I’m looking for a talented vocalist to work with in completing a song.  I need someone who has the means and know-how to record their own (clean, dry, and high-quality) vocals remotely, and who also has the time to begin working on this, like, tomorrow.

Once finished, the song will be featured on my YouTube channel and placed on iTunes for sale. The vocalist on the song will receive 25% of the royalties, which, honestly, probably isn’t going to be very much; you’d likely be looking at about $5-$10 a month.

If you’re the one I’m looking for, please email me an audio file in which you show off your skills: michael@michaelaranda.com.

When I was third grade, we we were often given reading-comprehension worksheets. The top third of the page would contain a few paragraphs of writing, which could have been a short work of fiction, some bit of history, or an explanation of a simple scientific principle. The rest of the page would have a series of multiple-choice questions about the paragraph, to test how well we understood the reading.

One day, while completing one of these worksheets, I noticed the the kid to my left was up to something: as soon as I filled in a bubble, he would fill in the same bubble on his worksheet. To verify my suspicions, I feigned confusion, and erased the answers I had already marked. Sure enough, he also erased his answers.

I dont know that I was annoyed about him cheating in general, but the idea of him exploiting my mental effort to make up for his own laziness bothered me. I promptly set about marking my paper full of purposely-incorrect answers, and watched (out of the corner of my eye) as the cheaterface marked all the same answers on his worksheet.

Once I had answered all the questions, I stood up to turn in my paper on the teachers desk. Cheaterface did the same, and I purposely walked very slowly so that he would reach the teacher first. Once I saw his worksheet hit her desk, I turned around and headed straight back to my chair, erased all the incorrect answers, and filled in all the correct ones, relishing in the horrified look on my peers face.

Even at a young age, I had an occasional appreciation for schadenfreude.

I’ve recently taken an interest in learning computer programming, in the hopes that I’ll someday be able to program my own computer games. I thought it might be fun for the three of you who read this blog to see how I progress over time.

To that end, Ive uploaded my latest computer program for you all to Read more

You’re in there, somewhere
Entombed inside yourself
In some dark place
You don’t care to remember:

In the bedroom where you grew up
And we gave each other our virginities
As if they were things to be treasured
Rather than things to be lost

In the church that now lies in ruin
A burnt-out hollow shell
Where we held hands and shed tears
As I said goodbye to my mother

In the tiny college dorm room
That someone else now calls their own
Where you inspired me like no other
To search for knowledge and truth

In our disheveled bedroom
Where we awoke together
And locked eyes and time stopped
I could see the universe inside of you

You were young
I was stupid

Layer after layer of sediment
Hardly noticeable at first
Until your face disappeared
Beneath the sand

I tried to dig, but you kept sinking
Into a new shell, a new person
Like a snake wearing its molted skin
Smart and fancy like a business suit

I held out hope that you’d escape
Somehow you’d still be alive
But it’s been so long now
And your grave has gone cold

I don’t know if you can hear me
But wherever you are
I love you
I will always love you

This is goodbye

I’ve been living outside of the United States for the last four months, so my view of recent American politics and related occurrences is a bit more removed than average for an American citizen. When I woke up to the news of Osama’s death, I turned on the television to see what was being reported. The first thing I saw was footage of people crowding the streets around the White House, cheering, dancing, waving American flags, etc., and my first reaction was to be a bit embarrassed.

It seemed a little barbaric to me, sort of like the crowds who might cheer at public beheadings in medieval times. Osama bin Laden was certainly a cancerous cell within the body of the human race, and I think it’s fair to feel a sense of relief about his demise, but jubilation? What exactly are we being jubilant about?

After I had thought about things for a few hours, I just felt sad about the whole thing. It’s sad that he ordered the deaths of thousands of people, it’s sad that America spent trillions of dollars and lost thousands of soldiers attempting to “bring Osama to justice”, and it’s sad that bin Laden’s entire existence ended with him at the bottom of the ocean.

Despite what Obama says, I don’t believe that the world is a safer place today than it was before Osama was taken down. This isn’t a Hollywood film where America busts in, kills the bad guy, and everything is peaceful again. In this situation, Americans saw themselves as “the good guys”, and Osama was their villain. The reality we live in is infinitely more complex. Governments around the world are still engaging in behaviors that cause violence, and, until that changes, there will be a never-ending chain of people just as bad as Osama, bent on ending lives to accomplish their goals.

We still have a lot of work to do if we truly want to bring peace to this planet. When Americans can convince their government to spend more money on education than on the military, that will be a day to be jubilant in the streets.

“Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence, you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. … Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.