Today's Question

What is your favorite Holiday and why?

Today's Question

Electronic Music...you could 1) take it, or 2) leave it? Why?

Today's Question

If you are averse to eating test tube meat, would you accept a replacement organ that was grown in a laboratory if it meant life or death?

Today's Question

Would you eat test tube meat, meaning, meat grown in vitro, in a laboratory? Defend your answer.

Today's Question

What is the one thing, that you always revisit, as that one thing you wish you could do better, or be better at?  Then tell us why.

Today's Question

Today's Question is as vague as the responses it is likely to garner...How Much Is Too Much? Enjoy

Today's Question

Congratulations!  You've just won $700,000 dollars.  What is the first thing that you do?  (Note: Not what is the first thing that you buy or pay for, but what is the first thing that you do?)

Today's Question

Religion is good for people?  Serious, well thought out answers please?  This is a heavy question and often violently argued, somehow antithetically to its often stated purpose, so use your inside, rational voices.

Today's Question

Apologies for the missed weekend questions.  Baby Showers, Dinners, Birthday Parties, and general compounded fatigue set in.  I slept in clothing last night for Christ's Sake.  That usually only happens while abroad or if booze is involved.  Anyway, if you could take a pro-rata pay decrease for a reasonable reduction in work hours, would you?

Today's Question

Someone help me straighten this out, please?  I suspect that once the dust settles from this one, we will not be any clearer on the issue than when we started.  However, I bet this goes well and I like to laugh.  What is a hipster?  I’ve been told that I am kind of like one but not really when people thought of it before shooting their mouths off, a problem from which we have all suffered at one point or another.  Here, for example, I sit in relatively “skinny jeans” (thought not sufficiently so to limit procreative abilities), writing a “blog-post,” listening to music that I’ve made in my “basement studio,” on the way upstairs to take out my “recycling” before I head out to purchase some “vinyl” records and “micro-brews” all done on my “bicycle.” 

            So, if we were to analyze this, from my perspective, none of this makes me a hipster.  First, skinny jeans are hardly hipster-esque.  They are merely a seventies revival, they fit well, and are perfect for riding a bike.  Does that make me a hipster? No, that makes me practical and shows a desire to keep my kibbles in bits in good working order instead of having my bullocks smashed every time I hit a pothole.  Pompa 1, Hipsters 0.

            Secondly, web logs are a godsend for creative types and the kind of folks that like to stay connected with their peers.  It is an excellent way to share experiences and learn new things.  As I understand it, most hipsters are too cool for school and wouldn’t give a shit about trying to learn something from someone else unless it involved free PBR or the awesome-est band you’ve never heard of and never will, because you suck.  Pompa 2, Hipsters 0.  Admittedly, I enjoy so-called underground, rare, and obscure music, but I’ll share it with you rather than make you feel like a turd that you didn’t know about them already.  Pompa 3, Hipsters 0.

            Thirdly, and related to issue two, yes I make music.  I know many people that make music.  Making music does not make you a hipster.  Luciano Pavarotti made music.  Was he a hipster? Hell no, I think, is a safe answer.  Ravi Shankar made music.  Indian hipster or master sitar player.  From what I’ve been told there are only sub-continental Indian hipsters in Brooklyn, San Francisco, and Milwaukee.  This is very basic generalization and limiting but probably not far from reality.  In either case, making music does not a hipster make.  Making some kinds of music may make you a hipster.  While fashioning experimental, electronic, psychedelic sounds may make you a hipster, I again will not make you feel like a turd if you don’t listen to my record.  Pompa 4, Hipsters 0.

            Fourthly, I recycle, and I compost.  If you don’t, that is okay.  I will rarely judge you.  My boss informed me that, though he has the container in his garage, he still doesn’t recycle.  I told him that his actions were abhorrent and that he epitomized my definition of laziness.  I JUDGED HIM.  I used to drive, with my wife, to a remote facility to drop off our recycling.  Now, my City, I believe actually recycles what we put in our blue bin.  I make an effort because the Earth is fucked up and we are likely the reason for that and I don’t want my kid to have to run his tap water through charcoal purification in the future.  That certainly doesn’t make me a hipster because I am demonstrating care for another living being without seeking recognition.  I’ve always recycled, I’ll continue to recycle, and I’ll help you do it if you ask me to.  As far as the information I’ve been given, these are not traits of the elusive hipster.  Correct me if I am wrong.  Pompa 5, Hipsters 0.

            Fifth, we have the issue of my vinyl collection.  Three points, and not a single point more.  A.Vinyl is analog and it sounds richer and more beautiful than 1s and 0s.  Again, I’m not judging you if you don’t listen to vinyl.  Don’t judge me because I don’t have an Ipod.  Deal?  B. I am a dj. I dj records…that is how I started and that is how I will likely finish.  C. Vinyl music comes with art in a tangible format.  Remember buying music from a music store?  If you have always bought vinyl it makes you old fashioned, not a hipster.  Pompa 6, Hipsters 0.

            Sixth, micro-brewed beer is just like old beer, but better in a ton of cases (no pun intended).  You try to buy local food, local booze, local music, and local stuff so that Walmart doesn’t murder you in your sleep and run off all of the nice people in your community.  Also, beer tastes good and makes you feel nice.  If you want to drink Busch Lite because it tastes good rather than being friendly to your pocket book, you will probably get diarrhea, for starters, and have deeper issues than being concerned with what type of beer I drink.  Can hipsters afford micro-brews if they don’t work at a micro-brewery?  Don’t know, not a hipster, don’t work in a micro brewery either.  Again, I know many, many people that like beer.  Mmmmmmmmm.  Pompa 7, Hipsters 0.

            Seventh, and this has gone on for long enough at this point, is the issue of my bicycle.  I ride my bike to get exercise, because gas if obscenely fucking expensive, and because I care about the environment.  So, I want to be fit and I’m cheap.  I ride the goddamn thing in the rain and cold.  If you think I do that to be cool, you’re dumb. 

            Finally, here is the capper.  I have a wonderful baby boy.  He makes even hipsters smile.  But, I don’t see a whole lot of hipsters with babies, because they don’t find poopy diapers very hip.  Having babies can make you cool, but it is the antithesis of hipsterdom.  So there.

            Hit me back with your answers.  I am so curious, I could pee!

Today's Question

What is your preference, Ravi Shankar or Nora Jones?

Today's Question

Bass or drums?  Simple as that!

Today's Question

Sorry for the couple of absentee days, I was lost in New York.  In either case, do you relate more to Batman or to Superman and why?

Today's Question

If money were no object, which it is, physically and figuratively, what is the thing that you've always wanted to buy but never have, but would, if you could?

Today's Question

I, myself, am a Jeopardy man.  I record, and watch, the show everyday.  However, I do understand that there are many folks out there that are die hard Wheel Of Fortune fans.  Hell, my brother could probably do without either so long as he was free to catch episodes of the Price is Right.  My wife always wanted to take her family on Family Feud.  So, what is your favorite game show?

Today's Question

Should there be compulsory military or other state service in the United States for all able bodied citizens between the ages of 18 and 24?

Today's Question

People celebrating the death of a terrorist, in my mind, is fine.  However, is it acceptable to be jumping around like mad men at football match, intoxicated, in front of the White House, drunk with blood lust?  Thoughts please?