Outlandish Josh

It’s shaping up to be a pretty big Autumn. My favorite season to begin with, a time of change, of ripening and harvest, of back-to-school, of warm days and cool nights, outdoor fires and strung up lights. It’s the natural time for me to hit the reset button.

And that I have. Over the past two days I’ve helped clear and clean the Cornell Club and have taken up roost in the easterly-facing upstairs side of Houseku, which is a really nice house (verging on compound) down in the Mission with five other people who all Talk Nerdy living in it. The rent is unspeakable for someone with my class pretensions, but if I can live up to my ideal of utilizing the (awesome) kitchen instead of living off food I pay other people to cook for me, it’s almost a wash since I don’t have to drop $8 a day on BART.

Anyway, the point is contra my basic theorem of life experience one of the things you can actually do to shake up your life experience is shift your surroundings. That I have done. And hope to follow it up with a shift in routines as well.

The first is the switch away from take-out as a prime source of sustenance. I’m happy to stimulate the economy, but this is textbook BDE (Bad Domestic Economy; contra the progenetor of the Girth: “six dollars for a burrito?! that’s just beans, rice and cheese… (shakes head in disgust)”) and I get good vibes from cooking, so that’s something I should do more.

The second is the acceleration of the ol’ metabolism via regular stimulation. Switching to an exclusively bike-based commute is one step, but another feature of Houseku is there’s a little outpost gym from the 24-hour-fitness network just up the hill. I think it will suit my needs perfectly: it’s small and no-nonsense, and they have some kind of biometric access that will let me get in there with a thumb-print as late as 2am. This means no matter how late I code I can still get sweaty after. This should be good for both psychological and physical health.

The third is the switch in primary work-tracks. Building the Drupal infrastructure of tomorrow tickles my fancy in a way that cranking out websites just honestly doesn’t anymore. Plus, looking back at the summer, I’ve been averaging 66 hours a week on average since June 1st. I actually beat Cheney in total hours logged for the summer. While I fully expect to work hard in the future, dialing back to a more sustainable baseline pace will be a good thing.

So these are all good things. I also plan a little urban renewal on This Old Website: Drupal 7 upgrade and playing with the layout and format a little. I should be making a run North in a couple weeks, Humboldt and Oregon, and — fingers crossed — also back to London later in October.

Should be good times!

I’m back in Estados Unidos once more, surviving 10 days in bustling, socialistic, publicly drunken Yrup. I have more extensive scribblings on the subject of “does humanity stand a chance” based on my experience, but those are for another time.

For now, notable notes:

• Copenhagen = “Hopenhagen” and we did DrupalCon Europe under a 1.8Mw wind turbine. It was a rousing success.
• Signing party for a new company (Pantheon Systems, Inc) in some very Cybersyn-like chairs in our hotel. Many thanks to Vilas for handling all the paperwork.
• My new little Starling netbook did a good job on the plane/etc, but I need to get a bigger battery. Already on order.
• The first rule of Manticore is you don’t blog about Manticore.
• Pedi-cab driver fantasies about. If this whole company thing doesn’t work, I could still burn it all down and make an honest living.
• London was quite lovely, staying with The Rina. Strange what was familiar and what wasn’t from 15 years ago when it was my first big-city experience.
• Henry IV Part II at the Globe = Awesome. Watched from groundlings in a light rain, so sore feed and a damp jacket, but way to be up close and personal. Roger Allam is a superb Falstaff (I’m not the only one reminded of Christopher Hitchens it seems) and the whole experience was just magical.

• Also attended Carnival, which was a festival of public excess, but pretty great too. Innovative public urinals they have there; also, very large cans of beer. One hand just washes the other.

Anyway, back to the regular grind. So far I’m making the jetlag work in my favor with very early mornings and tucking to bed soundly by like 11pm. We’ll see how long that lasts.

The dog who would not be silenced will bark no more. I am still sort of in shock. Apparently the night of Friday the 13th, Sixto was struck and killed by a car up Highway 299. I will miss the hell out of that canine. He was the beast who taught me to love dogs.

More words later, I'm sure, but for now I'll post the poetry of my friend.

Requiem For A Conquistador
By The Girth:

You were born in a hard summer.
I remember, the summer my father died.  
Your own master heartbroken, an intoxicated disconsolate youth.  
Later, we would chide you, the grown dog, for your irascible frustrations.
Calm down boy. So paranoid. So angry.
But I remember the puppy.
Standing guard, hardening, for the good of the herd.

You hated tweakers.
Weren't too fond of small people.
Didn't initially like women.
Rarely took to other dogs.
There was Ace of course.
But he was kind of a wolf.
And Quilan, who understood you.
As sub will understand Dom.

Peg leg didn't bother you,
No leg didn't bother you.
Didn't care.
Wasn't significant.

You got upset with me
For wearing a bini.
When i took it off
 u were relieved
And told me politely,
Get back with the damn group man.
As you were want to do,
You bit me on the thigh one time.
I was running down the beach,
I'm sorry, I shouldn't have strayed.

At Cornell Club,
you fought our raccoon.
We'll call it a draw.

You had to look out for number one
You found the shade
Under the truck
In the desert.
And told Dauter,
Who come to poach it,
Fuck You Dauter,
This is my shade.

That's right.
Go find the shade boy.

I’ve been a bad friend, son, brother, and even lover of late. Too much workahol leading to broken plans, missed connections, absurd periods of radio silence. To all the parties waiting or wanting or hoping to hear from me, I truly am sorry.

So here’s what’s been going on.

I escaped my dayjob-infused routine last weekend to attend an Indian Wedding in New Jersey with the girlfriend. Oh yes, that’s right, I’m using The Title now. Reluctance to do so in the past is — hindsight-wise — kind of embarrassingly immature. Also, while it sounds quite nice rolling off the tongue, “paramour” isn’t actually a very flattering alternative descriptor.

For my part, this feels different than previous relationships. It’s more… intentional. I chose pursuit in spite of improbability and long odds. While she’s certainly into me (so I got that going for me too), this isn’t one of those things that just fell into my lap. I had/have to work for it.

This is foregrounded because it’s been long-distance, which is a pain in the ass, and also not the norm for me. Shamus jokingly scolded me that this was the best I could do given my quote-unquote emotional availability. Very funny, but there’s maybe something to be said for the way in which the distance gave the whole thing a chance to sneak around various subconscious defense mechanisms of mine. A trojan horse for the heart, you might say.

It’s gotten harder now that she is in London, and not New York, and timezones are a real barrier, and we have to plan and coordinate even to talk. But people do this, and even successfully. Seems kind of silly not to try.

Another novelty/challenge: she is more different from me than anyone I’ve ever dated before. She is brainy of course, and at a bedrock level we have much in common, and communicate pretty well. I like to think this puts us in a good position to make the most of our diversity. Still, at times the distance (social now, not geographic) between our respective worlds seems daunting. It’s not just her being the daughter of South Asian immigrants, but more the whole variance in life paths: she’s a relatively straight-up lawyer; she’s more conventionally girly than the girls I grew up with; she’s at her finest dancing to top-40 pop hits. These things are strange and quixotic and foreign to me.

In light of all this it makes me happy that she approvingly posted this little excerpt, because really when is this sort of thing ever very logical? It isn’t, I’d say. My goal is not to think about anything more than is absolutely necessary, and generally try not to eff it up.

But yes, so I flew out to New York to spend the weekend in Jersey. It was pretty fun, actually. Unlike most men, I quite enjoy dancing — of which there was plenty — and I find the generally joyous atmosphere of weddings to be pleasant and life-affirming. Plus there was plenty of quality food and booze.

The night before the wedding itself was a tradition called a Sangeet, which is like a rehearsal dinner except bigger (half the whole wedding was there) and revolves around a talent show. This is actually an exceptional idea; there’s nothing like the sharing of amateur and cheeky performances to help bring two families together. I recommend anyone considering a bricolage approach to their own nuptials consider incorporating this genius little innovation.

I also appreciated this quote from the wedding program: “Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.” Which is also translated “To love is not to look at one another: it is to look, together, in the same direction.” Seemed apropos.

Another highlight was the after-party, which was back in the hotel/conference center we all stayed in, which had an honest-to-god nightclub. This is in North New Jersey proper, and sort of outside any real town or city center. And yet this joint had an apparently substantial clientele. The crowed was, shall we say, interesting, sort of the end result of Jersey Shore plus 25 years, or, as someone remarked, “I feel like this place is exclusively full of people here to cheat on their wives.” A great moment for human anthropology in and amongst the Dirty Beats.

We finished the weekend strong back in the City, mostly picnicking in Central Park, greeting friends of hers, camping out behind Summer Stage, gorging ourselves on Chicken and Rice back in the apartment.

I had one more day there, so I got to see my Sister on the night before her birthday. Missed everyone else though (didn’t even tell folks I was coming out) for which, again, I am all apologies. Next scheduled excursion is late October, and will be a Good One, I think.

Now back in California, a week later, it feels like much longer ago. Like another world, a place of real summer, and me another person maybe. Another identity facet to blend? Another structural hole to bridge? Time, as they say, will tell.

It sounds very much like there is a storm a-brewin’ designed to start cutting into Social Security. I helped fight this off back in 2005, and it’s a real pity to see the same basic bullpucky return under Prez. Obama. Cutting Social Security is both unnecessary and cruel.

For the reasoned economic analysis, keep up with Dr. Krugman.

For a more colorful take, you can’t do much better than George Carlin:

Atrios on Obama’s economy captures the essence of what I find so dispiriting:

The point isn’t that there was some magic obvious solution, the point is that the problem was bigger than they imagined and, frankly, recovery noises from the administration started to remind me of Bush era noises about how things were always improving in Iraq.

Team Obama appears to have taken all the wrong lessons from team Bush. They pursue the limp magical-thinking type propaganda — “clap louder!” — couched as DC-centric conventional wisdom (which is itself morally and intellectually bankrupt), without apparently even contemplating the virtues of a Cheney-esque will to power.

They also play politics very poorly, much more poorly than the Clintons.

I find myself in odd moments beginning to wish we’d nominated Hillary.

Two of my favorite people are a year older today. My hobmre Frank Edward Robbins the Fifth, jobseeking soon to be father of two, and of course my sister-pal, coming up from behind with her own brand of bound-for-glory greatness. I got a chance to break bread with Brie last night in Brooklyn on my way out of town, and she showed me this, which I thought was brilliant:

So happy birthday to both of you, and be glad you’re not attacked by Pandas. Go get ‘em, Leos!

Music Please:

I haven't written much about politics in the past... year or so, mainly because it's been such an unqualified bummer. I read Krugman and Duncan and check up with my friend the subcommondante on a daily, and pretty much count myself in their camp on most issues. If you want to stay in the know, you could do a lot worse.

But this caught my eye and excited some comment, well, because it highlights the total batshit insanity angle of what's going on out there, and in doing so sheds some maybe pretty good light on what exactly makes the whole political situation so depressing. I could not help but remark.

So, the leading Republican candidate for Governor of Colorado thinks that having a free bike program in the city of Denver is the first step towards one world government:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes is warning voters that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's policies, particularly his efforts to boost bike riding, are "converting Denver into a United Nations community."

"This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed," Maes told about 50 supporters who showed up at a campaign rally last week in Centennial.

Maes said in a later interview that he once thought the mayor's efforts to promote cycling and other environmental initiatives were harmless and well-meaning. Now he realizes "that's exactly the attitude they want you to have."

"This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms," Maes said.

This is insanity.

First of all, any intellectually honest conservative who bothers to think of the actual mechanics of things rather than, as they say in the industry, "the optics", which is to say appearances, they would realizing that bicycling has enormous trans-partisan appeal. It is an expression of self-reliance and personal responsibility: human power. It makes you (literally) stronger. It is a rational effing economic decision.

Second of all, even though I love me some one-world government having free bikes around is, if anything, a sop to bike-theves.

Finally... really? "This is bigger than what it looks like?" Like, really? Because biking seems to have the appearance of something hippyish, it's a paranoiac punching bag for this guy. That's really how they roll at the gubernatorial level these days.

And, I'm happy to be wrong, but I'll bet dollars to doughnuts there won't be a full-throated counter-offensive from his Democratic opponent. This is the "depressing" part so well illuminated by the aforementioned bullshit insanity. Because the general trend among Democrats has been to tremble and cringe in the face of this Precious Bodily Fluids psychobabble.

I mean, the frackin' Obama Administration (and the NAACP, for extra bonus points) wet their collective pants at the release of an obviously doctored video from a well-known total hack with a history of doctoring video for political haymaking.

The problem is that the people who I will end up voting for, and ostensibly support, have no ability, facility or willingness to "punch back" against crazy insane lie-driven maniac passion coming from the contemporary tea-bagging GOP. And this is just completely spiritually crushing to a guy like me.

I mean, serously. My guy was rocking "I want my country back" seven years ago, and we ain't got none of the things we wanted done yet.

And what's more there so little willingness to tell these people they're insane, hateful, idiotic morons, to stand up to such obvious logical and moral wrongness and just say, "shut up." They can't even laugh, which is what paranoid delusional hacks often deserve. No. They're afraid that some kind of "Real America" that they have no concept of, which dines at an imaginary Applebee's salad bar (honestly, David Brooks is such a fracking toolbag) and unsure of their own values — being, mostly, totally clueless sold-out coc*suckers themselves — that they sort of cower in fear of what appears to he heartfelt, if deranged, sentiment. Weak sauce.

And possibly worse, in our own quadrant, failure through worshiping the status quo goes unpunished. There is no meritocracy. By all means give your "Green Collar Jobs" guy the shaft, but there's no willingness to, like, rattle anyone on the Economic team, or take any new action, in spite of manifest failure. In particular I loath the lard-assed alleged egg-heads who can't see any possible way to do something about 10% unemployment — honestly screw Larry Summers and his half-assed brain-magic; I know his type coming and going and smart guys who make dumb decisions but get you to go along with them because they're "smart guys" deserve to end up one place: the GD curb; let that soft-handed member of The Committie To Save The World (honestly, frack all those guys) get a real goddamn job for once — but were sure johnny-on-the-spot when it came to downsizing and corralling the stimulus last winter.

Why don't you go back to managing Harvard's endowment, Larry? Oh yeah, because you ran it into the ground, you stupid fracking worthless hack.

So yes, this is why I don't write about politics much. I find arguments that Team Obama has "done a lot" to be pretty unconvincing. The only possible exception is putative (and I stress, putative) beachhead gains made by Health Care reform, but otherwise it's all been technocratic mumbojumbo around the edges, and very little that, you know, actualy works. Which is what people care about, after all, and rightly so.

And that's what happens when I don't write about politics for a while. It builds up a bit. Currently don't have any bright ideas other than to try and fete people like Alan Grayson (ably Rasputined by the inestimable stollerizer) and try and point out the obvious. Honestly I don't blame the GOP here; they're following a natural course. I blame the Democrats (and Obama in particular, though I'm not really surprised) for:

1. Kowtowing to morons when they get het up about whatever.
2. Simultaneously making a real fetish out of throwing your left-wing allies under the bus.
3. Big-picture sitting back and taking the long view that enduring demographics and their oppositions incompetence means they don't have to work that hard to counteract reactionary ideology.
4. Having no apparent clue how to play the game of politics, or exercise political power.

We are running "the dumbest socialism ever". I leave you in the hands of Larry Lessig:

Music please:

Last night I tried really hard to party. I ended up drinking a Sparks Plus (“SPARKS PLUS!!!”) and then falling asleep about 20 minutes later. This is both a testament to my relative level of fatigue and a pretty shitty way to get rest.

The upside here is that I was trying to party because things have gone well and I felt justified blowing off a little steam. I’ve been doing 8:30am to 10:30pm for two weeks straight (Noon to 8 or 9pm on weekends) and with this level effort and rallying significant support from a killer team of developers, we are getting over the hump.

While I don’t want to get locked into the pattern of 80-hour weeks as a norm, this has been good for a number of reasons:

1. It really had to be done in the name of meeting very real commitments and obligations. Failure was a very poor option and was stressing me out.
2. Running at that sustained level got me eating healthier, drinking less beer (e.g. none on weeknights), losing a little weight as a result, and feeling like a better person for it over all.
3. As a psychic counterweight, I decided to actually make use of the Kindle I got myself like six months ago when resolving to start reading more prodigiously and loaded up Infinite Jest, which I spend time with on my BART rides and before turning out the light.

Completing the chrysalis, I contracted with a world-wise Russian man to cut off all my hair:

So, overall while I am pretty exhausted it’s a particularly good kind of exhausted. One always need to keep an eye on the burnout factor of course, but I feel psychically better being super-busy and totally on top of things, as opposed to having relatively more time free and overwhelmed by requirements. It’s also nice to prove that “I still got it,” can still put the hammer down like I used to back in the day.

One hopes that some day I’ll learn to balance things better, but in the meantime I’ll enjoy my peak experience, thanks.

As most of you can likely intimate from my infrequent blogs and tweets, I'm in the process of feeling out the next iteration of my career ambitions. After four years of idiosyncratically living part-time in the woods and bootstrapping an internet consultancy, I'm relocating to San Francisco proper, and my partners and I are beginning to intentionally exploring the next level.

One of the best things about this process so far has been actively seeking out advice from older, wiser, and more experienced people in our field. One of my constant observations — verging at times on complaint — over the past few years is that I don't feel there's a really good roadmap or template for what I do with my life. I'm coming to understand that's not really the case. Certainly there are particular novelties about my experience, but it turns out there are plenty of smart people out there who have done things not unlike what I'm doing now: working in a disruptive technology space with a lot of other folks, building a business and figuring out how to make the most of it all.

In hindsight, this is unsurprising. Anytime you think you're a really unique snowflake, chances are you're at least partly flattering yourself. Even though there aren't many people from my immediate peer group that are doing comparable things, there are plenty of people on the scene here in good old Silicon Valley who are.

And, in getting to know some of these people, it's reall nice to get some external validation. Left to my own devices, I will always expect more of myself, always in some way unsatisfied with my achievements. It's easy to sit here in my office and see all the things I haven't done, all the opportunities we missed, all the work that's still left to do.

But the outside voice reminds me, in speaking of what we've built, "you know, most people can't do that."

I really dislike elitism and am constantly en guarde vs hubris, as I wrote of one of my all-time better posts, Notes from the 99th Percentile:

I find myself stuck between the egalitarian and elite. On the one hand I believe that “everyone can/should be able to live like me, do the things I do, understand the things I understand.” But people are different. Regardless of what might exist in the realm of possibility, the way I live and the things I do are not accessible to everyone, and I want to be with my own. There’s an in-built drive to seek this, and there’s an undeniable allure to the notion that you’re a part of something special, discriminating, un-common.

People start using terms like “level” and “league” when they talk about this sort of stuff. “Big fish, small pond” and all that jazz. I’m generally uncomfortable with that talk. There are enormous problems with elitism and hubris. Just from a practical standpoint, exclusive cliques don’t work out well, whether they’re out on the playground or running the country. Once you start reflexively screening out people or ideas based on the perception that they’re somehow “beneath” you, you’ve started concocting your own downfall.

Still, it rings true. Most people can't do what I've been doing. It remains to be seen how much that's worth, but it's a Good Thing(tm) to remember. Keeps the old morale up.

Anyhoo, a little self-pat-on-back post here, but it's what was turning over in my head on the BART this morning. Stay tuned to see how it all shakes out!