefully, the good things that I have to say will make up for the bad, and my stint as a "Temp Workers Compensation Coordinator at Banfield Pet Hospital Central Team Support" won't be terminated before the set date of January 27th.  As you may have gleaned from my illustrious title, I do temp work for the corporate office of the largest chain of pet hospitals in the country (that's right - corporate pet care) on the Worker's Compensation team.

There are almost 800 Banfields in almost all 50 states - they run all of the hospitals in all of the PetsMarts across the country.  Banfield is also owned by Mars - turns out Mars makes way more money on pet products than on candy bars.  Isn't it interesting, that after ranting about corporate corruption in my last post, I admit that I work for a huge corporation that mass produces something as intimate to home life as pet health?  How do I justify this?  I don't know.  I pay my bills and can boast employment and financial independence.  What is that worth?  Something.  But Banfield itself is actually quite a moral company.  The pet health plans are good and affordable - the services are good.  Banfield has developed its own IT system that allows for easy immediate access to a pet's medical records nationwide.  So no matter where you go, Vets have access to an accurate medical history.  Banfield also uses this wide network to issue a "State of Pet Health Report" annually, utilizing the size of the company to gather, analyze, and diseminate lots of useful information.  This can lead to better research, public health information, and better preventative care.  This is probably good for human health too, since it's probably good to have healthy pets in a country where we're obsessed with living intimately with small carnivorus animals. 

Actually, I know exactly how I justify my job. I am getting to know intimately the 8-5 routine that has run this country for at least the past 60 years.  In fact, one reason I started this blog is to report on my findings as I test out this life that many, many people live.  Here are some of my findings so far. Expect more to follow...

1. There are 8 people on my team, ages 30-60, and 6 of them have been divorced.  3 are remarried, 2 are single moms, and 1 is singularly odd.  They all have fascinating stories and are beautiful people, but I don't feel I have the right to get much more specific with the details of their lives on the internet.

2. Hardly anyone within at least a 20-cubicle radius of me seems to care too much about their job.  Everyone gets along, people are super laid back, people like the compnay, and everyone likes the perks of working at Banfield (benefits, flexible hours, decent pay, good cafeteria food), but almost everyone seems to find fulfillment outside of work and some people nurse a private misery which is worn either blatantly or under wraps.  I think it's just hard to feel a burning passion for bureaucracy.  There are so many good people here, but I'm so heartbroken each time a new person inadvertantly feels the need to make an excuse as to why their life is what it is.  "I am the least talented person you'll ever meet."  "My IQ is not high." "I didn't kiss enough ass."   "I put on makeup everyday to remind myself of the beauty I once had." "No one likes their job." (These are all, essentially, direct quotes.) Everyone has their own reason for being here, and people seem generally satisfied besides these flashes of self-disappointment, but it just makes me think - This is the lifestyle that a couple billion people in the world are envious of?  We make money so that we can try to spend it on things that will fix the unhappiness created by our jobs.  I'm not convinced that that makes sense. 

3.  As far as I can tell, my job is pointless.  I have been through various emotional stages once I realized this.

Shock and Denial: "What? I have spent 300 hours filling out OSHA forms that no one will ever read?  Someone will read them someday and be so thankful that I existed!"
Pain and Guilt: "Most of my life is a total waste of time.  I am a leech on society."
Anger and Bargaining:  "Dammit!  I'm gonna start a blog on company time! Then you'll see!"
Depression, Reflection, Loneliness: "I am going to die in this cubicle with only OSHA logs for company."
The Upward Turn: "Wait a minute, worse things have happened to better people."
Reconstruction and Working Through: "If all these people can survive this, so can I!  I'm gonna  do fulfilling things outside of work that will contribute to my real career."
Acceptance and Hope:  "It's just a day job, and I'm already halfway through this assignment.  I'm gonna be at a sweet-ass grad school next fall."

Occupy Wall Street - my internal debate

When the protest first began, I sat in my quaint Portland apartment with a couple friends playing the self-indulgent critic.  As we discussed the impending shutdowns the protest would trigger in public transportation and other city mechanisms, we agreed that the true frustration with the idea was the vagueness of it all, as well as the fact that the "true" 99% can't afford to take a week off of work and drive their Toyota Priuses down to a protest to camp out .  Working on NE 82nd St., the people that I see every day on the way to work range from hookers and pimps to blue collar workers, and also represent one of the most racially diverse crowds in the city of Portland. (Of course, I work in a schmancy corporate office as a temp/paper pusher, and come from all of the privileged background colored by white guilt and Catholic guilt that a young liberal must admit to.)  My point is, most of the people in this neighborhood are completely unaffected by this protest, and they are perhaps the people who are most affected by this so-called cause. 

Here you have crowds of self-righteous liberals waving the banner of "We are the 99%!"  ...Now that the protest has spread, it is difficult to unravel what is meant by this, as it appears to mean different things to different people... Presumably, it is in reference to the fact that 1% of Americans own about 38% of the nation's wealth.  To this outraged "99%," I have to point out that the US as a whole constitutes about 5% of the world population and holds about 27% of the world's net worth.  Given, this is skewed by the highly affluent 1% of Americans to some degree, but my gut response to all of this 99% stuff is that, as citizens of this planet, Americans are the most materially privileged by leaps and bounds.  I worry that the protest just makes us look like whiny rich kids on the world stage.  99% of the 5% are upset about their slice of the 27%... if that makes sense.**

It's not like I disagree that Wall Street has become fundamentally corrupted.  I am not going to say, as some virulent critics have remarked, that the protesters hate capitalism and the free market system.  On the contrary, Wall Street has made a mockery and a whore of capitalism through corruption and greed, insidiously draining our economy of any freedom by placing an absurd amount of power into the hands of a handful of WASP middle-aged men who control the financial systems of this country (consequently the planet) through ludicrous financial maneuverings, and who then use that profit to control the legislature which allegedly represents "the people."  They then use this control to maneuver laws which will continue to support their rampant corruption and control of the economy, and the end result is an endless loop controlled by a small population that maneuvers way above our little heads.  I can't disagree that 99% of Americans are completely flacid politically and economically in the shadow of these financial giants.  I can't disagree that the mass political ambivalence of the American people for which we are so often criticized springs from the fact that we are completely powerless in the political arena without multi-million-dollar lobbies to represent us.*** 

Ahhh.... And this is the point in my reflection on this that I am swayed that, however self-righteous and somewhat short-sighted the Occupy Wall Street movement seemed to me at first,  I think that a lot of good can spring from it.  Given that the protesters do not seem to me an accurate sampling of the "99%," given that their cause is frustratingly vague and unfocused, and given that I am instinctively repelled by protestations without specific demands, our current system is so nauseatingly f-ed up that it is refreshing at least to see a passionate public push against it.

What it needs now is a little more knowledge, insight, and leadership to make specific demands for what needs to be changed on Wall Street and in Washington.  It needs to go from a dull, ignorant roar to an articulate accusation.  From a scream of outrage to an argument for a cause, losing none of the passion of the initial protest.

I stole this link from Zach, because I think it's a great article offering much better criticism and advice for the movement than I ever could.  I don't pretend to be an expert on economics or politics, but the insight seems sound and timely to me.   Ch-ch-ch-ch-check it out.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/my-advice-to-the-occupy-wall-street-protesters-20111012




**I got my stats from Wikipedia... whatever, it's a well-cited page. Judge for yourself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth
***This rant brought to you by my own observations and opinions. Don't get me started about how this financial corruption manifests in our food systems... I've been on this soapbox long enough for one day and I'm really just rambling at this point.

Women who Rock: Part 1

Lately, I've been listening to a lot of music by women.  The way I figure it, I am a woman. And I wanna hear how modern women express themselves through music.   Not like, the way a pop diva does, by singing songs which are half the time written by men, and most of the time singing about the Y-chromosomed sex in a questionable way. (i.e. "My Humps" by good ole Fergie Ferg.)  Lately, I wanna hear music that is totally the creative baby of a woman, and not with the end of giving a dude a stiffy. 

So I've been wanting to write about some of the badass musicians I've discovered on this journey, but this whole journey begins a long time ago.  In my History of Rock and Roll class with Dr. K in college, I was impressed that, during the birthing pains of all things Rock, we studied practically no significant contributors who were female.  Because there were practically no significant female contributors. 

One of the first things Dr. K said in this class was, "Rock and Roll is... Rhythm and Blues played by white people."   When rock music first came to be, it was because Rhythm and Blues was being born in America and white people got really stoked about it and tried to participate.  As far as the nuts and bolts go, the instruments and chord progressions of the genres were the same, but the stylings were different.

Anyway!  There were a few women on the ground floor of rock, starting with pre-R&B blues and jazz singers like Bessie Smith.  Most of these women were black, both because blues was essentially invented by African-Americans, and because it was a bit more widely acceptable for a black woman to sing about love in speakeasies since African-American ladies were already so marginalized by society. 

The first woman to really begin to break out of the lady-blues/jazz-singer mold, and therefore, my first "Woman who ROCKS" was...

1. Memphis Minnie - called by Groves dictionary "the only significant female blues instrumentalist."  One of the first guitarists to take up an electric guitar, and definitely the first woman to do so, she was a hard-drinkin, hard-fightin', tobacco-chewin' woman you didn't mess with, and she contributed innovations in rhythmic accompaniments to the beginnings of rock and roll.  Thank God that the Mother of Rock and Roll was a total badass.

In order to totally make that stylistic jump from Blues and R&B over to rock n' roll, we've gotta add some white chicks to the mix.  First, was...

2.  Wanda Jackson.  Known as the Queen of Rockabilly, Wanda has the honor of being the first woman to record a rock n' roll song.  Unfortunately, the "scandalous" rock music that she got her start with was never that successful, and her money-makers were pop hits as well as country and gospel stuff later in her career.  I once made the unilateral decision one summer that Let's Have a Party would be the official party song, and every time we got drunk my dear, patient housemates had to endure me blasting it and insisting that we were about to have a hoot n' a holler. 

The most commercially successful early woman of rock was the adorably precocious child star...

3. Brenda Lee.  But really, her commercial success came from the fact that she, like our charming super star Taylor Swift, was way more country and pop than she was rock.  She also discovered much earlier than Wanda the advantage of going in a pop and/or country direction.  Check out this saccharine little number, her biggest hit:  I'm Sorry .  While she was kind of a rocker when she was a kid, she smoothed out her sound considerably by age 15.  Make sure you stick around for the spoken word section of I'm Sorry.  Priceless. 


These three ladies were the first significant female contributors to rock-and-roll-badassery, and all Women who Rock today owe at least a little sumpin' sumpin' to their daring contributions to musical history.  Let the saga continue...

C.K. Williams

So I don't really have anything to say to the world right now.  But I do really like the poet C.K. Williams, and I desire to somehow archive/highlight some of his work.  So here is a poem by him, so that I have it at my disposal.  Stop reading if you're having a good day. It's not chipper. If you're feeling "rainy," read on.

I think this is especially interesting in light of Rollo May's book "The Courage to Create" which addresses in one chapter the idea of creativity and death.  Some of the things he talks about are...

• The urge to create is interrelated with the mortal's yearning towards immortality, and the ability of the mortal to be god-like in the act of creation.
• The gods (God) is/are jealous that humanity ate from the tree of knowledge and fear that we will also eat of the tree of immortality.  Creativity is therefore a sort of confrontation with the gods, using our stolen knowledge of truth.
• "Creativity is the encounter of the intensively conscious human being with his or her world."

 I think it's interesting that Williams' is captivated by death in this poem.  Read on, if you wanna.



The Hearth

1

Alone after the news on a bitter

evening in the country; sleet slashing

 the stubbled fields, the river ice;

I keep stirring up the recalcitrant fire,

but when I throw my plastic coffee cup

in with new kindling it perches intact

on a log for a strangely long time,

as though uncertain what to do,

until in a somehow reluctant, almost

creaturely way it dents, collapses,

and decomposes to a dark slime

untwining itself on the stone hearth.

I once knew someone who was caught in a fire

and made it sound something like that.

He’d been loading a bomber and a napalm shell

had gone off; flung from the flames,

at first he felt nothing, and thought

he’d been spared, but then came the pain,

then the hideous dark—he’d been blinded,

and so badly charred he spent years

in recovery: agonizing debridements,

grafts, learning to speak through a mouth

without lips, to read Braille with fingers

lavaed with scar, to not want to die...

Though that never happened....He swore,

even years later, with a family,

that if he were back there, this time allowed

to put himself out of his misery, he would.

                                                                                                   -

2

There was dying here tonight, after

dusk, by the road: an owl,

eyes fixed and flared, breast

so winter-white he seemed to shine

a searchlight on himself, helicoptered

near a wire fence, then suddenly

banked, plunged, and vanished

into the swallowing dark with his prey.

Such an uncomplicated departure;

no detonation, nothing to mourn;

if the creature being torn from its life

made a sound, I didn’t hear it.

But in truth I wasn’t listening, I was thinking,

as I often do these days, of war;

I was thinking of my children, and their children,

of the more than fear I feel for them,

and then of radar, rockets, shrapnel,

cities razed, soil poisoned

for a thousand generations; of suffering

so vast it nullifies everything else.

I stood in the wind in the raw cold

wondering how those with power over us

can effect such things, and by what

cynical reasoning pardon themselves.

The fire’s ablaze now, its glow

on the windows makes the night even darker,

but it barely keeps the room warm.

I stoke it again, and crouch closer.

                —C. K. Williams, The New Yorker,

                                                  March 3, 2003

Ode to Beverages

I have a terrible sense of smell.  No, really.  It's terrible. In the past two years living with my charming housemates at "The Cottage," a tiny home whose unfortunate floor plan had been remodeled countless times since the house was erected in 1911, I can't count the number of times a mysterious smell would drift out of some ancient crevice of the house into the living room and a housemate would grimace, turn to me, and say, "Do you smell that?" 

No.  I never did.  It's lucky that I don't wander around smelling homeless all the time (at least no one has ever accused me of this). 

There are two unfortunate things that spring from this weird semi-disability:  Scent is the strongest sense tied to memory, and the sense of smell is also closely tied to taste.  This means that very rarely do I have the experience in which a scent will hit me and cause a flood of memories to come back, and I don't think I'll ever be that much of a "foodie," since I don't have a keen sense of taste either. 

But this morning, as I sipped and truly savored my soy pumpkin spice latte, I discovered my own shortcut around both of those unfortunate disabilities: beverages.  As I enjoyed the warm comfort of my latte, all of a sudden Jamie was standing next to me and we were chatting about something in the St. John's Starbucks that she kept in business during her college career.  This made me think about the whiskey I had been sipping last night, and how, as I savored the warm musky burn, I was actually sitting next to Zach at the Fixin' To as he got lost in a flood of thoughts about a moment he shared with a homeless man on the bus that day. 

In the past few months since graduating, almost all of my close friends have moved away, one by one, to chase their next dreams.  Thankfully, each one of them has left me a beverage.  Chai tea puts me in the sweet and calming presence of Hillary, her intense blue eyes attentively listening.  The right vanilla latte pulls me back to the Flying M Coffee House with Katie, Haley, Lauren, and Liz, talking about inappropriate things way too loud for way too long.  A good craft beer transports me to my parents in Plew's Brews the weekend they rushed up to Portland to be with me or just in their living room in Boise, a cup of milk puts me in the kitchen shooting shit with my brother at 3:00 a.m.  The list goes on and on.

So this morning, I raise my cup to beverages.

(...Pun intended.)

And, I thank each of my loved ones for giving me a beverage that can instantly take me back to our time together, and that we will enjoy together again next time we meet. 

Then I confess, hear on my knee...

...before High Heaven and you
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love

COHEED AND CAMBRIA.

That's right.  I tired of hiding it.  "Danielle," you may say, "Are you a 16 year old boy?  For what reason have you not grown out of that phase?  Why would you like such a band?"  Worse yet, you might say, "Who the hell is Coheed and Cambria?"

Alright.  So maybe my love of Coheed and Cambria springs from a deeply held desire not to grow up.  Maybe it speaks to poor taste.  Maybe it speaks to AWESOME taste. 

Or maybe it conjurs memories of driving to school with my brother my sophomore year of high school with "In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3" blasting in his little silver hyundai, the smell of stale fast food and teenage boy thick in the air, nauseously weaving down I-84 to see, for the umpteenth day in a row, if we could make it to school in the 8 minutes and 13 seconds it took for the song to play out.  Maybe some days the car was filled with angsty sibling tension over one of us thinking the other was making us late, or whatever other stupid thing we were bitching about. But some days as we ripped up the freeway, tailgating to within 4 feet in our desperation to get to school on time and singing/screaming along with INKSSE:3, there was an unmistakable sense of camaraderie, flying on the epic music through a bright Idaho morning to a school which we generally considered a wasteland.  I think we listened to that song every morning for at least an entire semester.

Coheed and Cambria will forever remind me of those mornings, but I would like to take this time to argue that they are actually a really awesome band in their own right.  What other band uses their entire discography to tell one epic Sci Fi tale? That's right, all five studio albums tell the story of "The Amory Wars" written by lead singer Claudio Sanchez, and the epic Sci Fi tale told through Coheed's music has been turned into a comic book series and a full length novel.  Come on.  What nerd reading this isn't totally excited right now? 

Sci Fi + Rock = Magic.

Beside that completely awesome fact, I just dig the music.  According to Wikipedia, Coheed is "Progressive Rock," but there is something so epic and expansive about their style that makes it almost operatic in scope, which may also explain my love of them.  I love a band that's not afraid to make a song as long as it needs to be.  In addition, they morph towards metal, punk, and pop when they need to, making them delightfully varied and diverse in their soundscape. 

While I'm on my soapbox preaching the good news/Simultaneously using this blog as a music confessional...

I still listen to The Alkaline Trio on a regular basis, and occasionally indulge in My Chemical Romance and sometimes Fall Out Boy.  Don't look at me like that.  It's fun music.  I will no longer apologize for my behavior, and I will embrace my identity as a preteen boy!

Anyway. Getting back to business.  Coheed and Cambria.  Next time you have to do something in approximately 8 minutes and 13 seconds, I challenge you to listen to this song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp_Now6WDRc
and not feel totally epic while accomplishing your 8-minute task.

Danielle Creates a Blog/Coping with Office work

BLOG!!!!!

That's an onomotopoeia if ever I've heard one.

Since I began working ye olde 8-5 office job, I've spent quite a bit of time in a cubicle doing mindless data entry, giving me plenty of time to sit and reflect on life, the world etc.  This put the idea into my head of starting a blog as a forum to reflect on these musings and turn them into some kind of meaningful way to distill my thoughts into a kind of artistic outlet.  

As an actor/singer/artist type currently lacking in an outlet, this blog idea has been niggling in the back of my mind, and I am now, at this MOMENT, taking the plunge and going for it.  So.  Here is my first blog post. 


Ways of coping with a mindless office-monkey job, in no particular order:

1.  Starting a blog while you're at work. 
(Minimizing this window whenever someone important looking walks by.)
2.  Wasting time on facebook.
3.  A constant stream of music--
          a. Discovering new bands
          b. Rediscovering old bands I used to love
          c. Trying to type along with the rhythm of the music--DIY percussion.
4.  Listening to TED talks.  Openly weeping at my computer when they get really intense, making my cubicle mates wonder why I'm weeping at whatever data I'm currently entering.
5.  Playing with hand-me-up toys that my coworker brings in to work
6.  Chain emails forwarded from coworkers
7.  Coworkers that are funny/entertaining/otherwise awesome
8.  Experimenting with various levels of caffeination
9.  Ten minute breaks in the company gym
10. Happy Hour

Finally, I don't mean to imply that everyone that works in this office is "coping" with their office job, as I assume that many people here enjoy their jobs.  I assume that because not everything here is a data entry temp job like mine--there is a fairly sizable finance department, a massive IT department...and for many people this is probably not a job but an interesting career.  That said, there is a widely popular activity that could be thought of as a coping mechanism for the fairly stationary work that takes place in your average office.  I don't participate in it, but it seems like half this company does. 
11. Running marathons.  Seriously, it's intense.  There is a surprisingly large population at this company that runs anywhere from 3-13 miles before work and on their lunch hours, and they do their "long runs" on the weekend.  So these people subject themselves to 40 hours a week of sitting quietly at a computer in a little box, and then spend like 20 hours a week just running all over the city of Portland.  It's an interesting impulse, and I think it speaks on some level to the human need to have "wrought" their own existence through some kind of intense physical effort.  My own Dad, a mechanical engineer for HP, is a third degree black belt in Taekwondo and an expert skiier and mountain biker.  If he can't be intensely active physically, he starts to go a little stir crazy. 

I mean really, just thinking about the concept of "going to the gym," it's like we've all agreed that we'll go sit in an office all day dealing with machines, but then outside of work you're also socially obligated to go move your body on a bunch of different machines so that it looks to the rest of society like you actually do something with your body.  Weird.

Then of course, there's the flip side of that coin evident in the handful of people whose bodies have become obese from this modern lifestyle in which the physical "work" that you are contributing to society is made up completely of the activities of typing, moving your mouse, "swiveling," and occasionally rolling.  The rest of the work happens between your brain and the computer/internet.  Rather than running all the hell over the city of Portland or plugging their bodies into a treadmill or eliptical after unplugging from the computer, they are, theoretically, finding bliss and escape in delicious foods. 

My recently-discovered way of physically coping with this lifestyle? 

12.  Bikram yoga.  Thank you Groupon.

Signing off.


Oh wait!  P.S.  Credit needs to be given to my dear friend Roya for giving me the inspiration to do this!  She is a super fabulous Communications guru and runs a badass blog.  Check it out at  royaghorbani.wordpress.com