"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Outlandish Josh

Published on Sat, 2004-12-04 13:00

Saturday Sun

Solid, man. Solid. That's what we've got to be. Prioritization and planning, that's the word of the day. And cleaning my room. Austerity is coming along just fine -- I'm about to go to Trader Joes, pick up some staples plus some pure cranberry juice and goldenseal and whole oats. Getting cleaned out, then maybe even start lifting some weights in the backyard, some recreational bike riding.

Got to map out all the projects, figure what comes first; what's infrastructure, what's the bread, what's the butter. Briefly, I'm looking at three or four things going forward: some political/technology consulting, some long-form writing, starting up a big new art project with a bunch of peoples from New York, and preparing for an epic summer road trip. Inside all that there's a lot to be figured out. Synergies abound. I should get some big paper and just draw it.

Anyway, I'm a bit of a jumble. I'm considering myself on semi-vacation for the next few weeks. That will mean re-organizing and re-designing this website for starters, so there might be some downtime. Hopefully not. We'll see.

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General
Published on Sat, 2004-12-04 00:43

Into The Blood

We need more life about each other. Light creates understanding. Understanding creates love. Love creates patience, and Patience creates unity.

-- Malcom X

Or did I just blow your fucking mind? It's not what most people expect to hear from brother Malcom, but there it is. That man was deep. What a blogger he would have been.

I've got my work cut out for me. This one's optimistic, but the situation right now isn't good. It's not the end of the world, but there's certainly a bit more of a shadow over my vision. Tough living, these days.

In a quest for inspiration, I look back at some of the performance work I did hack right after 9/11, the spirit that was expressed then. In something I wrote between 9/11 and 9/13, I informed my audience that reality was in their hands to create as artists:

Change your reality, shave your head, move, eat a new food; or find a new fantasy, believe in love, in opportunity, in your fellow human. Either way you change your experience. Change your experience, change a lot of experiences, reclaim the dignity of a lot of experiences, and you can change a lot of reality. Then you too can move the heavens and the earth.

That's right, man! Justify your existence! A month later trying to put my theory into practice I presented a character based on the homeless man who fix bycicles, including mine, in the East Villiage, as well as my own naiscent philosophy of change and politics.

Yeah well, you know, it's like... if you could figure out how things are changing though, like the code to change, like the rhythm, yeah the, the wavelength - there's a, there's a wave of change, and you could hop up on that shit. You could surf that change, you know, bust some serious Big Kahuna Che Guevara moves.

Man you could get it together, the change, like all the spare change lying around, get it together and it's a real thing. Change, man. Real change. Real-World change. Real-world "change the world" Change.

Viva Che! That one was scored to Radiohead's Optimistic, quite a stirring tune if I don't say so myself. I had it played live on acoustic guitar and told jokes with my musician as part of the performance.

Anyway, the point is that at the end of the day, these are things I still really believe in. I believe in the social revolution, and I believe that the political process is a part of it. They can be complimentary elements rather than antagonists. I believe that by changing enough hearts, we can simply prevail by our energy, without having to destroy other lives.

The question is, how do we do it?

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KoneZone
Published on Fri, 2004-12-03 18:15

Work

Newly unemployed, I ponder the possibilities for future work. Free of obligations for the moment my imagination is in high gear for what might be done with the summer. After visiting with Luke and Mark it would appear the Great Summer Road Trip is on. That entails having a savings, which means holding on to as many of the assets I currently have banked as possible.

But there's the question of how I'll live in the meantime. Not just what I'll do, but how I'll maintain on my college (and post-college credit card) debt. I also have a dead screen on my powerbook, which presents a kind of a problem, or at least a kind of a cost.

Consulting is a no-brainer, but I'd really rather not have to file a complex tax form for 2004. If I could put any consulting revenue off (and I could) to 2005, that would make this years taxes EZ to file, and I'd probably get some of the $5k in fed+state withholding back even.

There's also the issue of unemployment insuarance, and whether I want to make a run at that. What if I get a temp job or some consulting for a little while. Can I still fall back on it if the other work dries up? Have to investigate all the options.

Oooh, or maybe I could message. Proj proj proj... that would probably get me into shape pretty quick if nothing else. I could also make tech house calls like I did in college. That's usually under the table. Crappy seasonal employment (working at the mall!) is always an option, as would be temping. I think the best would be consulting that paid out starting in 2005, and maybe some bartending or something to save me from dipping into savings in the short term.

Those things tend to be very connected to social networks though, and I don't have the ins or the (professional) experience. Still, Nascera says I should use my looks while I've got 'em. Anyone know any bartending shifts I can pick up, preferably at a place where I can meet some women and where they'll keep me off the books?

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General
Published on Thu, 2004-12-02 13:55

Levee Song

My life is taking a turn. What it all means practically will emerge and be dutifully explored in short order, but for now I want to explain how it feels. Ready for an extended Led Zeppelin allegory?

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913):
Levee Lev"ee, v. t.
   To keep within a channel by means of levees; as, to levee a
   river. [U. S.]

Yeah. Here we go.

If it keeps on raining, the levee's gonna break

I'm unemployed. "Involuntary Termination: Reducting in force/Layoff." It was bound to happen sooner or later, and to be honest it's not all that bad. I'm relishing the freedom, looking foward to having my life back, and working on unpacking the learning on bureaucratic maneuvering I should absorb out of all of this. Time to revisit the Art of War, as Peter always told me to do.

I'm a hired gun again, with which I'm pretty comfortable. Still, the whole way it went down was unpleasant and draining. This one's optimistic, but forsooth I need a little time and mouthwash before I can really dig into anything with a fair mind.

When The Levee Breaks I'll have no place to stay

Something new will come along shortly, I'm sure, but for now it's austerity time: three meals at home, sit down with Excel and make a budget, start looking for cheap ways to stay entertained and engaged, start looking for gigs. Lucky(?) for all y'all that probably means a lot more blogging (here and elsewhere), and lucky(?) for some other people out there I'm free to ramble around like a busy bee, cross polinating and making honey as I may.

Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home

It came down to a relationship analogy. I wanted to be in love or I wanted to break up, so we broke up. Maybe there will be some consulting. That's cool. I enjoy dating, and conversation is one of my favorite ways to pass the time. But I'm not going to be in a relationship I don't believe in, and especially not one where I feel I'm in some sense being abused.

That being said, I didn't handle any of it especially well. Others fucked up royally, but I blew it as well; lots to learn about how to try to make change from within an organization going forward. I feel especially bad as I may have cost some other people their jobs as well, though this remains to be seen. Hopefully everyone will come out a winner.

Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move

Crises precipitate change. Crisis is opportunity. Mamma, you got to move. There are a lot of things I care about in this world, a lot of things I'd like to get done. I was doing some of them this past year, but a lot of the time I felt like I was fighting with one hand behind my back, in an ill-fitting suit (even though I didn't have to wear one); working against the current or something. I was cozy up next to some powerful folks for a while, and I made a lot of new connections, allies, friends even... but the way it was going wasn't really how I wanted to flow. It wasn't entirely True, which gets my dander up. Idealist and optimise me, always asking, "why not the best?"

It's messier this way, sure, but maybe it's the only way things could happen. For me, that seems to be the case. Again, my biggest regret has to do with other people who might have caught some mean wake off this move, or that the organization might capsize. The latter is unlikely -- too much value there to squander -- but I worry that my own exit has made it difficult or impossible for other people to reconcile their situations.

All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
Thinkin' about me baby and my happy home

There are tradeoffs in life; choices, decisions, two roads diverged in a yellow wood. But I've read Faust. I don't want to make that bargan. Faust got fucked, you know? His compromise was perminant, and you can't sell your soul for tomorrow's good time and expect it all to work out. Ask a crackhead, or Kenneth Lay for that matter. It's not how I operate.

In the end the repulsive force was getting stronger and the attractive force was getting weaker. We broke up, me and Music For America. We're still going to be friends, but I'm out again, looking for the right fit.

So in the mean time I get control over my life and my words back. Expect a flood of repressed confessional content. Expect plans and proclimations. Expect reorganization, ground-breaking, unfettered imagination. Expect more of the best. I'm going to be happy.

For now I'm off to welcome my main man Mark back to these United States from a lengthy stay in Chile. More later. Stand strong.

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confessions

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