How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?

I love Pink. I’m going to say it right now and I mean it. I’ve been a fan of hers since 2001 when I heard the song “Get The Party Started” (how could you have NOT heard it?). The song is from her second CD, Missundaztood, co-produced and co-written by Linda Perry (4 Non Blondes) who is in her own right a truly amazing singer and songwriter. When you get past the hit and listen to the rest of the CD what you find is not only catchy, it really makes you think hard about addiction, divorce, and what it means to be a social outcast. That’s a heady lot of tunes for the then 22 - year old to be singing about, but it worked. It was real, it was mature music beyond her years and it was impressive!

Needless to say I wasn’t surprised when I heard last year’s release “Dear Mr. President” (featuring the Indigo Girls). Right off the bat you are smacked by the intelligence and insight of the song.

“Dear Mr. President, Come take a walk with me. Let's pretend we're just two people and you're not better than me. I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly…How do you sleep while the rest of us cry? How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye? How do you walk with your head held high?
Can you even look me in the eye And tell me why?...”

(For the rest of the lyrics go to this link: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/pink/dearmrpresident.html)

I think what’s cool about the song is that it poses some serious questions about the world to an important man while maintaining a pop sensibility. You can hum along, you can sing along and if you want to – you can think about what she’s saying. Not that anyone hasn’t said this before or even written it before, but she asks direct questions and calls him on the carpet while doing so. Certainly she is not the first to write an accessible protest song, but the timing of it is what makes it even more powerful. No doubt, as others have said countless times before me, this song will be the anthem of this time in our history.

I was in Vegas yesterday (hence my not posting this on my usual Monday schedule) when I heard the news of the Virginia Tech massacre. While I try to keep this a blog about life in Los Angeles, I can’t help but on occasion comment about the world at large and how it affects me and the people I love. It was a fun trip and the cool thing about Vegas is that you go there and you forget the world. It’s easy to do and certainly we did it! We stayed at The Luxor, we ate at the buffet (twice) and I went to see my first Imax show. Amazing fun!

The horror of what we awoke to yesterday morning was unimaginable. Not only are too many people dead (one is too many in my book) what it says about the state of our country at this moment is hard to miss. We are a country filled with troubled and violent people (where isn’t?) and we don’t seem to care about our own. As congress debates funding today for the war that no one but Mr. President (and his cohorts) wants how about funding instead for people on our own soil? What about this kid who thought that by killing 33 people his problems would be solved. No matter that he was not an American born citizen, but he was a child of this country.

Why are we ignoring our fellow citizens? Why still are thousands from New Orleans not home in their rebuilt houses and apartments? Why do I have a homeless guy(s) sleeping out back behind my building? Why are we trying to save other countries from dictators when we have our own to worry about? One can only imagine the desperation that all these people feel and felt. The system we have is failing. We failed the students of Columbine, we failed Cho Seung-Hui, we ARE failing the victims of emotional and nature imposed disasters. So Mr. President, how DO you sleep?

Thanks for tuning in…until next Monday…CHEERS!!!