Defense Offensive: cutting up, spending time on and taking one's own initiative

Imagine if we could increase spending on time itself, as that is where our spending goes the most. Would cutting spending on time make us cut to the chase more often though, or would it just cut the time we have even more? Hmmmm... well, I'm not here to speak about spending actually, but to spend a slice of my time in defense of cutting-up, taking one's own (key word: own) initiative and speaking freely (as our constitution allows), even when that which is being spoke may come off as offensive at times. Confused? Well so am I, so I'm going to try to straighten things out here. I'm penning these words b/c I accidentally offended someone whom I love deeply in these pages recently, even though I thought I had taken pains not to do so. After this was brought to my attention, I went back and realized that, yeah, I didn't quite say what I had meant to say, I got carried away, and was unintentionally offensive. I can be a loose cannon sometimes, that I know, but I would never mean to offend someone who did not deserve a good bit o' venting. This blog is my free-for-all, bare in mind, and anyone reading it should remain aware of that, or not read it at all. I do make mistakes on it, and this was a mistake for which I am definitely accountable. This is a personal public journal, one which I've chosen to share with you, and while you will not hear me say everything that's on my mind (as that would be just plain stupid), I will not refrain from speaking my mind. Sometimes my words are meant to provoke, but sometimes, as was the case here, I just string them together badly. I'm not being paid for this, and am normally accountable to no one, no proof reader, editor, authority figure, no one, so I'll skewer whomever I want, but this wasn't a case where I meant to skewer. This does not excuse the facts, but let me just say that, more often than not, I just simply say things the wrong way rather than say the wrong things (I hope). What I said here was not meant AT ALL as an indictment of choices made, but merely a statement saying where I stand on these things. I can be opinionated, have weird ideas perhaps and screwy principals, and as this is my blog, they will come out from time to time. I'm also a cut-up, and some things I say, I say merely to play Devil's Advocate, not because I'm necessesarily trying to provoke. I do find it kind of funny that I am not taken seriously often when I should be, but then something I say off the cuff is taken seriously... but that's neither here nor there. I totally apologize, and I didn't mean what I said to be taken any other way than how I meant it, which was just a momentary thought, not so well thought out, that I needed to express. Keep in mind that I write songs, and they are meant to raise eyebrows, always. As I stated in my blog header, this is like an extended song of mine, and I say let people get what they want out of this. If lyrics I write mean one thing to one person and a completely different thing to someone else, that's cool. I also tend to take chances. Hell, my whole frickin' professional life thus far has been a chance taken, and sometimes, well, yeah, I get taken too. What I don't want to do, however, is chance hurting those I love in any way. If you know me, you know that. Sometimes I question whether some people who purport to know me really do (but that's a subject for another entry). Now, I can go back and delete blog history here if I want, but as I can't do that in real life, I won't invoke the Blog Stalin. I sincerely hope that my word/repentance will suffice, and things aren't taken personally that should not be (and, well, ok, I'll do a little bit of editing too). I posess a super-conscience you see, as well as a rather perfectionist/artist mentality that takes me over sometimes, and as that was a pretty offensive piece of writing by me in many ways, it deserves a little nip and tuck... Now I'd like to get back to my musings on defense and offense. These are 2 words that are most often taken to mean the exact opposite of one another, right? The act of defending, or to defend means to protect, whilst to offend means to excite anger, affront and annoy. Naturally, the word defense was a more popular choice to label the U.S. military, when in fact, our country has rarely had to defend, and have really used our spending to promote an unequaled super power offense. This makes sense when you think of sports, where the glamour players are those with great offense, not those wimpy defenders (whom we all know are of equal importance). We forget though that the word offense also conjurs up images of mean-spirited aggressive behavior, resentment and bad attitude. Pitchers Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson are really examples of offensive pitchers, b/c they provoke batters. Those pitchers may be going the way of the batter who incites (notice how you don't see too many Ty Cobb-type hitters come to the plate anymore), but i dunno. The military could actually capitalize on the misconception that the word receives from Sports-why call our military might our Defense, when really, we're out there offending the shit out of people all over the world. They could just call it what it is; our Offense. Or, maybe they should call it our Deforce, which more adequately describes our knack of witholding stuff by force from less-strong countrys who may be the rightful owners... Anyway, I had more to say on other fun subjects, but my lack of clarity is becoming quite clear to me as I grow more and more weary at this late hour... One final note: Rollo is playing a special early show this Wednesday night, July 21st at Sin-e, located at 150 Attorney Street b/w Stanton and Houston. We're on at 8pm sharp-hope to see you there. www.rollo-ny.com