Musings, rants, and commentary from southpaw songwriter Andersen Silva.
It's June 6th. Many years ago today ("It's been 84 years, and I can still smell the fresh paint..."), I was one of many young men in my Paterson, NJ high school protesting the dress code (no shorts for guys, despite the heat) by wearing a skirt in school. (We got the policy changed!) Even more years before that, over 150,000 Allied soldiers invaded Normandy to liberate France (and much of western…
Happy May Day. It's also another Bandcamp Friday, so yeah, I'm plugging "Dangerous Babies" again. I know I'm biased, but it just seems to fit the times so well. I'll Live by Andersen Silva I'm well-pleased to report that not only am I playing guitar regularly again (every day for the past week and a half or so, and my calluses are building back up), I've also started working on a few new bits and…
In support of today's National Shutdown , I'm not going to work (ha) or shop today. This country is in serious need of an ICE breaker. Whatever your feelings on immigration (I'm the son of immigrants, and have had countless immigrant friends, classmates, neighbors, and colleagues), it's clear that putting masked, jackbooted thugs on the ground in American cities, on the streets of Minneapolis and…
Ten years ago tomorrow, on David Bowie's 69th birthday, his album Blackstar was released. And what an album. I'm still mesmerized, and haunted, by the music video for "Lazarus." Bowie died two days later, leaving Blackstar as a fitting swan song. He is probably the one musical artist I could have seen live that I most regret never having seen, though at least I did get to see Bernard Fowler,…
This morning, I had a heart attack. Probably not great for my health, but... sure was tasty. Mmm, pumpernickel... Of course, the 'heart attack' in question was Taylor ham, bacon, sausage, egg, and cheese on a pumpernickel bagel. Not the sort of thing I should consume with any regularity, but since I've lost five pounds (weight, not currency) since last month, I decided I could afford it. Seems the…
My long, storied career with Microwize Technology is coming to an end. You won't believe what happens next! Well, OK, maybe you will. I can't really say, because I don't yet know what happens next. 21 Years at Microwize I've been with my current employer almost as long as some of my colleagues have been alive. Not an exaggeration. I started with Microwize in January 2004, several weeks after…
Most people don't have any concepts of a plan of an idea what the hell a phone app is. They were hiding all the cats and dogs on National Taco Day. Why are National Coffee Day and Inter national Coffee Day just two days apart? Someone's not drinking enough coffee, or maybe too much. What's that? The rules were that you guys weren't going to fact-check! Bandcamp Friday Anyway, International Music…
You can: keep #AllEyesOnRafah but still want peace and security for Israel, too support a people's/nation's right to exist and thrive in peace without excusing the violent actions of those claiming to defend it separate the behavior of a regime from the will of its people support an ideology, a policy, a political party or person without demonizing and threatening those opposed defend an…
Well, this doesn't bode well. Two weeks ago, Epic Games, which had purchased the online audio distribution platform Bandcamp back in early 2022, surprised Bandcamp's employees by announcing that over 800 of them would be laid off and the platform was being sold to Songtradr , a music licensing marketplace. Needless to say, this did not sit well with the Bandcamp staff, whose union has launched a…
I've been neglecting this 'blog... but, no, really I haven't. Fact is, I know barely anyone reads my posts anyway, and that's OK. Living life is better than writing about it anyway, as much as I enjoy writing. So I've been doing some of that, and hopefully you (whoever you are) have been as well. There's been some travel. My trip to Egypt last year was incredible, of course; this year began with…
I made it to Egypt this month. My employer, Microwize Technology , now has a team working in Cairo, and our CEO promised the rest of the management team and me late last year that if we hit a particular milestone in sales this year, he'd take us to Egypt (well, those of us who don't already live there). We did, and he did! It was great to meet in person many of my Egyptian colleagues, and to check…
Yep, another year older today. Gonna get a free coffee from Dunkin', and maybe a free donut from Duck Donuts, so there's that. Truth be told, I'm not bothered by birthdays. No, not even mine. It hasn't been the easiest year (and you're right, this is my first 'blog post since New Year's, no one seemed to miss 'em much), but it hasn't been 2020, either, and plenty of fun times were had and great…
2021, you really didn't need to take Betty White from us, too. That was just adding injury to insult (and injury). My year wasn't all bad, by any means. It did have some bad moments early on: namely, the debacle with getting the right kind of COVID-19 test within 72 hours of flying to Brazil with my mom in January, and then having the Lyft we were taking to the airport get T-boned and totalled ten…
After a long, long period of time, I'm going to be associated with a publication again; Practice of the Future will be launching soon! Well, the digital version is available already, but it's the printed copy I can't wait to get my hands on next week... I do some of the writing, and most of the proofreading/copyediting, for this quarterly healthcare-oriented magazine, and I've got to say I'm quite…
A year ago tonight, New Jersey went into lockdown, with 1,327 COVID-19 cases and 16 coronavirus-related deaths. One year on, the state is seeing more than that many new cases a day , and as of this writing we're at 762,407 cases, and 24,134 deaths. (I wrote this 'blog post the next day; that reminds me, I never did finish writing "Unexpected Pandemic Blues...") A year ago last Thursday, I did my…
Yeah, I know... but I swear that every word is true. I was supposed to fly to Brazil on Friday the 8th. My mom has to go every year in January, for reasons of pension and Brazilian bureaucracy, and the last few years I've gone with her. Normally I enjoy visiting Brazil; it's a beautiful country and I've got family there. This year, I wasn't looking forward to the trip so much, but eventually I…
Watching September approach this year, I was filled with a sense of... well, not dread, really. Wariness, and weariness, I suppose. While I've always considered fall my favorite season, and September is my birth month, it's been a more depressing month these past several years. You'd think Suicide Prevention Awareness Month would be a fun and cheerful time, but... The age thing really doesn't…
As a middle-aged, American-born, heterosexual cis white man, I- well, I just shut myself out of the conversation, didn't I? I've still got opinions, though, and they don't always line up neatly with (or against) my demographic... and I really need to vent. There's this ridiculous notion going around that one's "unalienable" right to liberty supersedes everyone else's reasonable expectation of…
If you're more bothered by images and video of riots and looting than you are by the knowledge that another black man, George Floyd, was indefensibly murdered by a cop, then you're part of the problem. That's not to say that you're a racist. But watching a man die slowly under another man's knee, for allegedly passing a counterfeit bill?!? And knowing that the murderer and his accomplices were not…
It's May Day, Labour Day, International Workers' Day... and hopefully more people understand now how important and underappreciated a lot of workers are. Healthcare professionals and other hospital workers, first responders, teachers, grocery store employees, truck drivers, postal workers, plumbers, sanitation workers, and so many more: they're essential. They make the world go round, they make a…
Oh, hey, from the locked-down state of New Jersey. The squirrels, my guitars, my computers, and I are all fine, thanks for asking. To be clear, the CDC and WHO both say don't wear masks unless you're sick or advised to by a doctor. I visited my mom yesterday. She lives 80+ miles from me, and I'd figured there was a good chance I wouldn't be able to go next weekend (this was before I learned of…
Tonight's fortune cookie contained inside it my attitude for 2020: "If you want it... take it." 2019, while not without its highlights and fun moments, was a hard year. Losing my father in early February took a lot out of me, for a long time. Seeing Amanda Palmer in April (and learning more about her struggles and sorrows), and Aimee Mann in July, and Tessa Violet in August, and Tegan and Sara in…
Yes, I'm taking another stab (and slash, and burn...) at NaNoWriMo , National Novel Writing Month, this November. 50,000 words? Pshaw. My ninja! I first planned to tackle writing a novel called They Might Be Roses for NaNoWriMo in 2012 . Then Hurricane Sandy hit, and a planned flight to Louisville, Kentucky was canceled, forcing me to drive instead, and... suffice it to say, I didn't get much…
I'm asking my local(ish) friends to join me on my birthday, Sunday, Sept. 29th, at the New York Renaissance Faire in Tuxedo. Yes, it's a drive. No, it's not free, or cheap. Yes, the weather is unpredictable. But, hey, I'm gonna go (though if the weather looks like it'll be particularly unpleasant as the date approaches, I might switch to Saturday instead), and I'd really like to see friends there,…
My father would have been 75 today. (And what would have been his 51st wedding anniversary was two weeks ago, and he and my mom first came to the US 49 years ago last month.) While he was already in the final stages of his fight against lymphoma, which had metastasized, by the time my parents traveled to Brazil at the end of last year, catching pneumonia there proved to be too much for his…