The No Fear Pioneer, Episode 4: Independence Day

Happy Independence Day! Episode 4 of “The No Fear Pioneer” is up!

Independence Day 2012

“Independence Day”. Let’s start by calling it that again. I’ve been trying to break myself of the “4th of July” habit, which waters the holiday down to a phrase that carries almost no meaning.

This year’s Independence Day finds me contemplating and worrying about the significance of the Roberts court ObamaCare ruling, and what it is likely to mean for the future of our Republic founded in Liberty. Have we, as it appears, chosen Safety over Liberty in a bargain that Ben Franklin warned us would yield neither, and thus forfeited the latter to encroachment by an ever-expanding central government designed to take care of us like helpless children? Some smart people who I respect say it’s not as bad as it looks, and I’m weighing their reasoning, but I have yet to feel I’ve reached any sort of confident conclusion on the matter.

That said: Never, never, never, never give up.

Here’s my slightly refreshed Independence Day playlist for this year, which I promise is more upbeat than the above. See my previous years’ Independence Day archives for other song recommendations. Enjoy!

1. Five for Fighting, “Slice” (iTunes, Amazon)
2. Five for Fighting, “Note to the Unknown Soldier” (iTunes, Amazon)
3. Chris Ross, “Liberty” (iTunes)
4. Krista Branch, “Remember Who We Are” (iTunes)
5. Aretha Franklin, “Think” (iTunes, Amazon)
6. Jon David, “American Heart” (iTunes, Amazon)
7. Stuck Mojo, “I’m American” (iTunes, Amazon, blog)
8. Rush, “Freewill” (iTunes, Amazon
9. Madeleine Peyroux, “This is Heaven to Me” (iTunes, Amazon, blog)
10. Ray Charles, “America the Beautiful” (iTunes)
11. Oscar Peterson Trio, “Hymn to Freedom” (iTunes, Amazon)

ps - The venture I started last year has been progressing nicely. I’m having the time of my life, and working toward an end-of-summer launch for the app I’ve been working on. More to come!

Declaring My Independence

I’m about to make some big changes in my life, and it’s hard to imagine a better occasion to announce them.

After nine challenging, rewarding, and at times arduous years working at a Silicon Valley company that was once a garage startup itself, I’m amicably parting ways with my employer to pursue my own projects as an independent software developer.

I’ve had the entrepreneurial bug for a while now, and a new job for my wife that requires us to move cross-country has had the welcome effect of forcing/facilitating Decision Time. We’ve put our house on the market, and later this month will be moving to lovely Packanack Lake, New Jersey. I’ll have a couple months of working remotely for my previous employer ahead, to tie up loose ends and leave my areas of responsibility in the best shape I can, but come October 1st I’ll be striking off in pursuit of my own American Dream — which, to me, means taking a chance on myself and my ideas and aspirations, embracing risk and challenge, and developing my talents to their fullest, with the hope of producing things that other people find useful, and in the process making the work I love my living. I’m grateful to have enjoyed something close to that in my current job, but this is an opportunity to own the entire creative process from end to end, to challenge and take chances on my own design sense, and to pursue areas of application that serve other markets.

I’m tremendously excited, and am positively chomping at the bit to get started. There are plenty of logistics to take care of between here and Day One, but I feel lighter with the knowledge that I’ve committed to this new course, and that I’m giving myself permission to do the very things I yearn to. I also hope this change will enable me to do more writing here, and I mean to include among that writing the story of my startup venture as it unfolds.

As I set my sights on this Big Dream (and, when I think those words, Bill Whittle’s “Trinity” (part 2 here) is on my mind as having so brilliantly put into words what I feel about it), in the forefront of my thoughts is a deep and abiding appreciation for a culture that, in its very bones, cherishes, celebrates, and strives to exhort exactly this kind of big dreaming. What I’m setting out to achieve is exactly what a culture founded on the individual right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness designed itself for. My gratitude for this opportunity is immense, and I mean to make use of it to achieve great things, while always remembering my debt to those who took tremendous risks before me to make it all possible.

More to come later, but I wanted to share the exciting news. I can’t wait to write more about this new adventure.

Wishing my American friends a very joyous and grateful Independence Day!

Independence Day 2010

In last year’s Independence Day post, I offered a playlist of my favorite Liberty-themed songs. This year, it’s going to be a brief, issue-focused post for me, as what I want most is to direct readers’ attention to a very important but uncertain new initiative:

Bill Whittle, PJTV commentator who first gained admiration and notoriety for his brilliant and eminently worthwhile “Silent America” Essays, has chosen July 4th, 2010 to launch “Declaration Entertainment”. By all means, watch this 4½-minute welcome video that explains what it’s all about:

See Bill’s 3-minute “Pioneers” video for more.

Pipe dream? Perhaps. Can it work? I honestly don’t know. But Bill has a plan, and he’s doing something, and while I hold out great hope that his idea will succeed tremendously, I greatly admire his initiative independent of the result. Because to me, this really matters.

Many of us have watched with increasing despair over the years, as the Hollywood we thought we knew growing up — one whose craft once promoted and unabashedly celebrated classically American values such as optimism, confidence, self-reliance, entrepreneurship, and heroism (including the heroism of American soldiers who risked everything fighting for the freedom of others) — has gradually transformed into the preeminent domestic broadcaster of anti-Americanism, social criticism, ambivalence, nihilism, and ennui. From the content it now produces to the invective its glitterati deliver from the pulpits of self-congratulatory awards ceremonies, Hollywood has mainstreamed the culture of shame, cynicism, social criticism, and self-loathing that was once largely the preoccupation of a small, bitter niche of radical-left academia.

Those of us who’ve felt this despair have realized that today’s Hollywood does not speak for us, our values, or our outlook. We’ve felt helpless to do anything but stop buying a product that routinely insults and vilifies us. Yet, for reasons that Declaration Entertainment’s introductory video explains, this strategy of passive withdrawal exerts no significant economic influence on the content that a now internationally-funded Hollywood produces, for what has become first and foremost a worldwide audience. I believe we’ll learn that it’s not enough to economically reject repellent content and its Hollywood creators. We ultimately need to find other ways of getting our own movies made, of producing and promoting alternative content that positively reflects our values and confidence in our culture.

Remember when School House Rock distilled the essence of the American Idea into educational and genuinely celebratory Saturday morning shorts such as “No More Kings”, “The Shot Heard Round the World”, “Elbow Room”, “The Preamble”, “Sufferin’ ‘til Suffrage”, and “Fireworks”? Watch them again (or most anything else of that era), with the eyes of 2010, and think long and hard about the tremendous change that’s occurred in our popular culture. Can you imagine educational shorts like these being produced and broadcast today? Why not? Would you ever, back in those days, have predicted such a transformation of attitudes?

It’s not supposed to be like this.

We have a choice.

If we care enough, we can usher in a new Renaissance of the American Idea.

Bill’s ambitious plan for “Declaration Entertainment” could, I sincerely hope, be the start of that.

Remember when we believed in us:

ps - Now that I’ve thoroughly depressed you: Go enjoy some uplifting music!

Independence Day 2009

With the signing of America’s Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, the bravest members of our founding generation pledged “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor”, assuming tremendous personal risk so that an independent nation of free people, the like of which the world had never seen, might have its chance at an anything-but-certain beginning. Today — two hundred and thirty-three years later — we are still free because of their vision, courage, and sacrifice.

I’ll be out celebrating today with my wife, her mother, and our four-month-old son, starting with a neighborhood parade in the morning (we’ve got our son’s stroller all decorated!), then on to enjoy other parades and festivities in Foster City and maybe Redwood City, wrapping up with watching fireworks (of course!) that I hope our little guy is still awake to see.

In celebration of the occasion, I offer a playlist of some of my favorite liberty-themed songs, along with this concluding passage quoted from Stephen Vincent Benét’s 1941 radio script “Listen to the People”, which I’ve mentioned before and highly recommend reading in its entirety. Its words ring as true today as ever.

Find it and keep it and hold on to it,
For there’s a buried thing in all of us,
Deeper than all the noise of the parade,
The thing the haters never understand
And never will, the habit of the free.
Out of the flesh, out of the minds and hearts
Of thousand upon thousand common men,
Cranks, martyrs, starry-eyed enthusiasts,
Slow-spoken neighbors, hard to push around,
Women whose hands were gentle with their kids
And men with a cold passion for mere justice.
We made this thing, this dream.
This land unsatisfied by little ways,
Open to every man who brought good will,
This peaceless vision, groping for the stars,
Not as a huge devouring machine
Rolling and clanking with remorseless force
Over submitted bodies and the dead
But as live earth where anything could grow,
Your crankiness, my notions and his dream,
Grow and be looked at, grow and live or die.
But get their chance of growing and the sun.
We made it and we make it and it’s ours.
We shall maintain it. It shall be sustained.

---

Following are some favorites new and old from my music library, with iTunes and Amazon links provided for your convenience. The songs span a range of styles/genres, such that I’m not sure this holds together incredibly well as a mix album, but on the upside there should be a little something in here for everybody (and I love ‘em all).

1. Steve Vai, “Liberty” (iTunes, Amazon)
2. Jon David, “American Heart” (iTunes, Amazon)
3. Aretha Franklin, “Think” (iTunes, Amazon)
4. The Cult, “Wake Up Time For Freedom” (iTunes, Amazon)
5. Harold Faltermeyer & Steve Stevens, “Top Gun Anthem”
   (iTunes, Amazon)
6. Stuck Mojo, “I’m American” (iTunes, Amazon, blog)
7. Rush, “Freewill” (iTunes, Amazon
8. Ella Fitzgerald, “Don’t Fence Me In” (iTunes, Amazon)
9. Five for Fighting, “Freedom Never Cries” (iTunes, Amazon)
10. Five for Fighting, “Johnny America” (iTunes, Amazon)
11. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, “American Girl” (iTunes, Amazon)
12. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, “Into the Great Wide Open”
    (iTunes, Amazon)
13. Madeleine Peyroux, “This is Heaven to Me” (iTunes, Amazon, blog)
14. Oscar Peterson Trio, “Hymn to Freedom” (iTunes, Amazon)

Steve Vai’s glorious 1990 guitar anthem “Liberty” spills over with soaring celebratory joy, and is about as natural a first track for a playlist as they come. Jon David’s “American Heart” is a brand new favorite I just discovered two days ago, thanks to a recommendation from my good Twitter friend, songwriter @ConservativeLA. With its timely message, it won me over instantly. “Go on, raise the flag / I’ve got stars in my eyes / I’m in love with her / and I won’t apologize.”

Some of my selections aren’t specifically patriotic songs, but fit the broader theme of freedom in some way. I put Aretha Franklin’s “Think” next because I just love, love, love it when she busts out with gospel verve singing “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!”. After having that bit stuck in my head for ages, I finally identified the song it was from this year. Love it.

The Cult’s “Wake Up Time For Freedom” is next. I just couldn’t resist. (The entire “Sonic Temple” album rocks mightily, by the way, and is a must-have.)

Next up, another great guitar anthem, the end title theme from “Top Gun”. This soars with so much of Eddie Van Halen’s phrasing style that I’ve always mistakenly attributed it to him. A great, soaring track that ages well in my book.

I wrote about Stuck Mojo’s “I’m American” last month — another much enjoyed new discovery this year, also thanks to @ConservativeLA. “Hate me, blame me / You can’t shame me / Come and stand with me / I’m American.” Rock. On.

Then it’s “Freewill” by Canadian prog-rock power trio Rush, as great a celebration of freedom in music as I’ve heard. The live version I linked to is from the same, excellent “Exit…Stage Left” album whose “Red Barchetta” inspired the title of my blog.

As with many a Cole Porter song, Ella Fitzgerald sings “Don’t Fence Me In” like no one else can. A truly great and fun song and a timeless classic beautifully done; one of my wife’s favorites too.

John Ondrasik writes and sings some truly great original songs under the hockey-inspired band name Five for Fighting, and has been a loyal supporter of America’s deployed fighting men and women. “Freedom Never Cries” is a timely meditation on taking our freedom for granted, and the way events can wake us up to a renewed appreciation of its preciousness. “I took a flag to a pawnshop / for a broken guitar / I took a flag to a pawnshop / How much is that guitar? / What’s a flag in a pawnshop to me?” The next track I’ve included, “Johnny America”, picks up the mood with an unsurpassed expression of American optimism against all odds. “Here comes Johnny America / Riding hard up Mission Hill / Some say he’ll make it to the top today / Some say he never will / Though he’s just a child at heart / he’s old enough to fall / Nobody in a hundred years / can touch him, faults and all”

Tom Petty’s “American Girl” is just plain fun, and “Into the Great Wide Open” is to me a classic expression of the American Dream.

I put Madeleine Peyroux’s rendition of “This Is Heaven To Me” (a great song whose history I’m very interested in but haven’t managed to track down yet) next to last, because I just can’t manage to listen to it without getting all choked up with tears in my eyes. If there is a more perfect expression of what freedom means, sung with more beautiful grace, I haven’t heard it yet.

When I hear them say, there’s better livin’
Let them go their way, to that new livin’
I won’t ever stray
‘Cause this is Heaven, to me

‘Long as freedom grows, I want to seek it
If it’s “Yes” or “No”, it’s me who’ll speak it
‘Cause the Lord, he knows
That this is Heaven, to me

If you’ve got your hands, and got your feet
to sing your song all through the street
You’ll raise your head when the day is done,
shout your thanks up to the Sun

So when I hear them say there’s better livin’
Let them go their way, to that new livin’
I won’t ever stray, ‘cause this is Heaven, to me
‘Cause this is Heaven, to me…

I close the playlist out with a piano instrumental: Oscar Peterson’s by turns reverential, playful, and celebratory “Hymn to Freedom”. A true gem.

Hope you all find something new to enjoy in here. Wishing you a very happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day!

Have a happy and grateful Independence Day! I'm vacationing in Montana, where I'm looking forward to enjoying my first ever trip to a rodeo -- complete with 4th of July fireworks!

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Birthday, old friend. And thank you for the life you've made possible.

Cross the fearsome ocean,
brave the rolling seas
Show me to the Frontier,
where Men can scarcely be.

Leave me all the Risks
that go with being Free.
I'll gladly take the lot,
as the price of Liberty.

Happy Birthday, Old Friend.

This 4th of July weekend has found me busy working hard, but by the same token happily working away at something that I love dearly and am expending the time and effort on of my own free will. I wouldn't have it any other way. Today's a day for celebration though, and I'll be putting the work aside for a bit to enjoy some BBQ and fireworks.

As I penned in my journal a couple of years ago:

Give me all the risks
that go with being free.
I'll gladly take the lot
as the price of liberty.

Happy Birthday, Old Friend. And Thank You for the life I feel so fortunate to get to live.

Heaven, To Me

I'm making a slightly early Independence Day post, since I don't know whether I'll be able to get to a computer on the 4th.

I'll remember 2005 as the year I first had the pleasure of hearing Madeleine Peyroux sing “Heaven to Me”, which caught me by surprise and moved me to tears of joyful recognition. It expresses with quiet grace what's in my heart on this occasion, and every day:

When I hear them say, there's better livin’
Let them go their way, to that new livin’
I won't ever stray
‘Cause this is Heaven, to me

‘Long as freedom grows, I want to seek it
If it's “Yes” or “No”, it's me who'll speak it
‘Cause the Lord, he knows
That this is Heaven, to me

If you've got your hands, and got your feet
to sing your song all through the street
You'll raise your head when the day is done,
shout your thanks up to the Sun

So when I hear them say there's better livin’
Let them go their way, to that new livin’
I won't ever stray, ‘cause this is Heaven, to me
‘Cause this is Heaven, to me...

Happy Birthday, America. Thank you for my life and for my freedom, and for all the wonderful things that they have made possible.

And last but not least, heartfelt thanks beyond the power of my words to express, to those past and present who have risked all, and in some cases sacrificed all, that we might live the lives of free men and women. May we be worthy of all that they have given up for us.