Our latest Republican-versus-Democrat kerfuffle has got me riled
again. And this time I've had enough. Again.
President Obama came to Boulder this week to push for continued
reduction of the interest rate on student loans. The Republicans (John
Boehner) said they support that, but that the money to pay for the
subsidy should come from a "slush fund" of the Obama Health Care bill,
as he calls the Affordable Health Care Act.
The fund in question also has a name. It's called the Prevention and
Health Fund. It goes for women's health care, such as mammograms,
screening, and preventive care.
What the hell?
I agree with college prof Jerry Lanson, who says, "The challenge of easing
the debt burden can't be left to colleges or the taxpayers. At a time when banks are
giving their customers savings interest worth nickels and dimes, there's no
excuse for them to be raking in interest above the national inflation
rate."
We just bailed out the banks. They don't deserve any more of our money.
Furthermore, I don't think we should be giving students big loans
(regardless of interest rate, unless it's zero) when they haven't yet
earned a credit rating. To get a credit rating, you need to get a small loan and/or pay off a credit bill in a time. It shows you are a responsible borrower.
Originally the banks were given a blank check. Students could borrow
ever-larger amounts needed because college rates were skyrocketing, and if
they defaulted, say, by declaring bankruptcy, the government would
back the loans.
Understandably, that didn't work, so the laws for bankruptcy were
tightened. So now students are caught between a rock and a hard
place. They face paying off their loans for their whole working life.
Sure, it seems worth borrowing money to get a college education. It
has been shown that a college-educated worker earns much more over his
or her lifetime than someone with only a high school diploma.
But hundreds of thousands of dollars? When I went to college, I was
dirt poor, my single mother lived below the poverty level, and I
couldn't get credit from Sears to buy a portable typewriter. (I
boycotted Sears and Discover for many years for this reason.)
I still managed to get a college education. I worked, I got
scholarships, I got grants, and I got a loan. That loan was the
National Student Defense Loan. It had a very low interest rate, and
within five years, I was able to pay it off.
The truth is, the government has been backing away for a long time
from both higher education and health care. The University of Colorado
only gets 5% of its budget from the state. A lot of people think
higher education is an entitlement, like health care, and that you
should be able to go to school as high as you can go.
Unfortunately, our government does not agree with this. Our taxpayers
don't want to foot the bill. So, we are falling behind the rest of the
world in terms of well educated, well paid workers.
It has been easy to spot this trend, so when I had a child, I began
saving money so she could go to college. We paid for her education in
full. No free ride. No entitlement.
I know the days are gone where a student can work during the summer
and pay for a year's tuition. But the motivated student needs to suss
out a plan for getting a higher education. If you can't get into
Harvard, move your sights down. If you can't get into the University
of Michigan, move your sights down. By living at home or getting a
roommate and going to a community college for two years, you can cut
college costs in half. Working at Victoria's Secret is crappy, but
finite. Once you actually get a degree and a good job, nobody cares
where you went to college anyway.
It's time to cut off the banks from this cash cow, and it's time to
stop trying to rob Peter (us women) to pay Paul.
Hit the road, Jack.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Friday, April 13, 2012
Life in the Far Future
One of the joys of living in Boulder, Colorado, is the annual
Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado every
spring.
The conference, started by sociology professor Howard Higman in the
late 1940s, attracts equal numbers of students and gray-haired members
of the community. Invited speakers participate for a week in dozens of
panels on a wide range of topics including politics, the arts, and
science.
In the panel on "Life in the Far Future," three scientists and a
storyteller presented their fanciful--and mostly hopeful--visions of
what the future might hold for humans and life in general.
As a science fiction writer and publisher, I couldn't think of a
better way to spend an hour and a half. I grabbed a spot in the
audience, put my chin in my hand, and became all ears.
Joseph McInerney, a genetics professor and biology educator, pointed
out that there is one thing all species go through: extinction. Of
course, the sun will become a red giant in a few billion years and
destroy the inner planets, but that isn't imminent, so he talked about
some other more near-term possibilities. He said one might be the end
of racism. The human genome is so distributed now that there are no
actual racial dividing lines. At some point in the future, the concept
of race or "other" may simply become moot, if we're lucky.
Vivian Siegel, director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, had
browsed a bit on the Futurist web site the evening before, and tossed
out some SF-type visions of the future, including putting diverse bits
of life and embryos into capsules and shooting them into space,
possibly to colonize other planets in the very far distant future (she
acknowledges the improbability of FTL travel. Sorry, space opera
fans!). A student asked how a human embryo could be raised in a vacuum
without the presence of other humans. (Shades of Superman!) It became
evident that "life" here refers to species other than human, for
example, microorganisms. Microorganisms far outnumber humans,
McInerney pointed out, so we will have to devise ways to coexist with
them in a beneficial way. An audience participant pointed out there
could be ethical issues, such as polluting some other planet or
bringing in a deadly foreign species that would wipe out local life.
Feargal Lynn, an Irish storyteller, musician, and psychiatric nurse,
entertained us all by enumerating some things he'd like to see the
future bring. One was a cross between a microwave and a bed. You'd
climb into bed, punch in a few numbers in the box above your head, and
in five minutes you'd have a full night's sleep! He noted the
importance of music, and talked about his Scottish musician friend
Bill Drummond's (of 80s band KLF) crusade to reinvent music, which he
thinks has been ruined by recording. Drummond burned all his records,
and now tours with a 17-member choir called The17.
Growing up on James Bond movies in the 1960s, Lynn noted that Bond had
great gadgets like GPS, pens that shot poison darts, and an Aston
Martin with missiles. But he always had to get out of the car to make
a phone call. He didn't have a cell phone! Lynn said he wished he knew
what the next gadget would be that would change the world so
dramatically for everyone.
A student asked what the panel thought the lasting impact of the
Internet would be. Several agreed that it was to fight tyranny by
removing control of information from despots. Lynn recalled the sad
example of political folk guitarist Victor Jara, whose fingers were
cut off before his murder during the Pinochet regime in Chile.
Douglas Ray, a lab director with DOE's Pacific Northwest Laboratory,
was by far the most gung-ho regarding technology and its benefits. The
panel cited several problems facing society, such as lack of fresh
water, but Ray said we are close to being able to desalinate ocean water
in a more energy-efficient manner. A student expressed concern about
the dangers of genetic engineering. Ray noted that the biological
diversity on Earth contains a wealth of possibly useful species, even
without engineering. For example, following the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, there was a huge increase in
naturally occurring oil-eating bacteria, which had found a new food
source. Ironically, Ray also was the biggest believer that humanity
might damage the planet so badly that a life-seeding space expedition
like Vivian's might be needed.
One student asked about the future of education. McInerney felt the
U.S. is going backward since the days when Sputnik temporarily moved
science to the education forefront. He helped develop the Biological
Sciences Curriculum Study, which in the 1960s restored the teaching of
evolution in the schools. He feels that today's emphasis on rote
learning and testing is anathema to good teaching, critical thinking,
and creativity.
Feargal Lynn, who has two young daughters, hoped the educational
picture would improve, and quoted Winston Churchill, who said, "You
can always count on Americans to do the right thing--after they've
tried everything else."
Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado every
spring.
The conference, started by sociology professor Howard Higman in the
late 1940s, attracts equal numbers of students and gray-haired members
of the community. Invited speakers participate for a week in dozens of
panels on a wide range of topics including politics, the arts, and
science.
In the panel on "Life in the Far Future," three scientists and a
storyteller presented their fanciful--and mostly hopeful--visions of
what the future might hold for humans and life in general.
As a science fiction writer and publisher, I couldn't think of a
better way to spend an hour and a half. I grabbed a spot in the
audience, put my chin in my hand, and became all ears.
Joseph McInerney, a genetics professor and biology educator, pointed
out that there is one thing all species go through: extinction. Of
course, the sun will become a red giant in a few billion years and
destroy the inner planets, but that isn't imminent, so he talked about
some other more near-term possibilities. He said one might be the end
of racism. The human genome is so distributed now that there are no
actual racial dividing lines. At some point in the future, the concept
of race or "other" may simply become moot, if we're lucky.
Vivian Siegel, director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, had
browsed a bit on the Futurist web site the evening before, and tossed
out some SF-type visions of the future, including putting diverse bits
of life and embryos into capsules and shooting them into space,
possibly to colonize other planets in the very far distant future (she
acknowledges the improbability of FTL travel. Sorry, space opera
fans!). A student asked how a human embryo could be raised in a vacuum
without the presence of other humans. (Shades of Superman!) It became
evident that "life" here refers to species other than human, for
example, microorganisms. Microorganisms far outnumber humans,
McInerney pointed out, so we will have to devise ways to coexist with
them in a beneficial way. An audience participant pointed out there
could be ethical issues, such as polluting some other planet or
bringing in a deadly foreign species that would wipe out local life.
Feargal Lynn, an Irish storyteller, musician, and psychiatric nurse,
entertained us all by enumerating some things he'd like to see the
future bring. One was a cross between a microwave and a bed. You'd
climb into bed, punch in a few numbers in the box above your head, and
in five minutes you'd have a full night's sleep! He noted the
importance of music, and talked about his Scottish musician friend
Bill Drummond's (of 80s band KLF) crusade to reinvent music, which he
thinks has been ruined by recording. Drummond burned all his records,
and now tours with a 17-member choir called The17.
Growing up on James Bond movies in the 1960s, Lynn noted that Bond had
great gadgets like GPS, pens that shot poison darts, and an Aston
Martin with missiles. But he always had to get out of the car to make
a phone call. He didn't have a cell phone! Lynn said he wished he knew
what the next gadget would be that would change the world so
dramatically for everyone.
A student asked what the panel thought the lasting impact of the
Internet would be. Several agreed that it was to fight tyranny by
removing control of information from despots. Lynn recalled the sad
example of political folk guitarist Victor Jara, whose fingers were
cut off before his murder during the Pinochet regime in Chile.
Douglas Ray, a lab director with DOE's Pacific Northwest Laboratory,
was by far the most gung-ho regarding technology and its benefits. The
panel cited several problems facing society, such as lack of fresh
water, but Ray said we are close to being able to desalinate ocean water
in a more energy-efficient manner. A student expressed concern about
the dangers of genetic engineering. Ray noted that the biological
diversity on Earth contains a wealth of possibly useful species, even
without engineering. For example, following the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, there was a huge increase in
naturally occurring oil-eating bacteria, which had found a new food
source. Ironically, Ray also was the biggest believer that humanity
might damage the planet so badly that a life-seeding space expedition
like Vivian's might be needed.
One student asked about the future of education. McInerney felt the
U.S. is going backward since the days when Sputnik temporarily moved
science to the education forefront. He helped develop the Biological
Sciences Curriculum Study, which in the 1960s restored the teaching of
evolution in the schools. He feels that today's emphasis on rote
learning and testing is anathema to good teaching, critical thinking,
and creativity.
Feargal Lynn, who has two young daughters, hoped the educational
picture would improve, and quoted Winston Churchill, who said, "You
can always count on Americans to do the right thing--after they've
tried everything else."
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Wherefore Science Fiction?
I remember being surprised when I learned that "wherefore" actually
means "why." So, when Juliet says, "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" she's
asking why did he have to go and be from the feuding clan. Bummer. But
an interesting vocabulary lesson.
I've been thinking of why I would like to concentrate on science
fiction in my new publishing business, Third Flatiron Publishing. It
seems like SF/Fantasy's golden age may have passed. Fewer publishing
houses seem to be out there. Houses like Tor, which used to be minor
players, are just about all you see on the shelves these days. A few
old superstar authors are still around, like George R.R. Martin, but I
don't see any smash hits coming from the likes of Harlan Ellison or
Gene Wolfe. Of course, some have died, like Ray Bradbury, Arthur
C. Clarke, Roger Zelazny, and Kurt Vonnegut.
As a young reader, I was voracious. Books often afforded an escape
from the realities of life and school, and SF in particular appealed
to the nerd in me. I can unqualifiedly recommend SF as a pathway drug
to academic aptitude.
If you want your budding genius child to ace his or her SATs, try some
of these recommendations from scientist and award-winning SF author
David Brin:
http://open.salon.com/blog/david_brin/2011/11/09/science_fiction_for_young_adults_a_recommended_list
Brin has various assorted reasons for liking books on this long list
(for example, "sense-o-wonder"), but to me the salient point is that
this genre builds strong headbones and imparts a vocabulary
nonpareil. (Of course, even I had to keep a dictionary close by to get
through the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.)
Reading literature favored by fellow geeks will also have the advantage of
facilitating better communication with peers:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/geekend/identify-the-geeks-in-a-crowd-by-how-they-communicate/6649
I recently joined a couple of online fan forums, like Cool Sci-Fi
(coolscifi.com), where I posted a question asking what is currently
popular. I only got one reply, which was a speculation that steampunk
is where it's at.
OK, fine. I'll buy that, and any of Connie Willis' backward-looking
tomes, for that matter. There's nothing wrong with historical fantasy
or swords and sorcery, as long as it's weird and interesting. But the
era of the space opera seems to have been crushed, as hard science
increasingly drills it into our heads that FTL travel just ain't gonna
happen, baby. Hopefully young Cory Doctorow can hold our hands as we stride
into a brave new world.
With these attitude adjustments in mind, I will try to carry the
banner of speculative fiction (Ellison's term) forward.
With your help, I won't have to change "Wherefore" to "Whither."
Please encourage your kids to read some SF in between video games.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
The Passion Curriculum
A few days ago, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was on Jon
Stewart's Daily Show. He talked about how Congress had failed to
achieve the requirements of the "No Child Left Behind" Act, and how
states could now seek waivers to NCLB in order to give them more
flexibility to meet high educational standards.
He went on to decry the cutbacks of many programs in the schools, such
as arts and music, language, geography, social sciences, and so
forth. He spoke on behalf of "the Well-Rounded Curriculum."
This made me reflect on my own education and that of my fellow geeks.
Our country is facing a crisis shortage of geeks. At least a million
technical jobs are begging for qualified applicants. But fewer
students feel inclined to study math and science, and they are less
willing to put in the oftentimes long hours of drudgery to excel in a
technical area. They are less resilient and more resigned to failure
if the going gets tough.
In previous posts on this blog, I've identified some actions in the
college and working world where geeks can be encouraged to be more
well-rounded, thus contributing more to society.
But maybe we should back up further, to grade and middle school, to
look at what leads to the successful geek and, better yet, the
well-rounded geek.
Unfortunately, middle school can be hell on earth, both for geeks and
non-geeks alike. Puberty and scholarly rigor both strike
simultaneously. But what doesn't actually kill us makes us stronger,
as the old saying goes.
What middle school should do for us is to teach us how to find our
passions and show us a path toward achieving them. Sampling the
liberal and other arts may sow the seed of a passion.
That passion may open a path that looks impossibily steep when you're
14 years old. Do you like music? A typical musician in the Cincinnati
Orchestra has worked for 15 years to hone his or her skills and
theoretical knowledge of music, an amazingly complex and deep subject.
Just take it one step at a time. Yes, we are coming to realize we are
facing a world where everyone has to become a specialist in a
technical field. And even then there is no guarantee of a good paying
job. But your efforts will pay off in providing you a rich inner life.
This is where being well rounded will save your life. While you work
hard and fight for the job of your dreams, you will have the
resiliency you got from your well-rounded curriculum to get you by. If
you get out of middle school without identifying at least one passion
you can get lost in, your teachers have failed you. You need that
experience in order to be able to identify the next passion in life as
it comes along.
Stewart's Daily Show. He talked about how Congress had failed to
achieve the requirements of the "No Child Left Behind" Act, and how
states could now seek waivers to NCLB in order to give them more
flexibility to meet high educational standards.
He went on to decry the cutbacks of many programs in the schools, such
as arts and music, language, geography, social sciences, and so
forth. He spoke on behalf of "the Well-Rounded Curriculum."
This made me reflect on my own education and that of my fellow geeks.
Our country is facing a crisis shortage of geeks. At least a million
technical jobs are begging for qualified applicants. But fewer
students feel inclined to study math and science, and they are less
willing to put in the oftentimes long hours of drudgery to excel in a
technical area. They are less resilient and more resigned to failure
if the going gets tough.
In previous posts on this blog, I've identified some actions in the
college and working world where geeks can be encouraged to be more
well-rounded, thus contributing more to society.
But maybe we should back up further, to grade and middle school, to
look at what leads to the successful geek and, better yet, the
well-rounded geek.
Unfortunately, middle school can be hell on earth, both for geeks and
non-geeks alike. Puberty and scholarly rigor both strike
simultaneously. But what doesn't actually kill us makes us stronger,
as the old saying goes.
What middle school should do for us is to teach us how to find our
passions and show us a path toward achieving them. Sampling the
liberal and other arts may sow the seed of a passion.
That passion may open a path that looks impossibily steep when you're
14 years old. Do you like music? A typical musician in the Cincinnati
Orchestra has worked for 15 years to hone his or her skills and
theoretical knowledge of music, an amazingly complex and deep subject.
Just take it one step at a time. Yes, we are coming to realize we are
facing a world where everyone has to become a specialist in a
technical field. And even then there is no guarantee of a good paying
job. But your efforts will pay off in providing you a rich inner life.
This is where being well rounded will save your life. While you work
hard and fight for the job of your dreams, you will have the
resiliency you got from your well-rounded curriculum to get you by. If
you get out of middle school without identifying at least one passion
you can get lost in, your teachers have failed you. You need that
experience in order to be able to identify the next passion in life as
it comes along.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Third Flatiron Publishing: My New Venture
I've recently begun a new publishing venture, Third Flatiron
Publishing, LLC. I plan to publish eBooks of the science
fiction/fantasy genre.
I've long been interested in trying my hand at fiction writing as
well, but this publishing thing is new. As I explored the marketplace
for writing, I discovered that the bar for getting into publishing is
much lower nowadays than when I started out as a writer/editor in the
1970s. Ebooks are the coming thing, and I hope to get on the wave.
It's easier to write a business plan because it's easier to survey the
marketplace via such resources as Duotrope.com and Ralan.com. It's
easier to set up a "storefront" via such services as BlueHost.com, which
offers easy website management tools such as liveSite.
It's easier to distribute online via services such as Smashwords.com. Yes,
they will take a cut of everything that sells, but they provide
services like formatting for a variety of eReaders, providing free
ISBNs, and distributing to vendors such as Barnes and Noble and iTunes.
I believe that three items will determine the success or failure of
Third Flatiron: content, pricing, and positioning.
Content: I'm thrilled that I am already getting strong content from
writers all over the Internet who are beginning to submit to Third
Flatiron. My first three issues will be SF/Fantasy anthologies. I
should be able to purchase a dozen or so good stories for each
anthology.
Pricing: I still have a lot to learn in this regard. I fully expect to
lose money at first while I'm still learning. At first I'm going to
pay writers a flat rate, but if they sell well, I'll take my cut but
offer them some royalties.
Positioning: Ditto. This will be the trickiest area, I think. I've
spent my life as a creative writer rather than a business-oriented
publisher, so I will need to learn how to market my writers. I
certainly plan to do what I can. Facebook and blogging ought to help.
So, if you want to write good SF and get paid a little something to do
it, check out our site at http://www.thirdflatiron.com.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Decemberists at Boulder Theater
Mountain Man opened for the Decemberists last night at the Boulder
Theater. This trio of young ladies did a mostly a cappella set that
showed off their haunting voices. On some songs, they sounded like
Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss, blending a raw sound with a sweet
sound, while on others they whimsically twisted melodies like Joanna
Newsom. They even did a creditable job on medieval rounds. They
weren't musicians, but their voices made admirable instruments in
themselves. Amazingly, the audience was completely quiet during the
whole performance.
The Boulder Theater has an unfortunate tendency not to introduce
opening acts. Sometimes it isn't necessary, but I hadn't heard of this
band before. My only complaint is that when I first heard their name,
I thought it was "Mountain Maam." Sounded right to me...
The Portland-based Decemberists band came with a large contingent,
including organ, accordian, pedal steel guitar, plus the dulcet singing and
fiddle playing of former Nickel Creek member Sara Watkins.
Lead singer/songwriter Colin Meloy led with "Down by the Water" from
their new album, "The King Is Dead." While Boulder philosophically is
a sister city to Portland, large bodies of water don't occupy a large
part of our pysches. For example, a recent song by Colorado singer
Danielle Ate the Sandwich mentions crawling under a barbed wire fence
to visit a lake.
Meloy got the audience to participate in a rousing sea shanty by
assigning them the part of a person being swallowed by a whale. Much
shrieking and moaning was required. Another audience favorite was "16
Military Wives."
Meloy is a master of romantic songwriting as well, on tunes such as
"O, Valencia!" The new song, "We Both Go Down Together," about
star-crossed love would bring tears to the eyes of any couple.
A warm ending to a snowy night was "June Hymn," a lush recounting of
the return of spring. In land-locked Boulder, we realized yet again
that the spring the Decemberists know is hothouse exotic to us--ivy in
trees? Yellow bonnets? Training jasmine?
Theater. This trio of young ladies did a mostly a cappella set that
showed off their haunting voices. On some songs, they sounded like
Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss, blending a raw sound with a sweet
sound, while on others they whimsically twisted melodies like Joanna
Newsom. They even did a creditable job on medieval rounds. They
weren't musicians, but their voices made admirable instruments in
themselves. Amazingly, the audience was completely quiet during the
whole performance.
The Boulder Theater has an unfortunate tendency not to introduce
opening acts. Sometimes it isn't necessary, but I hadn't heard of this
band before. My only complaint is that when I first heard their name,
I thought it was "Mountain Maam." Sounded right to me...
The Portland-based Decemberists band came with a large contingent,
including organ, accordian, pedal steel guitar, plus the dulcet singing and
fiddle playing of former Nickel Creek member Sara Watkins.
Lead singer/songwriter Colin Meloy led with "Down by the Water" from
their new album, "The King Is Dead." While Boulder philosophically is
a sister city to Portland, large bodies of water don't occupy a large
part of our pysches. For example, a recent song by Colorado singer
Danielle Ate the Sandwich mentions crawling under a barbed wire fence
to visit a lake.
Meloy got the audience to participate in a rousing sea shanty by
assigning them the part of a person being swallowed by a whale. Much
shrieking and moaning was required. Another audience favorite was "16
Military Wives."
Meloy is a master of romantic songwriting as well, on tunes such as
"O, Valencia!" The new song, "We Both Go Down Together," about
star-crossed love would bring tears to the eyes of any couple.
A warm ending to a snowy night was "June Hymn," a lush recounting of
the return of spring. In land-locked Boulder, we realized yet again
that the spring the Decemberists know is hothouse exotic to us--ivy in
trees? Yellow bonnets? Training jasmine?
Monday, April 19, 2010
The Bravery in Breck
We trundled up to Breckenridge this weekend to see The Bravery, who
played before a small crowd for the Spring Massive (end of the ski
season).
This post-punk band out of New York has spent most of the past five
years being huge in the U.K. Amazingly (to me), the show was
free. Maybe they haven't been as big in the U.S., but I felt they have
a Springsteen-like charisma and thought the show was fantastic. There
were a lot of kids in the audience, so lead singer Sam Endicott showed
admirable restraint and only dropped the F bomb once or twice, while
bass player Mike Hindert kept his clothes on.
Endicott has a Robert Smith-like voice, so some of their songs sound
like the Cure. But the band can also rock hard. Drumming talent is key
to punk rock (think Green Day, for whom they opened last year), and
Anthony Burulcich has it in spades.
Highlights were "Believe," "An Honest Mistake," and "Time Won't Let Me
Go."
The band attempted to do a song in praise of summer, "Hey Sunshiney
Day." I think Coloradans are spoiled and believe sunshine is a
birthright. Songs with this theme (e.g., "One Day Like This" by Elbow)
are a lifeline to people suffering the drear of another gray day.
Now to download some more of their songs...
played before a small crowd for the Spring Massive (end of the ski
season).
This post-punk band out of New York has spent most of the past five
years being huge in the U.K. Amazingly (to me), the show was
free. Maybe they haven't been as big in the U.S., but I felt they have
a Springsteen-like charisma and thought the show was fantastic. There
were a lot of kids in the audience, so lead singer Sam Endicott showed
admirable restraint and only dropped the F bomb once or twice, while
bass player Mike Hindert kept his clothes on.
Endicott has a Robert Smith-like voice, so some of their songs sound
like the Cure. But the band can also rock hard. Drumming talent is key
to punk rock (think Green Day, for whom they opened last year), and
Anthony Burulcich has it in spades.
Highlights were "Believe," "An Honest Mistake," and "Time Won't Let Me
Go."
The band attempted to do a song in praise of summer, "Hey Sunshiney
Day." I think Coloradans are spoiled and believe sunshine is a
birthright. Songs with this theme (e.g., "One Day Like This" by Elbow)
are a lifeline to people suffering the drear of another gray day.
Now to download some more of their songs...
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