My FYS Blog

Blog Summary

2006-12-06T20:57:00.000-08:00

So it is nice to see everyone blogging. It seems a lot of people have been blogging about Jamboree. It seems like everyone sort of enjoyed the jamboree but it seemed like the messages where lost. I also came to this conclusion after our class discussion. It also seemed like people were blogging about how cool the radio show was. Its nice to see that everyone is giving some extra push and blogging about things. So I see also some people blogged about our discussion we had in the noon group. So keep it up people.

Jamboree

2006-11-30T12:36:00.000-08:00

As I walked through Oyate today and looked at all of the FYS groups. I learned that the nigger the display doesn't mean the meaning is meet. There was about 7 groups that just had a table with a bulletin board on them. I have to say I learned just as much from them as I did from any other group.

One group that comes to mind is the Colonization group. It seemed that people were more amused with the fact they had guns made out of Toilet paper rolls and were giving out potatoes with flags in them. It seemed to me that people didn't really get the meaning. One group that I thought did just enough was the Genocide group. I thought that with the survey that they had and the bulletin board and pictures, was just enough to get there point a crossed that something needs to be done. I thought our groups did a nice job of no going over the top. I thought that with the video and music it really displayed that we want people to have a a good time in class but also learn some thing, were as opposed to other groups where they just want to have fun.

Swing dancing was a lot of fun today I thought. It would of been nicer to have more people so we could of taught people. I think that we had o many people just standing there and not dancing that when people came in and looked around that they didn't know what was going on so they left. I also thought it would of been nicer if we all would of went up and got people to come down. One thing that hurt us is that a lot of people either had class or they weren't there, so it made it hard for people to come.

Gospel Music 2

2006-11-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

Okay for list I had a lot of trouble. For some reason it had to load every song so I would sit there for like 30 or 40 seconds while it loaded the song and then It would play the and another song. I was able to listen to about the third of the list without any trouble, so I blog about that and try again later this week and have it done by Thursday.

So far I like this list a little bit better than the other gospel list that we listened to. I thought that this list seemed like it fit more into the style of the other lists we listened to. I thought that this music seemed a little bit more raw and it seemed like it wasn't just recorded in a studio. I also liked the the gospel sermons that were placed into the list. I really enjoy how passionate the reverends got into it. It really showed how they enjoyed preaching to the people. I also like the way that the crowd would get into it. Now days most church hes the crowd will just sit and sometimes fall asleep. I think that this list will tie more together when I list to the rest of it, but the music all seemed to relate really well. One song on the list that I really enjoyed was In a Heavenly way. I also heard a more updated song on Pandora of that. I really enjoyed that version to.

Religious Music Part 1

2006-11-12T14:11:00.000-08:00

I just got done listening to the Gospel Music for part one. I really enjoyed this listening list. I think I enjoyed this list more then that other listen we had to listen to (i think because I could understand it). A couple of the songs that I found very cool and interesting where Church by Lyle Lovett. I liked the words and stuff to this song because it reminded me of a episode of Bernie Mac. The song is talking about how the priest just keeps going on and on and they need to get out and eat. It reminds of Bernie mac because in on the episodes he tells the kids that they are going to church that weekend. He forgets that the Chicago Bears and the Oakland Raiders where playing each other and the church service just keeps going on and on.

Another couple things I like were when the reverends went on rants about the devil and how people need to be born again. I found this interesting because when I was little I used to have a priest that would do the same thing. He would stand up and tell all of us how we need to do as the bible says or it isn't a true church of god.

I really liked this listening list. I liked it a lot because currently I have gotten into the Christin music craze. No that Christian music today is anywhere near what it was back in the day, but eh concept is the same. It is teaching the words of god through song, which I love. Can't wait for the second list.

Sounds of My City

2006-11-05T21:17:00.000-08:00

When listening to the Podcasts. They began to talk about the Sounds of My City by Tony Schwartz. So I decided I would check to see if the Library had. They didn't , but I check into interlibrary loan and 12 libraries had it. So I filled out a form and requested that it be sent to me. On Friday I received a letter in the mail saying I had received it.

So this weekend when I was home all alone I decided to put out my new old record player and listen to it. I put it on and I have to say I wasn't really impressed with it. I thought it was going to be more about people singing songs and where they came from. It was more of the sounds of new year. Like the squeaky wheels on someones clothes line, and birds chirping. I really didn't like it for this reason.. I was kind of disappointed. The music part of the record was really good, I just wished that they had more of it.

So if you would like to listen to it before November 22ND and have a record player or can get one just let me know and I can give it to you.

Swing Dance Space

2006-10-30T08:04:00.001-08:00

I think that Louie's Lower Level would work fine for teaching people to swing Dance. I think that we can move all the stuff over and I think it would work just fine.

Swing Dance

2006-10-27T10:42:00.000-07:00

I loved the swing dance session that we had on Thursday. I think it was awesome and we should totally do that for jam. I'm sorry I didn't make the swing dance club last Thursday, but I had a date with the tigers losing the ws game. So I will come next week.

Podcast number 5

2006-10-25T16:13:00.001-07:00

I like how in this one they played different styles of music, and how they pointed out that some people thought that music sounded foreign. When they played the song from the Alabama, and pointed out where it was from. I thought that this sound was really relevant to our class because of it talked about how they used to play a guitar and pick it and slide on it, and it sounded like it was from Hawaii. This song I really like because you could hear the crackling of the noise in the background and so you could tell that he went to someones house and they just sat down and recorded this. it reminds me of my grandma's records.

Podcast Number 4

2006-10-23T20:31:00.000-07:00

For Podcast number 4 I found something that I agreed with right away. I liked when harry smith was standing up on the Podium at the 1991 Oscars and he said that " he is glad to see America change through music.' I really like this statement cause I think that Music helped shape America into what it is today. Like I said before I believe that music is water that helps mix the ingredients together in our melting pot of society. I believe that it relates to the course because we are listening to many different styles of music that have helped shape America, and get through adversity.

For this podcast I really didn't like it because it talked more about the Harry Smith and not really about the music. I liked when they sung the song Judgement, by Sister Reverend Mary Nelson and two notable other singers. I thought it was interesting because like our other music they didn't know who really sung the song. I thought it was interesting mainly because in our reading of deep blue, I found it interesting that muddy and the one guy, where they couldn't remember there last name. Now they might not have known these peoples name because it was never written down or maybe they didn't know there names. I highly doubt that they didn't know there names, but it would make sense.

Pod Cast Number 3

2006-10-23T20:04:00.000-07:00

I really enjoyed listening to the podcast. I really liked it because it generated man different styles of music. It was nice because you could hear how these styles would sometimes mixed together.

I thought that was the Tony Schwartz part of his album sounds of my city was really interesting. I thought that it was very relevant to the course because it was just like the video we watched in class on how PBS (or whoever did) went around and talked to people about the music they played and how they sung. I thought when he said "these recordings are my story the story of new York." I thought it was really interesting because it told the stories of New York, just like how the Cajun and blues music did that we talked about in class and through out reading deep blues. This music tells a story of how they live and how there hearts where broken by girls or them losing a job. I also liked how the narrator made sure that she points out that you can heard the streets of new york in the city, so it made it feel more real. It felt ,like you where there in the music they where singing. After I listened to podcast I went and did some research on him and found some good information, but you had to pay for a lot of his stuff. So Hopefully I can find some info/ music on him for cheap. I might just go and buy his CD. I don't know yet.

Pandora

2006-10-17T21:01:00.000-07:00

I have actually found out that Pandora is really helpful. I have set up 2different stations using Pandora. One thing that I don't like is that you can only skip a certain number of songs and hour. I tend to really decided if I like the song in the first few beats or measures, then I found out that some of the best songs i have like the most have been the ones that I have had to listen to because I have skipped over to many songs that hour. So I like Pandora I really don't blog a lot about because for some reason this blogger because it doesn't let me to log in for reason all the time. I don't know but I do listen to it, and I really enjoy it.

December

2006-10-03T15:22:00.000-07:00

Okay this is going to a rather unusual blog, but this Merrily a warning. I think that December is going to be one of the best movie month ever. In my spar time I got to watch Movie Trailers on Quicktime.com (i suggest going there). But there is a lot of Movies that are coming out in December and a little summary of them.

Rocky Balboa. Pretty much rocky six. After 15 years of retirement ESPN matches up rocky with another great fighter of the 200 era. The computer fight says that rocky will win. After watching the fight Rocky become curious and decided her wants to fight. So after some thinking about coming back to the ring to Mason the Line Dickerson. Rocky agrees to do so, it is a true underdog story. Usually with sequels that they try to do way over due., they have to do it right. I truly believe that they did this one right and I think it is going to be a great Movie. Comes out December 22nd.

The next Movie is Home of the Brave. Starring Samuel Jackson, Jessica Biel and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson. Its the the story of four American soldiers nearing the end of their tours of duty in Iraq. Shortly after learning their unit will soon return home, they are sent on one final humanitarian mission to bring medical supplies to a remote Iraqi village. The unit is ambushed and takes heavy losses. The surviving troops suffer both physical and psychological injuries. The kinda looks like a chick flick but it has some action it. So It might be a movie that you want to go see cause you score a chick flick for your girl and a action movie for yourself. Comes out December 15th.

The next movie is The Pursuit of Happyness. This movie stars Will Smith. This movie is a major chick flick. But I'm guy that likes a little softy movie. This is based on a true story of man who has no job and no money. He is kicked out of his apartment cause he can't pay the rent and he trying to prove to his kid that he can be anything he wants to be. Its hard to explain this movie. But I suggest that everyone go and see this I think is a very good movie. Open December 15Th.

The next movie is yes another football movie, but with a different meaning. The movie is called we are Marshall. The story is about 1970 University of Marshall football team who died in a plane. Crash the movie tells the triumphant story to gain the hope of the University. The movie start Matthew McConaughey as the football coach. The movie opens December 22ND.

The next movie is called Night at the Museum. The movie stars Ben Stiller as a night security guard at the Local museum that everything comes alive at night. I think this movie is going to be a funny movie that most people should enjoy seeing. Opens December 22ND.

So all though there are plenty more movie that are coming out in December these are just a few that I thought looked awesome, or at least you should go and see.

Twins Magic Moment

2006-10-03T15:05:00.000-07:00

On Sunday my floor decided to go to the twins. Although we knew it was going to be an exciting game; I never knew that it would be this "magical". Through all of my years of being a twins fan I have scene many different magical moments in my life: Kirby Puckett robbing a homer in the 91 world series, Torii Hunter robbing a home run off Barry bonds in the All-Star game, and when the twins when to the playoffs for the first time in my recent life in 2002. I have scene all these memories and they are great they all are special. But After the game on Sunday when the tigers where playing the royals. With nobody on Jimmy Gobble came on and pitched a superb 12Th inning. The royals won and in all my years of seeing magical moments my new all time favorite moment. Was Nick Punto leading the charge out to center field. Which happens to be the middle of the Metrodome and happens to be the spot where Kirby Puckett stood for o so many games. Its symbolic to bring this up because I believe that Kirby (God rest his soul) was watching down on us that day. He has been watching us all season. Kirby has been with us all season helping us and bringing us hope. I believe that to thank Kirby for all of his wonderful years as not only a true twins player, but a Minnesota Icon. Minnesota has one last task and that is to win a world Series not for the State of Minnesota, Not for the Fans, but for Kirby Puckett. As a statement said before many games in locker rooms all around the world:"Win one for the Skipper", no twins "Win one for Kirby". So as I put this Blog to rest I will do the most honorable thing in baseball and that is I tip my cap to you Kirby I tip my cap.

Performance and Song Idea

2006-09-28T09:42:00.000-07:00

After listen to Pandora the other day I know what song I'm going to use. The only thing I just realized that I forgot my notebook in my dorm so I can't tell you in this post. But I do know what I'm going to do for a performance Idea, just looking through all blues artist in the 193-50's I couldn't think of what to do. Then doing some reading I realized that last year I played a song by one of the artist listed in the text. So I'm going to do a brief history lesson on Duke Ellington and then play the song Mood Indigo. This probably isn't exactly from the same era but I think I will be able to tie them together.

Class Summary

2006-09-25T19:31:00.000-07:00

Tuesday September 19Th Class Discussions. On Tuesday we were all ready to begin our class discussion, then Nic came in and we watched a movie. After finally getting the speakers to work so we could hear. We watched the movie which was many different interviews of different blues players and or ancestors telling stories of how there grandparents would sing to make time go faster. After the movie was over, he open the floor for discussion. So we began talking about how it makes you appreciate your teeth and your dental plan. So we discussed about poor people.

Thursday September 21st Class Discussion. At the beginning we began saying what our ideas are for performance and helping give any ideas to people who where struggling. Many people gave different Ideas and we know know where we can get big refrigerator boxes. We also know that we can make Muddy Waters pie as long as we do more than just give people pie. After we where done with that we discussed what we are doing for our group performance. I believe that we are going to be a junk band, and dress up like hillbillies. I think that we are going to have the best one ever.

Pandora Listening 2

2006-09-18T19:41:00.000-07:00

Okay I decided that I had sometime so I would listen to music. I listen the first song and I loved it. The song was by Leadbelly called Dallas and Fort Worth Blues. I liked this song because to keep time they stomped there foot. You could here this in the recording so it was just really cool.

The second song I liked was by Reverend Garry Davis called trying to get Home. I liked this song because it sounded like a song slaves would sing, only after they where free they added a guitar part and recorded, so it sounds really cool.

The third song I liked was called Rabbit in the log, by Ralph Stanley. I liked this song because it reminded me of the Beverly Hillbillies. I don't really know why but it does. Like the intro when they are tying the grandma up on the car and driving to the mansion only you can never really give up there song though.

The third song that I heard and liked was Coalminers Blues by Hazel Dickerson and Alice Garrence. I didn't like this song at the beginning but I really like the style and the singers voice. I liked it because it was the perfect song for the wife that husband was down in the cola mine late at night. It was really good.

Performance Idea?

2006-09-18T19:21:00.000-07:00

I have no idea what I'm going to do for this performance thing. I have a trumpet so I was thinking of doing something with that but I don't know. I would really like to play a Ray Charles song because after just like the 2 mins we spent on him, It really got re interested in him. so I think I might try and do a song on the trumpet by him if I can find some music but If I can't I might just find an old song to play on my trumpet.

Thursdays Class Discussion

2006-09-14T12:32:00.000-07:00

Okay I know that this is my turn to do this but I want to anyway. I thought that the classes discussion was very good today. Mostly everyone participated and it was still interesting to see the "personal" hatred at people have. Let me explain like people who have earring and crazy hair about trying to find a job. It was interesting to to hear everyone say about how much there school hated indifference. I couldn't believe, just like the kid,forgot his name, said, its weird that in a society that says be yourself how much they reject people who are different then them. I have to say that I have fallen victim to this. I will agree that I don't like people that are different than me. I find them weird and distracting sometimes. I guess with the class discussion today I can see how they are really just expressing them selves in a different way then we would. I also found it interesting that they way these different schools treat. Being from a small town I never really got a taste of what indifference really was until I came up here and say how people are different and they express themselves. So I was going to mention something in class about something that happened in my class but I didn't want to raise my hang like a nerd, and I didn't want to just but in because that's rude and everyone had good comments to say. But my story was last year we had a kid who would wear a suit everyday to school no matter how hot or cold it was. Well it was funny the first week or so and some people made fun of him, but after a week we just got over it. Anyways at the end of the year we vote for senior awards, like best smile, hair, clothes etc. So some people thought it would be funny and others thought it was the right thing to do, but they voted him as best dressed. Now our teachers were outrages at this because they thought we where making fun of him, because the year before the grade voted a kid who had no teeth because they had rotted out as best smile. So the teachers were outraged at this, but seriously can you really voted against a person that wears a suit to school everyday? So anyways I don't mean to take this away from the person who is supposed to be summarizing up class discussion, but I just thought it was a good class discussion and I thought I would write about it.

Reading for thursday

2006-09-12T16:07:00.000-07:00

Okay I thought this assignment was due for Tuesday so I got up early on Tuesday and began to read. After about an hour and half of reading I realized that there was no way that I was going to get this done, so I stopped I will pick the rest of it up on Wednesday. Plus after reading Nics blog about how people need to start using there blog I kinda figured that a lot of the class wasn't going to have scene this so I quit, but to my surprise they did a good job and most of the people actually had read. I only have like 10 pages left. So any who I really like the prologue to the book. It was interesting to read about the early history of Muddy Waters. It really didn't get the begin of the prologue so I kinda skipped over it. But then after that page I got into it. Then came Chapter 1 pages 23 Thur 39. I kinda had a problem with this I didn't really like some of the context. I liked about how they describe how different section of the rhythm played a part. The part that I didn't like was when they started describing about the instruments what they looked like and things like that. I found myself having to re-read that section over and over. I found one part funny, it was when he was describing Chicago south side. I found this funny because I have been to Chicago south side when I went to Wrigley Field and all the house do look that same. The might no be the same color anymore, but they design of the house is the same. So I will continue more on this blog when I get the rest of the book read.

Pandora Hint

2006-09-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

Hey this is a helpful hint to anyone who really uses pandora. I used pandora a lot now I have a station of music that I like and a station just for the class, not saying that the music for the class I don't like it just I have other preferences. So anyways back to the point I tend to skip a lot of song on my list so I used up my skips for the hour, and so if your listening to a song for class and you really hate it and you have used up all your skips for the hour, a hint that you can do is click on your own personal station and go back to the class station that you made, and it will choose a new song for you. Just a hint if you tend to skip a lot of songs.

New songs on Pandora

2006-09-11T21:03:00.000-07:00

Last night While I was watching Joe Nathan pitch the longest 9th. I decided to turn the TV on mute and listen to music on Pandora. I listened to 14 songs and I'm sorry to say I really only liked 4 of the song I listen to. Part if that could have been because while I was listening to my songs, my roommate was playing his music, so I probably didn't get the full effect of those songs.

The first song I heard I liked was The Lonesome Road by Snooks Eaglin. I liked this song because he had a good guitar part. You could tell he knew how to play the guitar well because the volume of the guitar and his voice where similar, and something that you play well you want brought out.

The next song I heard was I'm in a heavenly way by Bukka White. I loved this song because I loved his voice. It was a soothing deep voice and it would be a song that everyone should listen to after a hard day. His voice was the type of voice that you would hear in movies about the depression cause everyone was down. It was a perfect blues voice.

The third song I heard was Jesus is a Mighty good leader, by Skip Jame. When this song started I thought it was about a president or something because I didn' t listen the lyrics very well, but after I looked at the title I loved because I'm a very spiritual guy and I love songs like that.

The Last song I liked was I'm a steady roll'in man by Robert Johnson. I liked this song because of everything that was presented the vocals to the rhythm sounded great. I also thought it was weird that I was just reading the book and they where talking about him and I heard a song from him.

The Govs. Content

2006-09-11T20:04:00.000-07:00

Okay when I read the blog posted about on Nics site I began to think about it, and we didn't really talk about those things. So will discuss these things. Okay for the most part I heard Gov. context of her speech, but to be perfectly honest I was kinda dozing in some spots. I just think that her context was alittle bit boring for kids of our age. But anyway to address some of the things that Nic said. I agree with everything she said except for "life is simply not fair." I don't think that she should have made that statment to this type of audience. I think that it was a statment that is kinda put down. We go to all these college classes and all's we hear is that "50% of you are going to fail out of college', to me I don't understand why you would make that type of statement It seems to me that they kidna want us to drop out so then that way we don't fail out make ourselfs look bad. Now wehn brough this up to my mother and saying how come you would say this she said "well to see that kids are doing worse then you." Okay I see her truth in that but anyways I going on about something completely off topic. Anyways I don't think that that is a true statement. Ask someone who has won the lottery twice and 3 years and then ask someone who has played it for 20 years and never won more than the 3 dollars for getting the powerball right. I bet if ask the person who has won it they wouldn't say "life is simply not fair." I really don't agree with her statement of "Don't let stereotypes shut you out of any career." Really I don't know how to explain the why I feel this is wrong but I just don't really like.

Governor Blanco Speech

2006-09-06T18:40:00.000-07:00

Governor Blanco speech manily was about hurricane Katrina. Not that I didn't find that interesting, it just seemed like it was all fact that we already knew. It was also just her side of the story, because the aftermath of hurricane kartina has lead to alot of finger pointing in which has lead to many different question. Such as: Why didn't they uses busses to get out of N.O.? What has been done to rebuild? How come most of the black weren't out of this region? So it ended up being her side of the story (Which I'm not saying isn't true). So Im not saying the speech wasn't interesting ,but it just seemed that it was everything that we already knew. It also would have been nice if her speech was a little bit shorter and had more time for question and answer session. I know there is a question I would have liked to ask her, but didn't have the time. The speech didn't seem like it was a speech it more like a story. Her speech writer did a good time writing the speech, but it was more like a story not a speech.

First Class Assingment!!! Yeah

2006-08-31T10:30:00.000-07:00

Okay here is the first assignment that we are supposed to do. There a set of questions that I will answer here in this blog. Alright first off I have horrible grammar and my spelling is bad so make sure that you are aware of it. First off I signed up for roots music because (no it wasn't the only thing open), I really enjoy music and I wanted to know about our countries rich history in music. I think music in America is the boiling water that helps mix our melting pot. If I could take any five pieces of music to a deserted island with me I would take John Phillips Sousa's Stars and Stripes forever and his version of the Star Spangled Banner. The other three pieces I would take with me would be The entertainer, Let My People Go and Mozart's Ninth Symphony. If I could associate any piece of music with my grandparents it would be stars and stripes forever, because at the time John Phillip Sousa wrote that song my great grandmother was coming over to America. If I could choose any new song to become America's national anthem it would be Battle Hymn of the Republic. I play the trumpet and I'm currently in the jazz ensemble here at Morris. If I could ask one question to Kathleen Blanco from a political stand point it would be about the Hurricane, but for my first year seminar standpoint, I would ask her if her grandparents every taught her any old Cajun songs, and which one would be her favorite. I would ask her if she could sing it to use, but I don't think that will happen.