Outlandish Josh

I’m in NYC, but thanks to a return to The Palace (from days of yore) I am moving slooooow. It was a good time though! Fab Dinner with Jeremy and Rachael (who have set a wedding date!) followed up by sister-dude, $8 pitchers of budweiser, Priest on the juke and me stepping up to some guy with my early-2000 street-cred. He was born in the neighborhood, so I ended up buying him a shot, but given that the place is overrun with kids these days I felt like I had to stand up.

Anyway, muddling through things, I goofed around with Pantheon a bit, and then google analytics data exporter, which I plan to start integrating for more accurate statistics of reads on my posts, etc. Fit of pride: 3,500 actual reads of this essay.

And now a txt from the momster. She’s arrived. Time to get up and go!

Just as much as I find myself cringing whenever politicians use phrases like “Main Street” and “Special Interests,” it’s worth noting that people outside the mainstream — my own people, so to speak — have just as many sucktastic language tics.

At the moment I’m reading The Army of the Republic, which was right there next to the just-finished Chronic City in the “Hip Lit” section of the U of O bookstore when I swooped in a couple weeks ago. Downshifting from Letham’s prose is rough, but Stuart Archer Cohen’s subject matter — domestic terrorist/patriots vs. water privatizers — is right up my Red Dawn alley. It’s a fun read so far.

However, it’s reminding me that it’s just as irksome to read leftist cliches about taking it to the streets and whatnot. Even the more radical dialogue can make me wince. The revival we want to see is going to take a new language, purged of these cliches and their anti-meaning. Paging Dr. Lakoff...

Although, it could be closer than we think. Maybe I’m just an old softie, but this still gets me:

And I wish to god that someone would stick all of Perot’s stuff on youtube for posterity. There’s a huge amount to learn from what he was able to do:

And finally, if you made it this far, you are Steppin’ Razor.

Apropos the previous posts about political power-grabbing and whistful public longing, and after a quick trip through the Jon Robb link farm, another thought I’d like to log for the register: in this crazy modern era of ours, in which the existing system is fumbling more than the San Diego Chargers, how long before we really start to think outside the box. Like waaaaay outside the box.

For instance, just off the top of my head:

• Why not real international solidarity between people of the same generation?
• Why do we still grow food in the dirt? Why not just go ahead and use engineering?
• Why not start your own tribe? Literally.
• Why is it only old people get to live in dedicated communities? Own a home with your roommates.

My parents generation was willing to question pretty basic assumptions about how they were supposed to live. It didn’t all work out, but it was a worthy exercise I believe. I think my generation is in an even more (potentially) radical space, thanks to these here internets. Not only can we interconnect with like-minded folks around the world with unprecedented ease, we can self-publish, self-learn, and figure What Actually Works in ways that were completely unthinkable to previous generations.

It looks bleak in some ways, but in other ways it looks pretty bright and wide open. Bears remembering.

I’m an opponent to conspiracy theories, see them as disempowering distractions which create endless rationalizations for complacency. At the same time, I am an unabashed fan of conspiring. It’s my own little paradox of proactivity: don’t waste your time trying to unravel a hidden coterie behind why the world is what it is, just get busy making your own.

Spent last night talking Redneck Socialism over pizza and beer with Face and The Girth. We’re bandying the ideas of rolling up on California’s Canada and implementing a takeover. Prosperous though our lives have become here, the golden state feels like barren ground for the revolution, and we’ve sometimes a great notion there’s an opportunity to do something more than live what passes for the bourgeois American Dream (home ownership, retirement savings, etc) in this 21st Century. At the risk of some material comforts, we can be heroes. After all, risk is our business.

As Eric Schlosser points out, it’s been liberals attempting to “look tough” who are largely responsible for the prison industrial complex. This kind of hollowness, this essentially immasculine fear of appearing weak, the willingness to do truly terrible things to literally millions of people… this is the quintessential malaise which infects the contemporary Democratic party, and prevents real reform.

Redneck Socialism is our answer. Simply put, we see politics not as a deliberative exercise, where senatorial comity and “bipartisanship” are the ideals, but rather as the pragmatic and utilitarian pursuit of the Public Good, which is a very real thing, and which has very real enemies. We’re blowing fat lines of Huey Long style populism here. It’s impossible to contemplate the requirements of the post-modern Public without confronting the realities of inequality, and the abusive nature of much contemporary corporate/other power. We have to stop poisoning ourselves, our planet, and developing a massive underclass for profit, and find more and better ways of making money. It ain’t really that hard to do.

This can also be seen as the boots-on-the-ground extension of The New Freedom Movement, which has a broader cultural agenda to help wake up the zombies and usher in a golden era for the species. By taking on a large but not impossibly huge chunk of territory — bigger than a compound, smaller than the world — we’re looking to enact our ideas for change by directly engaging and altering the course of the existing system. In other words, DC looks like a lost cause but it seams reasonable we might crack Salem or at least Multnomah County.

In sooth, “Socialism” is a pretty meaningless phrase. Almost as amorphous as “Capitalism” in light of how our twin dynamos of Wall Street — “I drink your milkshake!” — and the sad ghost that politicians blithly catchphrase as “Main Street” have collapsed. Finance has devolved into scheming con games and outright gambling, and I don’t know where these fucks live (Disneyland?) that they think bloviating about “main street” can be anything but a reminder of how Wal*Mart used and abused most of regular America, but there you have it.

So we’re looking to move beyond. Our belief is that by outing elephants in the room, having the courage to address unspoken issues and bring up sacred cows, while at the same time remaining totally pragmatic and ready to play bare-knuckled politics with all comers, we can advance something much more meaningful than “bipartisanship” or “centrism.” Splitting the difference isn’t leadership.

Music please.

I got a note the other day that complimented me on the quality of my "public longing" (that as opposed, I understand, to the more conventional "secret longing") and this tender sprout of an idea took root in the unfortunately rocky and barren terrain that is what passes for my subconscious these days. I don't know if it's really something to be proud of, but I think I've gone too far down the road of radical transparency to really make much of a turnaround now. Nothing short of the online equivalent to death (that is, taking the whole thing down) can really extricate me from my legacy. Or, as they say in the middle of a bum trip, the only way out is through.

So public longing it is. New tag. Warning to any groundlings out there who might see this post; it's got mature content, which is preferable to immature content IMHO (and as the man sez), but if yr parents aren't into that sort of thing, maybe trip away*.

I'm back in that Swerengen place, which I know at least some people out there get. It's a nasty cocktail of pressurized and randy, a place I get where the facts of my life stretch me out thin enough that there are a real limited number of things that'll make me feel good, and the first one on my mind is getting epically laid, but of course this is a pretty terrible position from which to go playing the scene.

I ejected from a particularly nettlesome day in the SF office (12 hours spent mostly heads down, and not much to show for it) and ran my bike right in front of a cop against a red light. My bad, totally, and I swung away and saved my own life there, but he wanted to give me some shit about it since I guess it gave him a start too. No ticket, thanks, but it really ruins the near-death adrenaline rush which (sorry mom) is a staple of my urban cycling reverie when you get chewed out by the law after the fact.

So he hassled me into walking the bike, which I did for a block or two in case he swung around, and so got a little sidewalk-level view of Thursday night in SOMA. Ostentatious pretty people smelling good in the sort of atrocious way of perfume. Bouncers and young professionals. Sorority girls past their prime. Needless to say this wasn't quite my scene, but it got me thinking a little bit.

Because, hey dipshit, what exactly is your scene? Sure I can sound some aesthetic or class-warriorish notes, but what exactly am I doing with my life that's more interesting or exciting than the yuppie circus on Townsend? Not much.

And this cuts right to the heart of this whole tied-up wish-i-could-get-some scene I've been inhabiting in and out for years now. My man Jack's commandment #4 is to "Be in love with yr life" and that's been a stretch for quite a while now. I don't meant to cast aspersions on any of the wonderful, talented and entertaining friends, comrades and fleeting lovers who've been my companions over the past few years but the truth is it hasn't really been there for me. What gets you out of the bed in the morning? For me, it's responsibility; the knowing that Shit Will Get Fucked Up if I drop out; which is no way to live, long haul.

At the same time, I'm uber-conscious of my massive privileges. I might have eaten off food stamps and government cheese as a kid, been the first generation of my mom's family to graduate from college, but my pops was a PhD, and even though they weren't together they both loved and supported me fully and completely which is the more important point. It's no legacy Yale admission, but in real terms it's the leg up that matters in life.

In other words, the predicament I find myself in is nobody's fault but my own. Ain't no excuse for not living the dream 'cept maybe it's hard to get to sleep sometimes.

Honestly I think I'm afraid to put my desire out there. It's easy to write public longings in the removed digital safety of a blog, but I mean in meatspace, dig. Here I wrote a whole play riffing on the Jungian conundrum of self/shadow-self, and a short decade later I'm too uptight to let my sexy out. I'm unsure whether it's ye old fear of success, or the less glamorous and more cowardly terror before the specter of rejection, but these submerged parts of my consciousness are pretty well deep under.

Which is, again, no way to be long run. This leads to weird flailing thrashes of emotionality. I can see it clearly: too long out of circulation, starting to make more out of things than they really are, the tone of voice when someone's talking about a relationship that tells you not to question their commitment to sparkle-motion. Playing catch-up on the emotional spectrum. Bringing around someone and making all my friend pretend to like them.

That's not me, but I can see it out there, this dark future.

The alternative is to find something to love about my life, about being a grown up, a professional, a self-made man. I've made much hay from my ability to bridge structural holes over the years, but it's left me with a lot of scattered bits of my identity. My political people and art people and red dawn people and drupal people and oldest dearest friends all know different flavors of a Josh, and explaining one to the other can be difficult verging on impossible. Me is somewhere in-between.

And underneath all the sexual frustration in the world is the prom-night romantic hope that maybe just getting with the right girl would bring it all back home. Seems kind of unlikely, really, but it's there.

More likely is I figure out my shit, own it, love it, rock it, and that makes me feel pretty good, loose, hot and free, and then interesting things start happening.

Until then I don't see much alternative to continuing to fumble along, and try not to let any opportunities pass me bye.

---

*I feel increasingly compelled to do these sorts of disclaimers now that I realize my teenage nieces and nephews are on the internet as much as I am, and since my feed hookup cross posts all my stuff to facebook. This whole thing was a lot less complicated when it was more samizdat and all I had to worry about was offending my mom, who's very hard to offend.

Man, I wish I could write and drive at the same time. Last weekend headed up to my old homeland on some unfamiliar highways, Rolling through the town of White City, Oregon — gun shop, churches, VA recovery center, two kids wearing weird mascot-type costumes dancing on the side of the road to entice drivers-by into struggling strip-mall businesses — and on up the Rogue River valley, eventually into the high national forest above Crater Lake. Got a bit dicy in the pass: snowfall, sunset, fuel level and elevation all hitting at about the same time combined with me not being 100% sure I was on the right road; made for an exciting hour or so while I wondered if I’d end up hitching my way back in conditions that reminded me of nothing more than the Donner Party.

But of course I made it with some skillful no-chains driving — light touch and steady speed is the key — and crossed into the relative civilization of the Central Oregon valley. Had a great time doing not a whole lot with some old friends there. Parlor games, kid wrangling, gumbo, scotch, lots of laughter, etc, all in a big warm house in a pretty (if slightly Stepford) “Golf Community.”

I didn’t even feel out of place hanging out with a bunch of common-law/married/engaged couples. Just grown ass people enjoying their time. It did hit me a little when I left though, after cruising over to the Euge and enjoying a lovely Valentines dinner with my Mom, that itchy urge to email all my old ladyfriends or fall down a bottle, or possibly both. Couldn’t get to sleep in any case.

But hit the road early next day, maté and I-5 all the way to San Francisco where I lurk still, doing my best here in the Office and trying to make it all count. I got some tickets to jet to NYC for a quick visit not this weekend but next — see my sis and mom, visit with another fabulously engaged couple — and still need to figure out how March is going to work with deadlines and getting to Austin for SxSw.

I got a bunch of books, and am loving Chronic City and it’s alternate universe Manhattan. Makes me ponder again the life of the mind. I wish I wrote more. I wish I could relax and have fun with greater ease in my day to day. I miss my bohemian ecstasies and revolutionary flair. I miss my makers hours and ending the day feeling good about what got done rather than worried about what didn’t. It’s all adding up to something, and something good it seems, but here in the middle time the spread feels thin.

So this weekend I’ll be jetting up to Mighty Oregon for a weekend retreat at gorgeous Black Butte ranch. As a sign of my continual resistance to maturity, the guest list:

• Steve and Hannah
• Chris and Meadow (and Logan)
• Zya y Marko
• Gina and Luke (and Elle)
• Hope and Bond
• and Josh

Perhaps I should be exiled to Mt. Bachelor! (to my national audience: that’s a Central Oregon joke).

Anyway, after that I’ll shoot all the way down to SF for a couple weeks. Need to figure out if/how I’m going to jet out to NYC while my moms is on the scene there, and also how I’m wrangling travel to/from SxSw in March. Looks like I’ll be something of a road warrior again!

Last night I tromped around in the woods with my roommate, us and her wolf-dog on a jump-roap leash, ranging on up and around Westhaven hill, cutting back through the creek bed by the Arts Center, and finally returning home to simmer up some steak bits with Larrupin’ red sauce. An ideal evening in the Redwoods.

So it was with more than a little preemptive nostalgia that I had to break the news to Kells that I’d be probably moving out this summer. This decision came to me over the holidays, and I’d been digesting for a while, waiting for the right time to vocalize it. Much as I’ve loved my time here, and it’s done some really good things for me, my future is pulling me back out into the world, and into the world I must go.

But no rush; I don’t have a destination set yet, and I won’t be clearing out until June or July. That’ll make it four years in this place, the longest I’ve stayed anywhere since I was a teenage kid leaving the little Eugene house I grew up in for the big city. That was quite a while ago, but the idea of getting back out there has the same whiff of adventure.

I’ll always have a little piece of my soul here in the HC, and hopefully will be back through to visit on a regular basis what with my company having an office and so many wonderful people around. Expect to be on the scene for 2010s Christmas party for sure.

This is my “good” presentation. I’m looking a little haggard here — this is after two more days of being on a boat in Stockholm, and two more nights out with the king of Denmark, then flying back to spend Friday/Saturday nights in Austin, Texas — but this is the best Video I’ve got of my “inspired by Lessig” deal.

Someday I’m going to get my own projector, a foot-pedal clicker, and a few weeks of time, and make some king-hell presentation-art. Lots of potential.

Having beat a lot on the national drain-circling, I feel compelled to point out a counternote: Oregon just passed progressive tax measures to fund little things like schools and healthcare at the expense of the wealthy and corporations. In other words, the People beat the Powerful. It can be done.

How, you may ask? Well the first thing about progressive populism is you have to talk like a progressive populist, meaning you explain in no uncertain terms that you intend to address the massive inequality by requiring those who can easily afford to do so to step up and support the social contract which has benefited them so much:

Second thing you to is engage your base for God’s sake. Maybe campaigning among young people or engaging unions. Give ‘em something to jump and shout about at least.

Do those things, and you can win.

Behave as if you live in thrall to Zombie Regan, or as if you’re an aristocrat, and you will be crushed.

This seems like a pretty simple thing to understand to me, but most national Democrats seem consigned to going out with a whimper anyway. Hard to believe.