Link to Sweeney

Hi.

Some of you got here via a link on my CD. There's another CD I'd like to draw your attention to. Most of the copies of both CDs have links to both pages, but some don't, so here it is.

http://tcsweeney.blogspot.com/

This will take you to information that goes with a CD called "The Ricochet Project" by T. C. Sweeney. TC was a very good friend of mine, who passed away early in 2002. These are among the best recordings of his own songs, and I am proud to have been a part of them. I hope you enjoy the blog, and the CD.

Some more from Rough Edges

Hi. Doin' the Rough Edges CD back to front.

12 - Loser

Wrote this one in the late '80's for my wife, Lynn. She deserves an opera or something, but this is what I did. Sorry, honey. ;> Actually, I kind of like this song, or I wouldn't have included it. It's done solo with 1 acoustic guitar, tuned to a deep-C tuning

13 - F15 / Woodstock Nation

This is a two-part thing. F15 refers to a repeating rhythm pattern of 3 5's, into a riff and jam, and then cut away to a poem. The poem was written in Sacramento, CA late one night. California Public Television was running the movie "Woodstock" on its 15th anniversary, and it made me think of all the changes I'd been through since that time. The Woodstock Music and Arts Festival took place the weekend of my 14th birthday, and though I was not there, it had a profound effect on me.

I should also mention that the recording of this piece was different from the rest of the collection. This, like most of the rest of the CD, is me on guitar and vocals with the rest coming from a sequencer and synthesizers. Where as the others arranged this way were recorded piecemeal into a 4-track cassette deck, this one was done live, in stereo, into a home deck. Everything into my little 6-channel mixer and done live, in one take.

14 - BC-AD

I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior on March 14, 1984. The church I went to was a little house church in Sacramento, CA named Heart Ministries, which was a mission of a local Southern Baptist fellowship. By mid-April, there were five new believers who wanted to be baptized, including myself.

The Pastor, a dear friend named Jim Arnold who is now a missionary in Thailand, asked each of us to take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the center. On one side we should write "BC," and on the other, "AD." On it, we should write down what we thought of ourselves, what we perceived our friends and family thinking of us, and what we think God thought of us before accepting Christ and after. I took his idea a step further and wrote this song. I got to play it at my baptism on April 15, 1984.

When news breaks, we fix it!

Clark Kent. That was my hero when I was a very small child. Not Superman, oh no. Superman was cool, all right. Being able to fly would be neat, eat bullets, pick up cars, walk through walls . . . Didn't they have doors on Krypton?

But it was Clark Kent who was the crusading journalist. He, along with Lois Lane and that little twerp Olson, exposed corruption and dragged it kicking and screaming out into the light. He was the one who rooted out the evidence that put the bad guys behind bars. He was the one who stood up for truth, justice, and the American way. Superman just mopped up the mess when the two dough-heads got into trouble.

That's why I wanted to be a journalist. I was, and am, idealistic, and I saw that as a way to fight for my ideals. Too bad it didn't work out that way. Oh, well.

What disappointed me was the real world of journalism. And, to be honest, it continues to do so. There are no Clark Kents, but there are many who see themselves that way. To be fair, corruption is a lot more complicated than it was for George Reeves.

One problem is the illusion of an unbiased source of news. There simply is no such thing. Truth, simple pure truth, nothing-but-the-facts truth, can be packaged and shaped in so many ways. This was questioned once by a friend of mine, who insisted that the newspaper that he preferred was unbiased. At that time, we happened to each have a copy of our favorite newspapers for that day on hand. There was a story that appeared in both, regarding what was seen as a congressional victory for President Bush. Both papers ran the exact same story, reprinting word for word what had been sent to them over the Associated Press wire. But, the paper that was perceived as more conservative ran the story on page 1, above the fold, with a rather large photo of Mr. Bush, smiling. The more liberal paper ran it on the back page of the first section, with no photo and a much smaller headline. You can draw your own conclusions.

Again, if journalism is supposed to be about reporting the truth, why not report the truth about the journalist? Why doesn't the New York Times come right out and say what their editorial stance is? Or the Washington times? CNN and Fox News should both shout their biases from the highest sattelite dish. It's not like nobody knows already, fer hevvin's sake.

One of the most celebrated journalists in American history was William Lloyd Garrison. He was one of the heroes of the emancipation, and is almost always referred to as the publisher of an "Abolitionist Newspaper." What does that mean? Was there nothing but abolitionist diatribes printed on its pages? They had no other stories? No court reports? No sports section? No funnies? If something happened in Boston, or Washington DC, they only reported the abolitionist aspects of the story? I would guess it was a newspaper much like any other newspaper. It was probably read by people who could have cared less about the abolition of slavery, and just wanted to know what was going on in the world. After all, a newspaper is a business that has to attract readers, or it will go out of business.

That brings us to the other major problem that I have with modern journalism; the lengths that a news source will go to in order to make money. The worst offenders are television journalists, and most of all the 24-hour news channels. When CNN was the only game in town, they actually did a very good job of showing the broader picture, and keeping their own fingers out of the mix. For the most part, I will admit that I like Fox News Channel, and certainly prefer their point of view, but there's a lot of times they fall far short of the mark.

The latest example is the death of Anna Nichole Smith. I agree that it is a significant event, especially considering all the controversy surrounding the circumstances, the estate, and the young child she left behind. Still, the facts would be easy to report, and updates even moreso. So why do CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC insist on talking about it practically all the time? Isn't there any other news in the world? Do these people know that there was a coup in Thailand recently? The only way I knew was that a friend of mine who's a missionary there told me in an email.

Trouble is, there isn't much money to be made talking about the Thailand coup. CNN tried an all-international-news channel a while ago, and it bombed. It was good, but not glamorous. Sometimes I think I learned more back when we saw the news for a half hour every evening. Back in the day, there were three networks, and we lived in a very rural area, and could only get two of them. The news would come on right about dinnertime, and Howard K. Smith or Frank Reynolds would run through the main stories of the day. If you wanted more detail, you picked up a paper.

It's why I continue to listen regularly to National Public Radio. They cover a wide range of topics, and do it in depth, and even leave out the commercials. There is a certain pattern that you have to get used to, though. It's rather annoying, really, but you have to put up with it if you want to hear about anything besides Anna Nichole Smith. It goes kind of like this:

1) There's a problem somewhere.

2) Several people tell heartfelt stories about the problem, and how it affects them.

3) It turns out that the government knows about the problem, and somebody is trying to get them to spend money to solve it.

4) Heinous, selfish, power-mad people in the government don't want to spend the money. Their side of the story is told by people who are fat, rich, old, and white. You can tell, even on the radio.

5) If you're really lucky, you'll get to hear how desperate the people with the problem are again.

But don't you DARE imply that National Public Radio is biased. Oh, no. Not Superman. Or CNN, or the Washington Times, or Manchester Union Leader, or Fox News, or the New York Times, or . . .

Rough Edges

Hi. For the legion of PPLS readers out there (sound of crickets chirping) just want to say, sorry it took so long for me to stick more stuff on here. Those of you who have the Rough Edges CD were promised content here, and so here it is. And, since things show up here in the order they're posted, I should start with the end of the album.

Bob's Cliche City
East Chahunga Dragway
Limestone for Mayor

These are the last three cuts on the disc. They were made roughly 1989-1991 when I was a DJ at WPNH radio in Plymouth, NH. I used to work there one night a week, doing the overnight Friday show, and when they stopped broadcasting 24/7 the late night Saturday slot. Given the odd hour, I was pretty much free to do whatever I pleased. Mwahahahaha!!

So, I started doing my own fake commercials, which I mixed in with the real ones. And, this is three of them. I stuck them at the end so that you wouldn't have to suffer through them while listening to the music. By the way, I should mention that East Chahunga was an invention of Marcus Jennings, "the Doctor of Rock and Roll," one of WPNH's regular hosts. To be honest, I've forgotten his real name, but he was (and I'm sure, is) a great guy and an excellent DJ. He eventually got offered a better job in Buffalo, which is his home town. If you're out there, Doc, thanks for everything.

WPNH is still on the air, but it's now part of a conglomerate. The FM and AM signals are both satellited in from, I think, Boston. The building the studios used to be in was sold, and later torn down, and they've not had live on-air talent for ages now. Dirty little secret time: Back in the day, we used to say that the station's call letter stood for We Please No Human.