Are You Going to Tiananmen Square?

Rifles, tanks, protesters, and death...

Twenty-five years ago today, the Chinese government and military declared a little war on their own people, students demanding reforms and the workers and other citizens who decided to stand with them. The brutal crackdown by the authorities against unarmed demonstrators is echoed in the recent behavior of the governments of Turkey, Russia, and Thailand (among others) towards anyone seriously (yet peacefully) criticizing the powers-that-be.

It's a sad commentary that the Chinese people still aren't allowed to even discuss Tiananmen Square. Their political system doesn't have to be a mirror of ours (which has its own flaws, to be sure), but for the party leadership to brush the protests off as the work of a few demagogues and lawbreakers, to deny that there even is or could be such a thing as a dissident in the country, spells bad things for both the people and the government.

One year ago today, I was getting ready, with my then-fiancée, to meet with a reverend we thought could give us the casual and fun wedding ceremony (in a Biergarten) we were planning. We both ended up liking her a lot and decided to go with her, though, as you may already be aware (spoilers!), Laura broke off the engagement several weeks later.

Three days ago, I finished a Spartan Race (a Spartan Sprint, to be precise) with some current colleagues (and a former one, and her husband); we called ourselves the Eh Team. Aroo!

Funny how things can change in a year... Laura and I had signed up for a Glow Run 5K together last summer, which we ended up missing due to traffic, but she was more interested in running and fitness than I ever was. When I found myself alone again, with a treadmill this time, I decided I should start using it, which led to my thinking out loud about running a 5K myself, which led to my colleague and friend Jenn asking if I'd be interested in doing a Spartan Race with her...

So we did it, and while we didn't do it quickly, and there were moments (particularly during the army crawl through the mud and under barbed wire, where my legs inconveniently decided to start cramping up) when I wasn't sure I could get through it, I'm glad we all finished, mud and sunburn and aches and scrapes and bruises notwithstanding. We've got the Warrior Dash coming up in August, too, and I'll probably be healed enough by then to do it. :-D I still want to run an actual 5K at some point as well, but I've got enough going on over the next two months or so to keep me busy already, and I also need to make some time to get back to the studio with my Greta's Unmentionables bandmates. And to record some of my own tunes, too.

Maybe I need to write a song for the Tank Men of the world, those who stand up in Tiananmen Square, or Taksim Square, or Maidan Square, or Tahrir Square, or Union Square, or the pass of Thermopylae, and say, "Enough is enough!"

Another Year Over...

...and a new one just begun.  2013 started out as one of the best years of my life, and ended up as one of the worst.  Still, what doesn't kill you only makes you hurt like hell stronger, right?  I suppose my expectations for 2014 have been lowered substantially, and maybe that's a good thing.

This holiday season has been a depressing one despite "Doctor Who" and birthday get-togethers and turducken (I didn't decorate at all, which I think is a first), and while I was sorely tempted to stay home and sulk on New Year's Eve, I opted to go see Gogol Bordello at Terminal 5 instead.  I tried not to witness an arrest on Secaucus Junction's track 2 platform while on my way to New York (probably drugs, but I don't know and didn't want to); I was largely unimpressed with the amount of beardage at the venue (why do today's kids feel the need to look like early 20th-century Midwestern farmers?); and I was rather unsympathetic to the teenager who asked me to buy a Budweiser for him, though at least he was gracious enough to accept my polite refusal.  And he didn't have a beard, though it was probably not for lack of trying.

The opening band, Man Man, were a lot better than I was expecting, and they certainly got the crowd going.  Gogol Bordello, however, were on fire.  They had the whole place dancing and jumping around, and they sounded incredible.  And I got twerked on.  Twice.  Well, OK, the first girl definitely knew what she was doing, even if alcohol may have played a part, and I couldn't back away as I was leaning against a column.  The two friends about twenty minutes later were probably just getting carried away with dancing and didn't know or care that they were grinding against someone, and it would've been rude of me to ask them to stop...

At least they were only dancing.  A few minutes after that, what I'd thought was a frenzied burst of dancing a few feet away turned out to be two girls fighting, and it took a few people to pull them apart.  The band and the crowd counted down the last few seconds 'til midnight, and then we were showered with confetti (which I'm still finding).

Happy New Year!

I left before the encore began, in hopes of not getting home too late... and saw two more angry girls on the train; one slapped the other one's boyfriend before storming away.  Ah, nothing like the holidays and alcohol to bring out the best in everyone.  Anyway, I was home before 2:30 AM, and would've been home at least twenty minutes sooner, but New Jersey Transit decided to hold the westbound Main Line train for every single train that was coming in from New York, on the off chance that someone might want it.  Thanks, NJT.

I'm not doing the "resolutions" thing.  There are goals I want to accomplish this year, and things I want to change about myself, but I don't think it's realistic to set them in stone on the first day of an arbitrary calendar, nor do I have a final list in my head.  NaNoWriMo was another bust for me last November, but I did start a novel... just like I did last year.  I want to write them both this year, or at least make some serious progress, so I can make a serious attempt this November.  I want to get more music done; I've been writing and playing, and I've got new ideas (in addition to old ones that haven't been fleshed out yet), but I need to record more.  I want to get back to organizing and uploading my collection of photos to the Gallery... of Death!  In June, I'm going to do the Spartan Race with my colleagues Jenn and Vaida (we're the Eh Team), but that means that I need to stay focused on running and eating better than I have been these past two months.  I'd like to run at least one 5K before then, too, just to make sure that I'm on the right track (so to speak); Jenn might accompany me as well.

I want to be happy again, but that's not really a goal in and of itself.  I need to take happy where I can find it, and hope that I find more and more.  As a Chinese cookie reminded me on New Year's Eve, "Every person is the architect of his or her own fortune."  Someone else may have taken away a reason for my happiness, but that doesn't mean that I can never be happy again.

"I don't think my time is quite yet complete,
     So I'll follow the rhythm, and speed up the beat."