Old Number 7

Bon Soir, Comrades!

Thanks for stopping to check out the latest. The site has received a bunch of traffic lately (1703 hits on the 4th of July) and I am glad so many of you are enjoying these rants and the new poetry section.

I spent the afternoon today at the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg, TN after the rain put the kibosh on my trout fishing. If any of you are ever down South DEFINITELY go! I was never very interested in visiting there, but it was absolutely fascinating (I am completely serious, really).

I am going to visit my pals up north tomorrow to work on the site a bit more and also work on a graphic novel CD-ROM project based on my song "Plastic Jesus".



Imagine Michelle Yeoh (I love you with all my body and soul) meets "Preacher" with an "X" soundtrack. Cherry...

Here's a picture I just received from my friend Sarah Moore. She
took it when I was performing at the Riverbend Festival a few weeks ago...



Ok- I will finish up with a letter I sent to my City Council encouraging them to pass a new ordinance that requires dog owners to clean up after their pets when they shit all over everyone else's property.

Duh.....

If any of you live in Davidson County and agree with me please copy and paste what you'd like from my letter and use it to mail your own.

I hope this inspires you all to be politically active in your local communities. Graffitti and good old fashioned sabotage are fun too.

:)

Here we go...

Dear Ms. Hausser and Members of the Council at Large,

My name is Joe Nolan and I am a constituent of Ms. Hausser's as a resident of district #18.

I am delighted to hear of this new Ordinance No. BL2004-302

District 18 , as you all know, is very "dog friendly". Surely (though I am not a dog owner), the sights and sounds of dogs in our neighborhood generally adds much to the loveliness of an area my friends and I literally refer to as "The Street of Dreams".

That said, having to avoid (not always successfully) the excrement of strange animals, that I do not own, every time I walk out to my car or try to play with my young godson in the yard, is ridiculous.

That this has become a point of legislation is a sad statement indeed. The fact that many of these "dog lovers" don't have adequate yard space for the animals they profess to care so much about is another issue. The fact that cleaning up after your pet is part and parcel of the obligations one takes on when one chooses to be responsible for a domesticated animal, is as irrefutable as the goo between the toes of the unsuspecting strangers who are victimized by the wanton abdication of said responsibilities.

I think dogs (especially when well cared for) are great. Domesticated dogs and cats and birds and reptiles are a part of our collective lives and I think people who love animals should be allowed to own and enjoy them.

That said, I have seen only one dog owner ever clean up after his/her animal on Belmont Blvd.

I have seen countless others stand idly by as if the dog was making some sovereign decision they were powerless to affect.

These noble beasts are not citizens and are not subject to your decisions, however, their owners are.

The Ordinance as it stands is a good start, but it should apply to any owner with their animal who isn't "reasonably equipped" (i.e. has a "pooper scooper" or a plastic baggy etc.) to clean up after it. Only penalizing owners who may or may not be caught after the misdeed has taken place will ultimately do little to change the environment or the attitude in Davidson County.

It is horribly frustrating when common courtesy and good old-fashioned personal responsibility has to be legislated in order to curb the kind of moral oblivion that results from an exaggerated sense of entitlement.

I do not envy you your charge, but, surely, there is no reasonable objection possible regarding this legislation.

Thank you for your time and your service.

Joe Nolan