You can lead the whores to water

But you can’t make them think.

I sat in the library this morning doing some research, mostly using the “Free Association” or non-directional methodology. In other words, I was taking a break from thinking directly on my assignment.

I usually sit on one of the couches next to the magazine section, but couldn’t get comfortable, so I moved to a desk. Big mistake. I started taking notes, based on things I was reading.

I read an editorial from Fast Company, noting how in ’98 they predicted the Free Agent Nation, and how it’s actually turned out. Two other articles highlighting how we’re turning into the Design Economy, and an article on Crispin Porter + Bogusky, which is based out of Miami(website). Read Vibe, and a stack of other magazines I normally wouldn’t touch with a 99 and-a-half foot pole.

But I digress.

As I sat down, I noticed an older woman. Silver hair, sharp clothes, very professional in the way she carried herself. I sat with my back to her; she would have been too much of a distraction otherwise. I would have invented a whole biography of a character based on her, and not have gotten anything done. A short while later, two young people came in the library and walked right past me to sit at the table with the woman. A woman and man, early twenties at most Quite stylish; they had that calculatedly casual look that I couldn’t pull off with a stylist and a couple assistants, Callipygian or not.

As they exchanged pleasantries, I was delving into my current events, but couldn’t help hearing what they were discussing. She was consulting the couple with some sort of clothing line. The Professional was listing elements of a business plan that they would need to consider, what kind of stores, their distribution channels, manufacturing costs, and so on and so forth.

The young man had some answers and from what I could hear a decent vision to make his plans come together, but the sticking point came on the topic of Sales Reps and Manufacturing Costs.

He kept insisting that there were no manufacturing costs because he was going to make the items himself. He also was going to not need a Rep because he was going for several exclusive stores and would take care of this aspect himself, or it would take care of itself. I’m not sure which.

He kept saying to the Pro, “I understand, I understand that, but…” and he would refute her every time she brought these up. She had formulas and I think figures for him and he would not budge. It was becoming one of those conversational quagmires that have no resolution.

I wanted to turn around, and say, “Look, just factor in the fucking costs, and at the end of a quarter, if you really didn’t spend anything on that you’d still have the money. Besides, you have to factor in your own pay.”

But I didn’t.

He needs to learn that lesson the hard way. Just like most of us seem to. My wife is a seamstress, and a good one, but she sells her services short. Recently had a client that haggled her down on her hourly rate for a large party that needed dresses, and finally learned.

This must be the Zen of business. The bitch-slap of reality people needs to move ahead.

The editorial on the Free Agent Nation was right about a few things; you can’t trust your employers, so there is security only in self-reliance and social networks. It also cited this fact: 16% of all workers 50 and over are self-employed. I wonder how many in that age range are in shit jobs like McDonald’s?

“Ah, hypocrisy, thy playpen is America.”

by Mark Morford in his latest rant.

You can read it here. This latest one is on, the need for a living will. in light of recent events in Florida. I’m not saying what it is, because I refuse to be party to it at all.

This article if Morford at what he does best: a call to action. In this article he's calling for his readers to make Living Wills.

This Paragraph sums it up:

"Do it because we are now in a country where it's OK to vote for brutal unwinnable wars and it's OK to kill over 20,000 innocent Iraqis and it's OK to justify the death of over 1,500 U.S. soldiers over a presidential lie, OK to blindly support environmental devastation and industry deregulation that will lead to all manner of pollution and illness and cancer and death in future generations but oh my God if you should want to follow the law and be allowed to pass from this life with a shred of dignity, you are a monster, or a lightning rod, or a bizarre martyr, not to mention a cash cow for the GOP."

He’s lucid again and no reference to “Callipygian” or "licking" or "sloppy". Not that I mind those things, or his references, but they get tiresome after awhile.

Most of his latest rants against BushCo have been tiresome as well, and it’s a shame, really. He’s a very skilled writer and it is just that the utter hopelessness of the current situation we’re facing in America is hard to rally against.

The Republicans are a force to be reckoned with, not only do they have a fanatical, religious fundamentalist base, they're heavily funded by major corporations, which in turn, get governmental contracts, giving them more funding so that they can make more contributions to the Party. The Democrats are just as corrupt, just not as well organized or funded. I’m not even going to start on the lame-assed ‘alternative’ political parties.

And people wonder why my demographic doesn’t vote. We can’t win. There is no ‘we’ to begin with. I know I have no one but my small circle of friends and acquaintances to rely on, and let's face it, politically, the options presented are few and dismal.

I feel so Hemingway. I need a drink. In the rain. In Paris.

*In the interests of Full disclosure, I am whatever passes for Generation X these days. I was born in the autumn of 1967. No, I do not have any tribal tattoos, or do I sport a goatee.

It's Not the Falling Down

What matters is getting back up.

I missed a deadline, albeit self imposed. I'll try and not let it happen again. My wife was on the Internet linked pc, and I thought I'd relax a bit, and sketch. Ended up scripting a short comic for the Ultimate version of Giant Man.

For some reason, that character fascinates me. In the regular Marvel universe, he's boring at best. At his worst he’s schmaltzy.

Giant types are usually pretty boring. There are a few in the comics these days and I could probably list a bunch if I sat down and thought of it. I just fail to see their usefulness in most superhero situations. That and most writer/artist combinations don’t utilize the scale appropriately.

It would be cool to be able to change size like Henry Pym, but he’s such damaged goods. In the regular Marvel Universe, He’s merely brilliant. Compared to such geniuses like Mr. Fantastic, Iron Man, Black Panther, etc.; he tends to get overshadowed. That and he tends to make things that try to destroy everything in sight. Not a very handy talent.

His history is a soap opera. One of the main reasons I just can’t get into The Avengers is that there’s too much melodrama. He has been several different superheroes, and has had several costume changes; this site has a good listing of his costumes and identities. It also lists others who’ve gone by some of his identities.

First he started out as Ant-Man, who could change to the size of, you guessed it, and ant. He also had a helmet that allowed him to communicate with ants. Cool, but mostly useless. Someone, either Jack Kirby, or Stan Lee said “Hey, since he can change size, let’s make him big” and Giant Man was born. Jack Kirby worked on the giant monster stories that were popular in The Day, so he had a grasp of how to handle the scale difference.

For the official bio on him, click here and look under 'H' for Hank Pym. Go figure. Here is a pretty detailed bio for him as well.

In the Ultimate universe, he’s bipolar, or ADHD, or something like that, because one of the first times they show him, the Wasp, Janet Van Dyne, says to him “Your on a roll again” and shakes a bottle of Prozac.

Later, in the series, he gets his ass handed to him by the Hulk. This of course happens during a highly publicized fight. Everyone else on the team holds their own, and his wife gets all chummy afterward with Captain America who takes down the Hulk in hand to hand. The Hulk gets back up and continues his rampage, and it’s the Wasp who stops him by zapping his brain after crawling in his ear. They later get in a knockdown drag out fight and he messes her up. It turns out this has happened before, and Hank gets beaten to a pulp by Captain America for being a wife-beater.

That could be why I like him. Smart, cool power, but with no real obvious use. He makes mistakes, and doesn’t quite know how to fix them. Makes him human.

That and it’s a kind of puzzle; what’s the advantage of being so big? This site has a program to figure out how much you would weigh, how much you could lift if you were a different size. Because when scaling things, area gets squared, while mass gets cubed. I remember reading an essay by Stephen Jay Gould about scale.

Fascinating. But mostly useless.

Spring

Spring Break is officially over as of today. My online classes had their topics open during the last week so people could post early. No one had, and I wasn't going to be the first.

I have to go into The City today, and meet a client. I'll explain our business in a later post, but for now, I have to run.

What's an Atheist to do?

My wife is at it again. She’s getting ready for Burning Man and she doesn’t have anything to break her heart yet, so she’s coming up with another construction project. She wants to make a geodesic dome. I’m not too enthusiastic about it, because there are tons of them already out there. Our group, Comfort and Joy (Link) made a chill tent last year and it was a big hit. There was another chill space called The Lotus, at it was divine.

No, really, it had a blue guy there and every so often; people would come by and offer us tea.

As we ate dinner, I unfortunately had my sketchbook handy. I say unfortunately because I’m in puzzle-solving mode. I feel like that girl in the opening credits of Hellbound, (movie review) who solved all manner of puzzles by rote.

But I digress.

As we were eating, and talking and drinking wine, I concocted the following:

A sundial cordoned off with a lens in the center. When the sun shines at the right hour, the lens would focus the sun’s rays to burn whatever is in the right spot.

At the right position, there would be a metal plate serving as an altar. On that dais, there would be a bit of little chain to anchor the sacrifices.

Outside the cordoned off area would be a podium with a book, a pen and some instructions. The instructions would explain what the installation is all about. And some origami directions

The instructions would explain that this altar is to burn away the supplicant’s demons, using the sun’s ‘light of reason to banish the darkness of your fears’ or something like “Bring your personal monsters and demons into the light to be destroyed and set free.” You get the point.

So it would go like this:

1. Write down whatever’s bothering you, what you wish to set free.
2. Fold it into a little origami animal (I’d provide some sample instructions)
3. Place your ‘sacrifice’ in the bin next to the podium

At the right time of day, say 3:00, the sun will be in the right place to burn the little critters made by the people throughout the previous 24 hours. I would tie the origami to the chain with a bit of string, and maybe leave a few matchsticks underneath as kindling.

I’ll have to do some test runs beforehand, to get the right angles down and positions and all that.

Here’s the hard part:

I am an entrenched atheist. I think all religion’s bullshit, and only serve to cloud the glory of our existence, rather than add to the wonder and mystery that is the universe and our role in it and on this planet.

So, what’s a good atheist to do? I can’t create a ceremony for Lugh, Ra, Helios, Apollo, etc., without making a mockery of either the deities in question, or the whole point of the installation.

I was thinking of approaching it from a Jungian archetype or Hermetic Magic approach. I would talk about the symbolic act of cleansing to burn away things that hold one back, and that we hold the secret to our own salvation.

I don’t know. I'll think of something; I always do

E(uro) Mail

Great article on Slate today.

Euromail
What Germans can teach us about e-mail.
By Eric Weiner
Posted Friday, March 25, 2005, at 4:17 AM PT
http://slate.com/id/2115223/


Cool little article on the cultural differences between European and American email styles.

Essentially Americans compose like Kerouac, Cassidy, Thompson and the like, bursting with ideas, and leaving formalities in the wake of their content. Its one of the few times function trumps form.

“Amerimail is informal and chatty. It's likely to begin with a breezy "Hi" and
end with a "Bye." The chances of Amerimail containing a smiley face or an "xoxo"
are disturbingly high.”

He contrasts it wih Europan email:

“Euromail is stiff and cold, often beginning with a formal "Dear Mr. X" and
ending with a brusque "Sincerely." You won't find any mention of kids or the
weather or jellyfish in Euromail. It's all business. It's also slow.”

I agree with his observations, we need to add a bit more formality back into our correspondence. On one assignment the company I worked for reminded us that emails could be admissible in court.

It’s one thing to instant message someone contracted text, but email gives you time to pause reflect and most importantly compose your thoughts.

History has shown that when one type of media is supplanted by another, the replaced assumes an air of respectability. Look at theater, when replaced by the cinema. It’s come a long way from the participatory days of Vaudeville.

The same thing should be applied to email. It is the elder of online communications.

I once worked at a startup where my boss was ADHD, and we would communicate primarily via email. It worked because we both had record of what was going on.

I have seen some great discussions on Lists that all too easily could have devolved into flame wars, but all parties involved maintained a sense of decorum and everyone stayed civil. I haven’t been civil in many of my lists, so I’m not claiming to be above it all.

I am not one of those Ms. Manners Acolytes that feels we should all hold our pinkies up when politely composing essays to our circle of acquaintances. I do feel every message you send should be spell-checked and proofread before being sent out.

My wife started her own business three years ago, and we actually won clients because of our correspondence. It helped that our point of contact was an English major in college and had her own menagerie of pet peeves.

When I was in the Air Force, someone said to me “The way you speak reflects the way you think.” I think the corollary of that is also true. The way you speak affects the way you think.

I could be wrong.

But I doubt it.

School Days

This morning I’m at Golden Gate University writing from the computer lab.

I’m still unemployed and it’s Spring Break, so I don’t have access to my school’s computer labs. I had intended to play catch up and get a bit ahead in my studies, and to a lesser extent I had.
My class schedule is as follows

• Account Planning
• Art Direction
• Copywriting
• English Comp 2

In each class this term, I’ve tried to approach it from the standpoint that this is what I want to do; In Art Direction, I want to be an Art Director, in Copywriting; I want to be a writer, and an Account Planner in the Planning class. This term I’ll decide my focus.

Currently it’s leaning toward copywriting. We’ll see.

I’ve been enamored with the idea of writing for comics for a short time, but I don’t see how I could break into that. I’ve always kept decent artists in close contact, mostly subconsciously, because I know I’m not that good. It’s like the old adage, “There’s always someone better”

You never forget your first

First bike First bike ride. First love. First time you got drunk, stoned, laid, thrown in jail.

Milestones are important to us. I'm not sure why.

Since humans are temporal creatures, maybe it has to do with our trying to make sense out of nonsensical universe.

They say the moon was closer to the Earth when early hominids were all the rage. Some even hypothesize that's why women's menstrual cycles are similar to the lunar cycle.

So this is my first post on my first 'blog.I'll tell more about myself after I explore a bit. Maybe include a link or two as time goes on. Who knows?

One thing I do intend; to write daily.