So, today my girlfriend and I spent the afternoon with some close friends of ours, a married couple with a child on the way, and as the day progressed, I found myself becoming more and more depressed. I’m an admitted commitment-phobe. I think people are under the impression that one’s fear of commitment is due to selfishness or an unwillingness to change. The assumption places the control of committing or not committing in the hands of the person who can not make that ultimate move. But a phobia, in my opinion, though curable, is uncontrollable. You can’t wake up one day and say I refuse to be afraid of spiders anymore! It just doesn’t work that way.

Anyway, the wife of the couple brought out their wedding pictures and that pretty much sunk me. The pictures looked so good and everyone in them looked so happy. I can’t deny that I want that. At least, I think I want that. The idea of actually doing it cripples me. My problem is I want certainty. I want someone to promise me that I will not be mired in misery a few years down the road. I want someone to tell me that I won’t wish my spouse dead in a few years. I want someone to promise me that I will have a lover and a best friend and not a roommate. Is that too much to ask for? And even if I were promised all of these things, would it bring me any closer to committing?

I’m 34 and I feel like the clock is ticking. I don’t want to be some old dude marrying a 20-something young vixen. I don’t want to be Cary Grant, do I? I mean, I like Cary Grant but he didn’t have his first kid until he was sixty-two. There’s a scene in When Harry Met Sally… where Sally says to Harry, “Charlie Chaplin had kids when he was 73.” And Harry responds, “Yeah, but he was too old to pick them up.” Funny but true. I want to be the one diapering and feeding my kids — not vice-versa.

I read this article on AskMen.com that explains why men are afraid of commitment. While I feel some of the writer’s claims are true, it also seems that he may be quite a bitter man. I too have been burned by women, but my vitriol is not quite as caustic and my hopes for something substantial in regards to committing aren’t completely dashed due to some slattern ruining my life. At the same time, I could relate to some of the things he said. I think the Wikipedia description of fear of commitment fits me best. To be honest, I never really thought about it much before because I was young and time was on my side. But as time begins to turn on me, I find this fear and the anxiety caused by it less entertaining and more and more dispiriting.

As many of you probably know by now, record companies are trying to put a definite stranglehold on internet based radio stations. As a result, if this law passes, many of your favorite stations will probably have to go bye-bye. In my opinion, the record companies are completely shooting themselves in the foot. By their rationale, internet broadcasters are making profits at their expense and they should be compensated for it. Which broadcasters are they referring to? The big guys? Fine. Maybe in some ways they are right. But what about the little guys? What about the men and women who do this as a hobby and broadcast from their little workstations at home? Are we hurting the music industry?

Let’s take Evening Melancholy for example. Evening Melancholy is nothing more than one man (Me) playing his favorite tunes from his collection. Monetarily, the cost is definitely more than reward. But I love the music. I love playing the music and I love sharing the music with those who have an equally desirous love for classic jazz and the musicians who played it. Am I taking money out of the pockets of recording artists and songwriters? No. And I will tell you why. Most of you know Charlie Parker and Nat Cole and Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra. These are famous, musical legends who would sell records whether I played them or not. But what about the more obscure artists? What about people like Annette Hanshaw or Russ Columbo or even the well known artists who produced albums many may not have been aware of — for instance Sam Cooke’s album dedicated to Billie Holiday? Am I hurting the record labels that own this music or am I helping them?

I have received countless emails from listeners who have said, “Thanks for playing this music. I’ve never heard of this person, but I love them! I am definitely going to purchase more of their stuff.” It is the obscure and budding artists who are probably aided the most when it comes to internet radio and the freedom we as internet broadcasters have. And now, record companies are trying to stifle that. Who will benefit from this action? No one. Certainly not the broadcasters or listeners, and I have a message for you record labels, neither will you.

Shut us down and see what the results will be. File sharing will increase and CD and track purchases will decrease even more than they already have.

I’m not going to get all Jerry Lewis on you guys and have an Evening Melancholy Memorial Day telethon or anything like that. If my rates go up, I will just have to dig further in my pockets and see if I can keep the music going. I love it too much to see the turntables stop spinning. I love Chet and Bird and Trane and Duke and Louis too much to see them silenced. But I do ask one thing of you. If you would like to rage against the machine, let your voice be heard. Live365, basically the godfather of Evening Melancholy, suggests the following, and I concur:

Meanwhile, make your voice heard by the lawmakers on Capitol Hill! Call, write, e-mail, and/or visit your Representatives and Senators today and request that:

1. Congress void the retroactive $500 per channel minimum that threatens to drive Live365’s small webcasters out of business.

2. Congress reinstate the Small Webcaster Settlement Act. The CRB declared that the 2002 SWSA would not be extended despite the Small Webcaster contracts SoundExchange offered on its website and signed with Small Webcasters for 2006 and 2007.

3. Stop the retroactive, ex post facto royalty payments for 2006 mandated by the CRB, until all appeals have been heard.

4. Create a level playing field by bringing the Internet radio per performance rates into parity with traditional and satellite radio. Unlike internet radio, traditional radio does NOT pay royalties to record labels or artists for songs performed over the air.

Don’t let the voices of those who truly love the music be silenced.

As much as I liked the movie 300, I must say that upon walking out of the theater, all I could ponder was how the men in that movie got so buff. I even heard the lady next to me go, “Mmmm” when Gerard Butler strutted his muscular, naked form across the screen. “Mmmm”?? I want someone to go “Mmmm” when I strut past. Anyway, those guys were incredibly sculptured. It was rather impressive. I found their training video and I wonder if I could find a place around here that does this kind of stuff. I mean, I can flip big-ass tires over. I think.

So, former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson is considering a run for the presidency in 2008. When I heard this, two things crossed my mind. 1) He is probably a better candidate than both Giuliani and McCain. He’s more conservative than both AND he doesn’t come with all the baggage Giuliani has. So, I consider Thompson a legitimate threat. That is, of course, from a cursory glance. 2) I have a personal grudge against Fred Thompson, and I will tell you why.

Years ago, a friend and I were leaving a movie theater here in Nashville. We had just seen the late showing of “Jerry Maguire” and were walking through the parking lot to our car. Walking ahead of us was (at the time) senator Fred Thompson. He had his arm wrapped around a blond woman. I believe he may have been dating the country star Lorrie Morgan at the time, but I really couldn’t say. Anyway, senator Fred happens to glance over his shoulder and upon seeing me and my friend (two tall African-American men), he tightens his grip around the woman’s shoulders and suddenly their pace quickens. Now, I can honestly tell you that my friend and I are two upstanding people who have never accosted senators or blond women before in our lives. However, senator Fred must have thought that we looked threatening. It was dark. We were black. Perhaps he was a fan of his future employer Law & Order at the time and surmised that he had seen this script before. Who knows? But it pissed me off. I wonder if people understand that if you treat people like criminals, ultimately you get what you asked for. It’s like a man who constantly accuses his wife of cheating. Sooner or later she is going to get fed up and do the deed. Not because she is a cheat, but because his suspicion weakens her constitution and ultimately, she reacts in a rebellious and often self-destructive way.

Now, I was pissed but had no intention of causing senator Fred any harm. But it did arouse my ire quite a bit. And as a result, I am holding a grudge. That was over ten years ago that that happened. Should I still be angry about it? Senator Fred and I have opposing views on a lot of things, so I wouldn’t vote for him anyway, but I seriously doubt I could vote for someone who thought I was someone he needed to walk briskly away from. You cut me, senator Fred. You cut me deep.

When I was a kid I read this comic in Mad magazine where a white guy is walking down a dark, quiet sidewalk. He glances nervously behind his shoulder and sees a black man walking closely behind. The white guy speeds up. The black man speeds up. The white guy is getting more and more nervous and thinks to himself, “This guy won’t stop following me. Every time I speed up he speeds up. I knew this was a bad neighborhood.” Behind the white guy, the black man looks equally nervous and he is thinking, “Why does this guy keep speeding up? I don’t want to be walking in this bad neighborhood all alone”

I paraphrased, but you get my point. Things are not always as they seem.

So, I realized today how pitiful I am. I have a lot of friends, acquaintances, etc, but at the end of the day I cannot find someone who will partake of a cold beer with me. Am I that boring? Don’t answer that. It’s kind of depressing. I need to find a nice dipsomaniac who is always up for a drink. Then, no matter when I ask him if he wants to go and have a beer, I know he’ll say yes. I say dipsomaniac and not alcoholic because some may think that the two are synonymous, but there is a difference. Dispos, as I like to call them, will always be available for a drink because they don’t think they have a problem, whereas alcoholics may tell me that they can’t go because they have to attend one of their “meetings”.  I don’t mean to make light of drinking problems. I think my frustration comes from my insecurity. Perhaps no one wants to hang out with me at the end of the day, except my girlfriend of course. But she’s blotto after one glass of wine, so while that makes the quest for amorous moments that much easier, it’s not really what I want come day’s end. I want to talk about politics, religion, movies, music, the afterlife, Victoria Secret models, whatever. Anyway, I’m sure I will find a drinking buddy sooner or later. Either that or become a lonely barfly.

*meep*