let the gap begin... i just caught some of the mtv video music awards. wow. i am turning into an old codger. i realize that i am getting older, and there is some unwritten rule about not understanding the younger generation's customs, but... how do people function in the mainstream these days? is it me or is enimem the biggest, no-talent loser to stretch his career to the limits of a quarter hour? i don't understand the hip-hop culture. i enjoy rhythym when i hear it, but what the hell is with the designer sweat suits, and licking your lips every three seconds? i don't get it. why does everyone sing like they have a mouth full of chips? is it me or is jennifer lopez slowly morphing into gloria estefan? why do these things bother me? i guess i'm just tired of the rehash. are there no more original ideas? are we at the end? the best i can hope for these days is the mixing of elements that worked before. whatever the case, if the end product doesn't have a soul, why bother? oh, yeah. money. now we just take elements of songs that made money before, sample them, rip them off, spit them back out, and cash in. lovely. even newer musicians i like, seem to be archetypes of old favorites. i'm not a classic rock puritan. don't get me wrong. my tastes are an amalgam of my sisters' and brother's before me. i can enjoy almost any kind of music. i can dance along to the top 40 hit with the great beat you can dance to, get lost in a twenty minute long arena rock song, or slip into an electronica trance. i think i'm musically open minded, but 90% of what is new sucks ass. i don't get producing something just for shock value. howard stern, jackass, tom green crassness is shallow, empty and luckily short lived for the most part. where does it end? when you've smashed the last boundary, what's next? enimem sings about killing people and rape, and he's a genius? he's a dirty, little, perverted child kicking and screaming in public, and too many people are giving him attention. just because he can rhyme to a beat? rose are red, violets are blue, get this little white punk off the stage... i have been surprised on occasion. that which i rail against has thrown me a curve, and i've bent in the favor of the masses. i don't like to admit it, but sometimes it's nice to be proven wrong. someone out there please prove me wrong. show me talent and words that speak to me, and i'll go along. until then if you need to find me... i'm the thirty-something guy blasting indian tribal rhythms in his station wagon.

i suppose if i've made the effort to create this page, i should make the effort to update it more than every 23 days. it's not air-tight yet, but i'm working on it when i can. so much has happened since the last entry, and that's a considerable change from the past few summers. we set out at the beginning of the season to spend more time as a family, doing things outdoors, etc., and we've done quite a bit. money is always an issue, but we've managed to entertain ourselves with minimal expense, maximum joy. luckily, we are all easily entertained... we just spent last weekend camping with my sister, kathy, and her family, my sister, karen, and my family. the eleven of us had a great time. at one point we were on the beach outside old fort niagara, and i said to my sister, "i dread the day when my kids don't get excited about looking at rocks on a beach." alura is partial to sea glass, sierra likes finding shells and unusually colored rocks, and rylee looks for smoothed porcelain- 'they look like teeth". my wife, jennifer, paints animals on rocks, so she combs the beach looking for animal forms. i am forever searching for the perfect skipping stone. camping for us is all about rocks and sticks. walking sticks, fire poking sticks, marshmallow roasting sticks... if my kids are going to fight with swords, no matter how much i discourage them, i'd rather they use their imaginations and a blunt stick than a fifty dollar, battery-operated, light- up, scimitar with sound effects. i sound like an old codger when i say that kids today have no imagination, but for the most part it's true. or when imagination is encouraged, it seems that it's completely without scope and over the top. like so many other things their is no middle ground. i believe firmly that children are entitled to be children, but where is the balance? we're encouraged to buy toys that talk, walk, think, and play for our children. it's sad when a kid picks up an ordinary teddy bear, squeezes it, then asks "why doesn't it do anything?" the computer chip has made it possible to pull the world together in so many ways, and dumb down our kids at the same time. god forbid you ask an adolescent to add without an electronic device to aid them. gone are the days that families can enjoy a car ride with music or conversation. we have to break off from each other with a portable tv in between us with a set of earphones for everyone. perhaps we don't want to talk to our kids anymore. they are just another commodity to pour our money into as a substitute for genuineness. perhaps it's just training for the future. we're preparing them to become mindless, working drones in the cubicle hive, only capable of establishing fractured relationships and bad credit. i also don't subscribe to the idea that kids can't be held accountable for their actions, because they are children, and don't know better. ha,ha,ha did i mention that i it was a relaxing weekend? can you tell i've been back to work for three days? pardon my abrupt tirade. i'll settle down now. that reminds me- it's time for my medication. ha,ha,ha. i suppose my parents didn't do such a bang up job either... they weren't perfect either. perhaps someday my kids will be sitting across from an expensive therapist complaining about all the times their father dragged them off to the woods for another family outing when all they really wanted was a battery-operated sword with sound effects. whatever...

i have obtained the habit over the last fifteen years or so of starting and not finishing quite a number of personal journals. i have the best of intentions at the beginning, but... i suppose this way, there's less paper wasted. anyway, after the fifth or sixth stalled attempt i began to refer to the accumulation of partially filled journals as "the books of david". thus the title of this page. no, my name is not david. at least it isn't my first name. i just have an affinity for the name. it tends to resurface in my life constantly. it's my middle name, and the name i sign my artwork, my former cat's name, my son's middlename, and the name of my favorite piece of artwork. anyway, that sort of explains the name. as for the format...i love art in all it's aspects. with this journal i'll be exposing myself in the company of my favorite artists, visual, musical, and literary. i'll show some of my own art ( for viewing only- please don't steal or copy without my permission), and the art, music, and words that inspire me. okay, enough of the spiritually uplifting explanations- on with the fun and the bitching....