Proposition 8

Yesterday was a rather different day. Morning news announced that California’s courts had rejected the overturning of Proposition 8. Which of course got the twittersphere and other social networks to run with people unhappy about it. Which is highly understandable. I’m not homosexual, but I believe that any two people the really want to get legally bound to each other ought to be able to.

After a good morning of recording, I spent some time running errands until I made it to dinner with some friends out of town. We ate at a place called Ketchup in West Hollywood. What was building in the area was insane. Across the street on the hill is a parking lot that was chocker full of sheriff cars, and trucks. Then came the helicopters.

I spent a little time after dinner talking to a musician (Bart Ryan) I recently met. He’s looking to join a PRO and was interested in my thoughts about SESAC. He’s got a nice rootsy, bluesy rock type of thing going on.

While this was going on Sunset Blvd was being shut down by a massive police force. Then came the march. I’m not sure how many people participated but it was fairly lengthy. Though I get the sense that there was probably a close ratio of 1:1 of police to demonstrators. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many police and sheriffs for an event. It was peaceable. I watched lots of the signs going by and most were informative and good. But one caught my eye and made me think that there is plenty of ignorance on both sides of the issue.

The sign said “Ban Mormon Marriages.” While I understand that the mormon church backed the ban of prop 8 and spent a lot of money to do so, I think the singling out of a particular ‘religion’ is kinda nutty. Especially when the sign refers to plural marriage. Maybe the creator of the sign didn’t mean to infer the concept of the original fundamentalist view of marriage, but they did and it’s one of those instances where I actually thought, wow – that was uncalled for (especially when the mormon population at large does not believe in plural marriage). Otherwise it was interesting to be there to watch it.

I had a song I wanted to play today however the music isn’t yet on iTunes and I figured it would be better to wait on it. Instead I found another song that might better represent the idea of why I think any two people ought to be able to bind themselves together. My Kinda Lover by Billy Squire.

A recognizable opening guitar riff. A melodically moving vocal and lots and lots of little production pieces of ear candy. It makes for a really fun thing to listen to. The song is great and probably works extremely well acoustically without all the tricks. But why settle right? Go all the way and push it out there. That’s what Billy did. That’s what protestors for prop 8 are doing. What are you doing?

Go get the song now! Enjoy yourself and your lover.