Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

The Church I’d Like to Start: A Church that GIVES

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I’ve thought a lot recently about starting a church. If I had more energy — or should I say, more zeal — I might already have tried to find some like-minded believers to do so.

Celtic Cross, St. Nicholas' Church, Lazonby
(“Celtic Cross, St. Nicholas’ Church, Lazonby,” by Peter Hughes, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

I should point out to my science fiction and fantasy friends that I do not mean starting a religion, and to my Christian friends that I do not mean starting a denomination — I mean, simply, starting a church.

I’ve thought a lot about this because my wife and I have visited a lot of churches recently and haven’t found one that really effectively balances the contemporary with the traditional; that combines deep, thoughtful, Biblical teaching with enthusiastic, Christ-centered worship; that is large enough to offer a variety of ministries without being desperate for more workers, yet small enough not to be overwhelming or reliant on communications technology; and that has a healthy mix of people from all backgrounds and age groups.

Our church search often reminds me of these lines from the Steve Taylor song, “Steeplechase” (from the album I Want to Be a Clone),

… you started church-shopping, did ya?

It’s been a problem, finding one to fit ya
you didn’t feel good, did ya?

From time to time I’ve thought that my Mormon friends have it a little easier in that they don’t have a plethora of church options available to them. As I understand it, whatever ward they live in, they go to that church and fit in as best they can.

But aside from being unable personally to find the right place to worship and learn, I’ve thought a lot about starting a church because I’ve observed over the years that few churches seem to give back very much to the communities they purport to serve. Most of the tithes and offerings that those churches collect stay within the church. Maybe that’s necessary — the light bills have to be paid, after all — but I’m not so sure.

It seems to me that a church pursuing the ideals of the Gospel would call believers to a higher purpose than weekly meditations and occasional fellowship. Such a church would serve others more than it serves itself. It would be more concerned with the world outside its walls (physical or figurative) than with its sacred cloisters.

I think if I started a church, then, I’d like to start a church that makes giving its most fundamental reason for being. I would call it The Gift Church, or The Gift for short.

I think of it like this:

Purpose. The purpose of the Church is to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ through service to the community and the world. The Church has been given gifts that are meant to be shared.

Central Tenet. Believing that the Lord Jesus Christ’s declaration is true (as reported by Paul the Apostle to the Ephesian church leaders in Acts 20:35), that it is indeed more blessed to give than it is to receive, the Church shall devote more of its monetary resources to serving the needy than it does to its own internal obligations, needs or desires.

I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a congregation (and I’ve been part of a lot of congregations through our years of moving from place to place) that purposed to spend more on helping others than it did on helping itself. But since the idea came to me — on a walk one morning, about eight months ago — I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. Maybe it’s an unreasonable, unworkable aim; I don’t know, but it intrigues me.

I don’t know yet if I will say any more on this subject, or whether it resonates with or interests anyone else at all. But the idea of a church with a strong purpose in this world, that practices radical generosity on a regular basis, resonates with me. I think if its worship was lively and its teaching sound, I might like to be a part of such a church.

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Blogging the New CD: P is for Parties

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Ninth in a series of blog posts about the songs on my new CD, Distorted Vision.

The last event at many (most? all?) science fiction and fantasy conventions, after the dealers have packed up, the closing ceremonies have been adjourned, and most of the fans and guests have departed, is the “dead dog party.” That also happens to be the title of the last song on my new album:

The convention is almost over, it’ll soon be time to go home
Back to the mundane workaday world, where I sometimes feel so alone
When I make some remark about STAR TREK, or steampunk or robots or clones

— “Dead Dog Party”

You may not be a convention-goer; I wasn’t, until fairly recently. I’ve been a science fiction and fantasy fan for most of my life, but I grew up “far from the madding crowd” and far from any conventions, and indeed did not start attending conventions regularly until I’d settled down after retiring from the Air Force. And because I came to fandom late, many times I’ve walked around a convention — especially a big convention like DragonCon — in wide-eyed wonder and with a degree of nervous trepidation, not unlike Gollum as seen here:

Gollum hanging out amongst party goers
(“Gollum Hanging Out Amongst Party Goers,” by Ariane M, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

That said, for the most part I’ve been very pleased with how accepting and accommodating people in the SF&F community have been. Sure, at WorldCon in London in 2014 I felt a little out of place — even in the filk room, where the regulars pride themselves on being open and friendly — and this year’s awards controversy brought out the worst in a great many people and led to a lot of people being uncomfortable at a lot of conventions, but in general my fellow fans have welcomed me, made me feel at home, and become my friends.

Which is why I hope many (most? all?) fans can relate to the chorus:

All my friends in fandom understand the things that I like
No matter what I am into, they don’t think I’m out of my mind
So when I’m driving away, you might hear me say
That I can hardly wait ’til next time

— “Dead Dog Party”

In many respects, then, this song is a tribute to fandom itself: fandom as it is, and maybe fandom as it should be. So regardless of whether you think of yourself as “fan” or “fen” or just “casual consumer,” and whether you’ve ever attended a convention or not, if you like science fiction and fantasy at all I hope “Dead Dog Party” resonates with you in some small way.

And if it does, I hope you’ll let me know.

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Post-Campaign Blues: What I Learned, and What’s Next

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Or, how less than 0.86% equaled 3.5%.

The voters spoke two weeks ago today, and declared that I was not their choice to represent District D on the Town Council of Cary, North Carolina. C’est la vie.

I am grateful to everyone who voted for me, and a little pleased that I garnered 3.5% of the vote while investing less than 0.86% of the total money spent on the District D campaign. How much less than 0.86% I’m not sure, since the other candidates haven’t filed their final reports (and two of them are continuing to spend money on a runoff); that figure is based on their reports from 2 weeks before the election, and I know one candidate in particular spent a whole lot more money on mailings and robocalls and such right up to election day.

Prepare for the Worst: Political Ads are Coming!
(“Prepare for the Worst: Political Ads are Coming!” by Jeff Gates, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

I do wonder how many more votes I might have gotten if I had mailed out a postcard or two, or put up a few signs, or advertised a little. I think I might have made it competitive, but it’s hard to do when you spend less than $100. But, to paraphrase the song,

I’d like to run for [office] and play the political game
But I don’t have very much money to wage a big campaign

— “I Think I’ll Run for Congress”

So, besides the obvious lesson that you have to be willing to spend a great deal of money — either your own or someone else’s — to get elected, what other lessons did I learn, or have confirmed? I’ll catalogue a few:

  • Cary, NC, is not a small town — just the district I ran in has more registered voters in it than the entire combined populations of three of the towns I’ve lived in: Georgetown, SC (my hometown); Seneca, SC; and Plattsmouth, NE — which, as a small-town guy at heart, was a bit overwhelming
  • There is no such thing as a nonpartisan race — the parties came out in force, even at this lowest level of government
  • Board of Election rules are hard to interpret — so hard, in fact, that the State Board still hasn’t answered my question about one of them
  • Changes in polling places cause problems — I was told that some people got frustrated and drove away from the old polling place without coming to the new one to vote
  • Word of mouth is good and useful, but limited in its effectiveness unless the message is really compelling
  • Being noncontroversial — and especially being quiet and deliberative instead of raucous and divisive — doesn’t attract much in the way of attention
  • People who are content, and think things are pretty much okay, don’t vote in large numbers

So what’s next for me in politics? Not much.

I will continue my Anti-Campaign: Anyone, anywhere, can write me in for any office at any time. I remain the Anti-Candidate, and continue to approve that message. (I have it on good authority, for instance, that at least one person wrote me in for Mayor of the Town of Cary. But since the Board of Elections doesn’t release the tallies for write-in votes, I have no idea how many people might have done so.)

Will I ever run for office again? Maybe.

That is to say, I could be convinced to run if enough people wanted to recruit me. You’d have to be willing to handle the campaign management — the paperwork and reporting, the scheduling and coordination, the fundraising, advertising, and so forth. Why? Because I’m more than willing to serve, and willing to stand in the arena and talk about issues and experiences and qualifications, but I don’t have any desire to work on another campaign. (Not even my own.)

After all, as the song says,

I just want your money, I just want your cash
I just want all your treasure, whatever’s in your stash
It’s strictly voluntary, it’s not highway robbery
I just want your money … and that’s why politics is for me

— “The Anti-Candidate Song”

But rather than just hold my hand out for you to drop money in it,* I prefer to offer a little something of value. So I’m happy to sell you some CDs or other merchandise, or stories when I can get them published, or to write a speech for you or help you edit something. I will continue to try to produce content that people want to buy and to provide services that help people tell their own stories in the best possible way.

So … let me know if you have any questions, or if I can do anything for you, and sign up for my newsletter (using the form in the right sidebar) for periodic updates and info!

And, if you happen to have voted for me (or written me in), thank you very much!

___
*Don’t get me wrong, if you want to send me money I’m okay with that. If any of this has been entertaining for you, we’ll call it a fair trade. Send me a note and I’ll be happy to give you my PayPal information.

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Blogging the New CD: M is for Mercenary Maxims

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Eighth in a series of blog posts about the songs on my new CD, Distorted Vision.

So, do you read Schlock Mercenary?

If not, some background: Schlock Mercenary is a space opera webcomic by Howard Tayler about the exploits of a 31st-century band of mercenaries known as “Tagon’s Toughs,” of whom the most dangerous — and arguably the most entertaining — is the nearly indestructible carbosilicate amorph, Sergeant Schlock.*


Sergeant Schlock with a guitar! Howard’s caption: “I suppose this means Schlock knows how to look like he knows how to play the guitar.” I can relate! (2012 image from Howard Tayler’s blog.)

One of the references that the Toughs use in the series is a collection of aphorisms known as the The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries. When I decided that I wanted to write a Schlock Mercenary-based filk song, the maxims seemed like the perfect source material. I enjoyed the challenge of incorporating, sometimes paraphrasing, and arranging different maxims into verses so they could be sung and also still make sense.

Here’s verse one:

The maxims are better far than doctrine
They make more sense and are easier to learn
They’re all about fighting smart instead of harder
And they start with the simplest: Pillage, then burn

You know that any Sergeant who’s in motion
Outranks a Lieutenant who doesn’t know what’s going on
But an ordnance technician moving at a dead run
Should be followed because he outranks everyone

— “The Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries”

That first verse has only 3 maxims in it (numbers 1, 2, and 3, to be precise), but in the succeeding verses I fit in 13 more. That’s one reason why the song is called “The Maxims …” and not “The Seventy Maxims …” — because there was no way to fit in any more and keep the song a reasonable length!

Before I recorded the song, I sent the draft lyrics to Howard and his wife Sandra (whom I have known longer since we are both members of the Codex online writing group), and I was pleased that they accepted my tribute in good humor. You can listen to the final version and see if you think it’s a fitting tribute to the webcomic.

I hope you like the song, and Schlock Mercenary itself!

___
*Described on the Wikipedia page as having “no easily definable limbs, organs, or moral compass.” (And, speaking of Wikipedia, some enterprising Wiki editor might want to edit that page to add a reference to a particular tribute song ….)

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Blogging the New CD: L is for a Lake of Beer

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Seventh in a series of blog posts about the songs on my new CD, Distorted Vision.

This post will work best if you can read it in an Irish accent … though an English, Scottish, or Aussie accent would work fine as well.

We should probably answer the obvious question: what happened to letters G through K? In this blog series I went straight down the line from A is for Anti-Candidate to F is for a Faded Coat, so why did we jump all the way to L?

I’ll tell you why. First, because the album only has 11 songs on it, so it was unreasonable to think that I might use all 26 letters of the alphabet. Second, while I could have used “G” this time and said it was for a “Great Lake of Beer,” since that’s more of the song’s title, I elected not to.

Sue me.

This song is actually based on a prayer attributed to St. Brigid of Ireland, who lived around A.D. 453-523. You can find several versions of her prayer online, some annotating it as a tenth century prayer, but of course if she really wrote it then it would be a fifth or sixth century prayer. This version starts as follows:

I’d like to give a lake of beer to God.
I’d love the heavenly
Host to be tippling there
For all eternity.


St. Brigid of Kildare, rendered in stained glass at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Macon, GA (1903). Image from Wikimedia Commons.

I took St. Brigid’s prayer, added some words here and there to render it in four rhyming stanzas, and also added this chorus:

I’ll raise my glass in highest honor
Of the man who turned the water into wine
For he taught us how to live a little better
And I’d like to drink with him for all of time

— “A Great Lake of Beer (for the King of Kings)”

And because it’s an Irishwoman’s prayer (based, some sources say, on her vision of heaven as having a great lake of beer), I tried to write my best approximation of an Irish tune around it. The only way for you to decide if I was successful, of course, is to listen to it.

I hope you like it!

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Campaign Chronicle: Election Day!

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Okay, sports fans, get out and vote!

If you can see your way clear to do so, I’d like you to vote for me* — but from the standpoint of the society we live in, I hope you’ll at least get out and vote for someone. As Robert A. Heinlein wrote in Time Enough for Love,

If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for, but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong. If this is too blind for your taste, consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way. This enables you to be a good citizen (if such is your wish) without spending the enormous amount of time on it that truly intelligent exercise of franchise requires.

I quote that by way of explaining that I don’t mind if you vote for me because you think I’m a swell guy or you appreciate my record of service or you like my sense of humor … or if you just happen to cast your vote in my general direction because you’re voting against one of the other folks. (This also applies if you live outside Cary’s District D, outside Cary itself, or even outside North Carolina, and you just want to write me in for some other office.)

To go along with my tongue-in-cheek approach to all things political — and especially to my own campaign — you can also vote for me for one simple reason:

vote no1
(“vote no1,” by Sean MacEntee, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

That fits, doesn’t it? After all, on my first album I sing,

Politics, that’s the life for me
It fits my arrogant, megalomaniacal personality
I’ll get my name in the papers and my face on your T.V.
And take good care of myself, my friends and my family — yes, that’s the life for me

— “I Think I’ll Run for Congress”

And on my second album I follow that up with,

Politics, politics, the life I want to lead
To make sure I get what I want, and you get what you need
I may be arrogant and megalomaniacal but it’s just because I’m great
Come out and join me any time — fifty bucks a plate

— “The Anti-Candidate Song”

You don’t mind a little arrogance and megalomania in your politics, do you? At least I’m honest about it.

Anyway, today is the day! so I should probably be a fraction more serious.

Since it’s time now to stand and be counted, don’t worry any more about spreading the word about my campaign, unless you want to pick up the phone and call your neighbor to encourage them to vote — or pick up your neighbor and bring them to vote! And if you need a reminder about what I really stand for, I wrote a few weeks ago that

  • I believe the fundamental purpose of government is to preserve your (and my) rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;
  • I believe that our rights, both individual and collective in the form of the government, should not infringe on the rights of others;
  • I believe that government action intended to help anyone should be carefully evaluated on the basis of who it is likely to hurt in the process, and rejected if the benefits do not justify the cost;
  • I believe in being accountable, by which I mean being “able to give an account,” i.e., able to explain one’s reasoning for actions taken … and not taken;
  • I believe that many if not most people who present themselves as politicians take themselves far too seriously; and
  • I believe that serving in office is more important than running for office.

If any of that appeals to you, I hope you’ll consider voting for me.

___
*For today’s election in particular, I’m on the ballot for Town Council in Cary’s District D.

Spending Disclosure: As of this date, my campaign has spent a total of $84.

This blog post was “paid” for, at the cost of $0 and whatever time it took Gray to write and upload it, by The Gray Man: Service, Leadership, Creativity.

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Blogging the New CD: F is for a Faded Coat

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Sixth in a series of blog posts about the songs on my new CD, Distorted Vision.

If you don’t know who the Browncoats are … well, you will after reading this post.

My brave lad sleeps in his faded coat of brown.
In a lonely grave unknown lies a heart of love renowned.
He sank faint and hungry among the famished brave,
And they laid him sad and lonely within his nameless grave.

— “The Faded Coat of Brown”

In the future envisioned in the TV show Firefly and its follow-on movie Serenity, the Union of Allied Planets (“the Alliance”) fought a civil war — and in some ways a war of pacification — against the independence movement that came to be identified with the brown coats its members wore. The captain of Serenity, Malcolm Reynolds, fought with the Independents along with his first mate Zoe, and they both maintain a fierce independent streak throughout the show.


The most famous Browncoat of all, Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion). Image from The Firefly and Serenity Database.

The idea for this song came from outside of Firefly, however, because it’s an adaptation of an 1865 song called “The Faded Coat of Blue” — a song that evokes the anguish of a parent whose son never returned from the Civil War. I don’t recall when I first had the notion of changing every “blue” in the original song to “brown” (which necessitated changing all of the accompanying rhymes) but it seemed as if it would make a fitting tribute. And not only a fitting tribute, but that it could make sense in the context of the Firefly milieu.

One aspect of the future that crept into different episodes of the series is the recollection of “Earth that was” — the past planetary home from which humanity spread out. It seemed to me that some of the music of the distant past might survive, and that some resistance fighter might adopt an old song to reflect the struggles and sacrifices of a new war. And I thought it might not matter that the original song was written about a Union soldier rather than a Rebel, because the sacrifices are similar on both sides.

No more the bugle calls the weary one.
Rest, noble spirit, in thy grave unknown.
I’ll find you and know you when the final trumpet sounds
And a robe of white is given for the faded coat of brown.

— “The Faded Coat of Brown”

I hope I maintained the poignancy of the original, even as I adapted it to the fictional universe of Firefly. You can decide for yourself if you listen to “The Faded Coat of Brown”. I hope you like it.

___

One last note: Many Browncoat fan groups around the country sponsor showings of Serenity and other events to raise money for charity. I hope they like the song, too!

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Campaign Chronicle, 1 Week to Election: Vote Early, Vote Often!

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I’m only partly kidding with that title, and in a second I’ll explain why.

First, two important notes regarding the 2015 Cary Town Council election:
– TODAY (the 29th) is the last day to request an absentee ballot. Your request needs to be in the Board of Elections office by the close of business.
– TOMORROW (the 30th) is the first day for early voting in Cary. You can vote at the Herb Young Community Center from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, but only from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday.

So, vote early if you want to!

VOTE
(“VOTE,” by Theresa Thompson, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

Now, about that “vote often” bit, remember that even though I’m on the ballot for the District D seat on the Cary Town Council, I’m also the Anti-Candidate, available as your convenient write-in vote for any office, anywhere, at any time. So whether you live in Cary or not, whether your election is on October 6th or in November with all the normal elections, if there’s a “write-in” slot on your ballot and you don’t have any strong feelings about the people vying for the office, put me down for the job! Just be sure to spell my name right: G-r-a-y R-i-n-e-h-a-r-t. Don’t confuse the election officials.*

I think it would be hilarious if, in addition to getting votes for District D, I got a few write-in votes for other offices on the ballot. So spread the word:

  • tell your friends;
  • share the link to this post on social media;
  • forward the link to a friend (or even an adversary);
  • print a flyer in either color or black and white and put it up somewhere;
  • hire a skywriter to put “Vote for Gray” up among the clouds;**
  • stand on the streetcorner and encourage people (but don’t harangue them; nobody likes to be harangued) to vote and even to write me in.

Vote for Gray, for everything!

___
*The fact that there are two “Gray Rinehart”s in the world may be confusing, but I’m the only Anti-Candidate.
**Fair warning: If you do something silly like that, be prepared to send LOTS of paperwork to the Board of Elections.

Spending Disclosure: As of this date, my campaign has spent a total of $84.

This blog post was “paid” for, at the cost of $0 and whatever time it took Gray to write and upload it, by The Gray Man: Service, Leadership, Creativity.

For additional updates and info, sign up for my newsletter using the form in the right sidebar or visit the election page on my website.

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Blogging the New CD: E is for Ender

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Fifth in a series of blog posts about the songs on my new CD, Distorted Vision.

E is for Ender — Andrew “Ender” Wiggin — the boy genius turned military commander in Orson Scott Card’s novel Ender’s Game. Faced with the disorientation of zero gravity during Battle School, Ender devised a simple way to orient himself and his troops during the battle “game” — he began thinking of the objective (the gate by which the opposing force would enter the Battle Room) as “down.” Thus, in the Battle Room, “the enemy’s gate is down.”

The enemy lurks in the endless sky
And gave us no choice but to win or die
But justice will not be denied
The enemy’s gate is down, the enemy’s gate is down, down, down

— “The Enemy’s Gate is Down”


Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card.

The novel Ender’s Game got me back into reading science fiction after a long hiatus.

When I was a mid-grade captain in the USAF, stationed at Vandenberg AFB, one of the lieutenants in our unit suggested I read Ender’s Game. For several years almost all of my off-duty reading had been either school- or military-related, and I did little pleasure reading despite having been an avid science fiction reader before college.

Reading Ender’s Game, I realized what I had been missing.

I still had other reading to do, but gradually I added more science fiction and fantasy to my off-duty reading. My wife and I began reading some SF&F classics to one another on long trips — Starship Troopers on one trip, for instance, and then when our children were old enough that they would listen we read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the Harry Potter novels.

Gradually I also added more Orson Scott Card novels to my shelves. I don’t remember how long it was before I realized that I had first encountered his fiction in Omni magazine, back when I had been one of that magazine’s earliest subscribers.

When I was stationed in Greenland, for a brief period of time I was part of an online writing group that OSC sponsored on his website. I learned a good bit from the experience, and during that assignment I wrote my first novel. (After many rejections I got an offer on it from a small publisher, but did not proceed with the deal — a story for another day.)

In 2003 I attended OSC’s writing workshop at UNC-Greensboro, where I found out a lot of what I had done wrong in that first novel. Then in 2004 he selected me as one of the students for his Literary Boot Camp, held that year at Southern Virginia University in Buena Vista, Virginia. I learned so much during that week that I still haven’t put into practice, but I have seen some small success with my short fiction since selling my first story in 2007 and making my first “professional” sale in 2010.

So not only because the novel got me back into reading SF&F, but because it rejuvenated my long-comatose dream of writing and publishing my own stories, being able to do a song based on Ender’s Game meant a lot to me. (Where that dream morphed into writing and publishing songs, I’m not sure; I guess I needed another hobby.)

Anyway, in the song I wanted a martial beat to capture the battle feel and I tried to compose words that would reflect the difficulties of fighting an implacable enemy in order to protect those we hold dear.

There are times when you fight, win however you can
The price you pay is your soul … piece by piece by piece
It’s a pittance to offer, for your fellow man
To guard those we love and treasure while they peacefully sleep

And in the final chorus, I change the focus from the determination we must have to face the enemy to the price we pay in doing so.

The price of freedom is always high
We pay it when we kill, and we’ll pay it if we die
But we pay it for the futures of those we left behind
The enemy’s gate is down, the enemy’s gate is down, down, down

If I’d been more forward-thinking, I would have written and released the song to coincide with the release of the movie. But my sense of timing has never been that good.

Anyway, whether you’ve read Ender’s Game (or seen the movie) or not, and even if you can’t relate to the feelings expressed in the song, I hope you like “The Enemy’s Gate is Down”!


___

One final note: Both the first chorus and the second chorus include subtle, if not downright obscure, homages to renowned science fiction authors. Can you pick them out?

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Campaign Chronicle, 2 Weeks to Election: Taking the Pulse of District D

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We’re getting down to the wire in the Cary Town Council election. Early voting starts this Thursday in Raleigh, then next week in Cary, and the local election day itself is the 6th of October.


It’s a fair question.

In advance of the election I’ve been out canvassing nearby neighborhoods, asking two open-ended questions to see what people like and don’t like about Cary. I’ve hit only a tiny fraction of District D — the district has over 20,000 registered voters in it — but here’s what the people I’ve talked with have told me about their top issues.

First I ask people, What is your favorite thing about living in Cary, or the thing about Cary that you think works the best? The top answers have been:

  • Parks & Greenways (24%)
  • Location: 4 Seasons; Proximity to RTP, Raleigh, Conveniences (18%)
  • Security / Public Safety (11%)
  • Established Neighborhoods / Good Family Environment & Schools (7%)
  • Small-Town Feel (7%)
  • Town Services / Attentiveness to Needs (7%)

A few people mentioned other things like the town’s friendliness, its cleanliness, its people, and even its emphasis on recycling. But consider those top results for a moment.

For many people the thing that sets Cary apart is the care the town has taken to ensure a variety of green spaces for recreation and relaxation — and as someone who walks the greenway around Bond Lake several times a week, I feel the same way! But for nearly a fifth of the people I talked to the best thing about Cary is not what the town does but rather where the town is. “Location, location, location,” as they say.

What those top results tell me is that the resources we put into keeping the town livable and safe are likely to pay dividends in the form of a continued high quality of life for Cary residents. That’s been a priority for the Council as well as the town staff, and should remain so.

Then I ask people a contrasting question: What about Cary would you most want to change, or the thing about Cary that you think doesn’t work so well? The top answers have been:

  • “Nothing” / “I Don’t Know” (17%)
  • Need a Better/Revitalized Downtown Environment (15%)
  • Excessive Growth / Density / Urban Sprawl (15%)
  • Crumbling Traffic & Other Infrastructure (10%)
  • Loss of Trees from Excessive Construction (7%)
  • Crowding: Schools, Roadways (7%)

No kidding: When I asked that question, more often than not people seemed to struggle to think of anything substantial that they would like to change or see done differently. One gentleman I spoke with yesterday just smiled and shook his head, as if I shouldn’t have bothered with such a question. I don’t remember his exact words, but they were along the lines of, “We have the lowest taxes and the best services in the county, what else do we need?”

Some people did mention other issues, like the need for clearer rules and exceptions (e.g., about Cary’s infamous sign ordinances), the need for more activities, better broadband access, and more affordable housing, but even some of those responses appeared to be second thoughts rather than immediate concerns. Undoubtedly some citizens in my district are concerned about other issues, but I can only report on what people have told me, and no one — I must emphasize, not a single person — has so far mentioned the kind of things that I expected to hear, like wanting better government accountability, or lower taxes, or public transportation, or even better parking downtown.

In other words, for the people I’ve been talking to, Cary is a nice place and there’s precious little about it that needs to be changed. That’s part of the reason why I wrote to someone recently that I’m not running to “make a difference,” and I’m not on any “damn fool idealistic crusade” (to quote a famous movie character). I’m running because I’m interested in making sure Cary stays the safe, prosperous community it is, and that it doesn’t ruin itself by growing too fast and discarding its small-town feel and charm.

If that appeals to you, and if you’d like someone on the council with an analytical but creative way of thinking, then I’d be happy to have your vote on October 6th … or early, if you prefer!

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Spending Disclosure: As of this date, my campaign has spent a total of $84. (And that includes the T-shirt I’m wearing in the picture.)

This blog post was “paid” for, at the cost of $0 and whatever time it took Gray to write and upload it, by The Gray Man: Service, Leadership, Creativity.

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