Kool Aid Served Daily

If you were to ask me before I got my iPod Nano what my favorite songs were by The Clash, I would have said, in no order:

• This is Radio Clash
• Rock The Casbah
• Should I Stay or Should I Go?

I got the Nano while away from the house, I didn't have access to my CDs. So I bought some at Fry's (Remember, all of your best returns are at Fry's!). One of them was The Singles. And now I see that I have a song I like more than the above 3 - Know Your Rights. What I find really interesting is that it really highlights for me the Open Source movement. You have the right to run the OS you want on your computer.

A lot of what The Clash promote is social commentary. Even though I wasn't born in the US, I am a son of middle class America. I'm an Oklahoma liberal, which makes me a California conservative. The first three songs I listed were popular, for good reason. Back when they came out, I couldn't appreciate them for what they were. But I'm not the person I was back then - I'm way more confident, way more independent, way more open minded (not that I was ever very closed minded), and a lot more willing to try different things.

One manifestation of that is that I'm not the die hard rocker I was back then. I happen to remember Disco and the whole "Disco must Die" sentiment. By the way, I still like songs like Funkytown, Play that Funky Music, Brick House, etc. I really appreciate the influence of that music style.

Back to The Clash, I was born in the UK and spent a chunk of my childhood growing up in Europe. I have all these experiences which don't translate into typical American culture. I laugh at jokes on shows like The Young Ones and sometimes can't explain why. But I'm also not your typical European - my father was in the Air Force. I still support a strong military presence.

I recall more of the social unrest in the UK than I do of Vietnam. My uncle died in Vietnam in 1968, but I never met him. Most of my father's brothers served in the Armed Forces. On my mother's side of my family, my cousins, aunts, and uncles, etc, lived in similar circumstances as The Clash. Just account for mostly being a bit more north, i.e., Scotland.

In Scotland, I was always taunted as being American. In America, I was always teased as being Scotish.

When I listen to songs like The Call Up:

It's up to you not to heed the call-up
'N' you must not act the way you were brought up
Who knows the reasons why you have grown up?
Who knows the plans or why they were drawn up?

I can support their view to protest drafts/wars. But I also believe that nations should maintain standing armies. Look at Vietnam, we went in Gung-Ho and ended up not supporting our troops once public opinion went South. Now look at Iraq, we went in Gung-Ho and as backlash to the way the public treated returning Vets back in the Vietnam era, we say, "I don't support Bush, but of course I support our boys."

It is hard to balance liberal and conservative - and trying to explain it is almost as bad. Perhaps it is best to say that I consider and challenge my belief systems. As for our involvement in Iraq, I don't support the reasons we went there, but I do believe that as a society we must be willing to die for our belief system. I understand my uncle didn't want to join the Army, didn't want to go to Vietnam, and probably didn't want to die. But the society survived.

Perhaps I shouldn't mix my idealism with reality. I don't have the fervent support of the military as others I know, but I also don't condemn them as butchers.

I'm neither here to expouse a political view nor to argue that Open Source is your fourth right. No, I think the fourth right is your right to be able to apply music to your life. I laugh at RIAA attempts to control access to music recordings - it isn't the media which is important, it is how the music makes you feel. I've got Queen's Another One Bites The Dust playing and the Disco influence really comes through clear. But, what is really ironic is all of those white middle class teenagers in the late 1970s and early 1980s who denounced Disco, yet every weekend strode onto the football field with that song blaring out on the loudspeakers. The song meant something else to them, they owned it, and probably still do in their memories.