Blogging empowers, brings confidence. I am who I say I am. Suddenly popularity is bestowed on the braniacs who missed being the life of the party the first time around (unless you were a young Chris Locke passing out your homemade jug of acid to the student body of the UofR and single-handedly changing the genetic makeup of western New York). Aside from those always-bold web personalities, many of us who make up the blog community (and the good folks at google) are just smart, really creative, unassuming, regular people. Not flashy... our messages are our meaning. It's not java script or flash intros that make us say "Ah ha!" It's good thinking, good writing, and good humor. We fight; we make peace. We joke; we laugh. We learn; we link. We create; we appreciate.
And you know, the Real World could learn a lot from us.
February 08, 2002
Learning
If I keep my self-control,
I'll be safe in my soul.
And the childhood belief
Brings a moment's relief,
But my cynic soon returns
And the lifeboat burns.
My spirit just never learns.
-From Genesis - In the Cage
Work hard to recreate yourself. Let yourself be new, brand new.
February 07, 2002
Uncountry
Understand
that everything isn't so,
it never was.
between the forms
and shapes
crystal clear moments
unfold.
where was I then
that I missed them?
hideous, dangerous
monster memories
swipe and slice
lion claws
that leave deep marks
in young flesh.
Unlikely to untangle,
unending.
Understand,
can't you?
the wanting,
the waiting,
the hated
the hating
it was all a waste.
nothing from you
would have been better
than this.
that everything isn't so,
it never was.
between the forms
and shapes
crystal clear moments
unfold.
where was I then
that I missed them?
hideous, dangerous
monster memories
swipe and slice
lion claws
that leave deep marks
in young flesh.
Unlikely to untangle,
unending.
Understand,
can't you?
the wanting,
the waiting,
the hated
the hating
it was all a waste.
nothing from you
would have been better
than this.
February 06, 2002
Watching the Detectives
This one's a doosey. RageBoy talks of wearing patterns in the carpet of the local bookstore and begins to unravel the many mysteries that make him, well, RageBoy. And of course there's lots of that real smart stuff he's always saying 'bout Zeitgeist and synchronicity and triumphalism and such. Open dictionary.com and give this installment of EGR your complete attention.
Call Gary
Gary Blockstickers Turner has a great post today in his other blog further exploring the notion of "voice" in how we read one another's blogs. You know, the voice you "hear" in your head when you read these things, these personalities, these emoting demons of the net netherworld. Well all this time I read Gary as a cross between an excited Garfield and a resolved Eeyore, and it turns out he's more like Daffy Duck meets Sean Connery! Gary doesn't just stop there--he says this:
"For total authenticity in the future when you read this blog you can call my office voicemail number and hear my dulcet tones on (44) 1536 495482, if you call during office hours I'll likely answer it so unless you want to purposely embarass us both then call some other time. I'm on GMT here. Hell you could even leave me a message."
Gary, you freak, I love it! I am calling. Hey everyone, call Gary. Tell him you love him.
"For total authenticity in the future when you read this blog you can call my office voicemail number and hear my dulcet tones on (44) 1536 495482, if you call during office hours I'll likely answer it so unless you want to purposely embarass us both then call some other time. I'm on GMT here. Hell you could even leave me a message."
Gary, you freak, I love it! I am calling. Hey everyone, call Gary. Tell him you love him.
February 05, 2002
Bathing in Bombast
There is a lot to love about The Bombast Transcripts. Chris Locke's brilliant mind, incredible gift for story telling, mixed with his often damn-scary use of idea enhancing self medications, make for a wild ride through the worlds of business, art, love, loss, grief, and discovery. And I'm only half way through it.
What's taking so long? I've been re-reading a lot as I go along. It's a good idea to do this when you're reading Locke. Take any special passage--and there are a lot of them: The first read startles you, the second read brings forth an "Ah ha" (and often a "ha ha"). And the third read is special--it's for soaking in his ideas.
Here's one of my favorites, from page 72:
"What I believe about my writing -- sometimes, when it's not just flatulent exhibitionism -- is that it's a way to turn those headlights on myself. Not to shock anyone, but to cease ignoring, fearing, hating what I am. After half a lifetime doing that, one day fourteen years ago I stopped. And right before I stopped, I got truly angry. It wasn't anger born of fear, for once, but of understanding. Understanding how I'd been complicit with whatever it is we go along with, buy into, lay on ourselves and others constantly: the shameful guilty knowledge that we are licking our own secret wound in private, in the dark, and no one must ever see. No one must ever know."
This is what I've been doing with my blog. And perhaps what many of us bloggers are doing--turning the headlights on ourselves so we can start healing. Start living again, at first within the safety and almost-anonymity of the net. Here we can examine. We can practice. And we can fail.
We start again. We test the waters. Who am I now? And who might care? Start to reveal the wounds. *Speak* the pain. And when the message connects with someone, resonates with them, that very connection begins the heaing. The growing. The becoming.
In this process, I've had gut wrenching moments. Why is it all coming back to me now? Taking me on this personal oddessy? Converging and climaxing around painful memories and a present-tense that feels uncertain? Why is it all at once so painful and so thrilling? And why the hell am I so compelled to share it?
Because it is birth.
Creation, birth, rebirth. It's bloody and painful, it pushes you to the edge and jabs at you until you think it might be better to jump than to take the punishment a second longer. That's what I'm here to do, to give birth to myself, and to maybe do a few things better this time around. Here. With you.
What's taking so long? I've been re-reading a lot as I go along. It's a good idea to do this when you're reading Locke. Take any special passage--and there are a lot of them: The first read startles you, the second read brings forth an "Ah ha" (and often a "ha ha"). And the third read is special--it's for soaking in his ideas.
Here's one of my favorites, from page 72:
"What I believe about my writing -- sometimes, when it's not just flatulent exhibitionism -- is that it's a way to turn those headlights on myself. Not to shock anyone, but to cease ignoring, fearing, hating what I am. After half a lifetime doing that, one day fourteen years ago I stopped. And right before I stopped, I got truly angry. It wasn't anger born of fear, for once, but of understanding. Understanding how I'd been complicit with whatever it is we go along with, buy into, lay on ourselves and others constantly: the shameful guilty knowledge that we are licking our own secret wound in private, in the dark, and no one must ever see. No one must ever know."
This is what I've been doing with my blog. And perhaps what many of us bloggers are doing--turning the headlights on ourselves so we can start healing. Start living again, at first within the safety and almost-anonymity of the net. Here we can examine. We can practice. And we can fail.
We start again. We test the waters. Who am I now? And who might care? Start to reveal the wounds. *Speak* the pain. And when the message connects with someone, resonates with them, that very connection begins the heaing. The growing. The becoming.
In this process, I've had gut wrenching moments. Why is it all coming back to me now? Taking me on this personal oddessy? Converging and climaxing around painful memories and a present-tense that feels uncertain? Why is it all at once so painful and so thrilling? And why the hell am I so compelled to share it?
Because it is birth.
Creation, birth, rebirth. It's bloody and painful, it pushes you to the edge and jabs at you until you think it might be better to jump than to take the punishment a second longer. That's what I'm here to do, to give birth to myself, and to maybe do a few things better this time around. Here. With you.
February 04, 2002
Lessons
My friend Phyllis is telling me a story, my ear drips with sweat it's been listening so long. I hear a thud, bump, thud outside. Damn dogs are playing rough again. They never shut up. Gotta let them in soon. "Huh, he said what to you? No frickin way. Come on." Half hour. Hour. "It's not you. No, you need to stop calling him. Just stop yourself," I tell her. Like she ever listens.
My mind drifts, half listening I wonder where my husband is playing tonight. Somewhere in Boston. Another gig I missed. I wish I were there. Feeling like a band widow and that sucks.
"What? No, you don't call him. You forget him, Phyllis."
Think back to the night I met him. I'd been watching a long time, secret groupie. Daughter of a bassist, looking for the deep dark rush of the low end. Found him when I least expected it. Or he found me.
Now two years later, we are married and in our first house together. Somethings don't change, like Phyllis and her man problems. The rest of my life is, and will remain, one guess at at time.
Finally she's done. We won't solve it on the phone tonight, but as usual, it doesn't stop us from trying.
"Okay, call me later." We always call each other later.
Upstairs I think, he must be back from the gig by now. I think I'll call. Lemme let the dogs in first, get ready for bed.
Nothing prepares me for the shock as I open the back door.
That sweet boy--the most lovable and intuitive of our two mutts--still and lifeless, a single link of his metal choke collar embedded in the fang of our problem dog, Ikea.
I stand there for what has to be a solid minute, bathing in the trauma. "NO!" I try desparately to untangle the choke colar from Ikea's fang. On the other end, Peanut flops lifeless. Ikea in a primal panic bolts and pulls, tighening the chain around his neck until I'm sure it will sever his head.
It doesn't matter. He's been dead for an hour.
These are the lessons we learn.
While we engage in the useless, the meaningless, the profound and often deadly is unfolding quietly just out of view.
My mind drifts, half listening I wonder where my husband is playing tonight. Somewhere in Boston. Another gig I missed. I wish I were there. Feeling like a band widow and that sucks.
"What? No, you don't call him. You forget him, Phyllis."
Think back to the night I met him. I'd been watching a long time, secret groupie. Daughter of a bassist, looking for the deep dark rush of the low end. Found him when I least expected it. Or he found me.
Now two years later, we are married and in our first house together. Somethings don't change, like Phyllis and her man problems. The rest of my life is, and will remain, one guess at at time.
Finally she's done. We won't solve it on the phone tonight, but as usual, it doesn't stop us from trying.
"Okay, call me later." We always call each other later.
Upstairs I think, he must be back from the gig by now. I think I'll call. Lemme let the dogs in first, get ready for bed.
Nothing prepares me for the shock as I open the back door.
That sweet boy--the most lovable and intuitive of our two mutts--still and lifeless, a single link of his metal choke collar embedded in the fang of our problem dog, Ikea.
I stand there for what has to be a solid minute, bathing in the trauma. "NO!" I try desparately to untangle the choke colar from Ikea's fang. On the other end, Peanut flops lifeless. Ikea in a primal panic bolts and pulls, tighening the chain around his neck until I'm sure it will sever his head.
It doesn't matter. He's been dead for an hour.
These are the lessons we learn.
While we engage in the useless, the meaningless, the profound and often deadly is unfolding quietly just out of view.
now
If in running past, we miss that big something we should have crashed smack-dab into, who's doing is it? sigh. All by design. To fail to falter is my biggest mistake. Don't let yourself bleed half a lifetime before you look down and notice the wound. It's harder to heal that way. Cut, bleed, cry, rage, stomp, cuss. Do it all right then and there. Delay is nothing but false harbor. No one is safe. Let it wash over you. You are not safe. Accept it, feel it, know it, and push on anyway.
That is my job today.
That is my job today.
Clinton Drops Da Bomb
On a related musical note, this just in from the Onion. Actually, it's not just in. In fact, it first appeared during that other little mid-east tiff we had, when Iraq succesfully dodged UN Weapons Inspectors, much to Mr. Clinton's dismay. But look how cyclical life is! This game plan is just as relevant today as it was the third time around. In fact, I'm going to have to run right now so I can fax it forthwith to the asses of evil for their consideration.
Every American should do his part. Funk on...
Every American should do his part. Funk on...
February 03, 2002
Get Your Funk On
If you've never seen George Clinton in concert, you should ask yourself why not. It's an extraterrestrialfunkified experience that is sure to delight. In the mean time, flip on over to the right nav bar, baby, because it's funky february here on allied. Listen to that slappin bass and groove on with yer bad self. Youssou N'Dour is a stretch for funky february, I know, but since we listen to him every day in the car, and our daughter can almost consistently tell you where "1" is on those odd-metered tunes, he deserves top spot this month.
n'joy.
n'joy.
February 02, 2002
Did you try too?
"The axis of evil." It kind of grows on you, doesn't it? That's why I set off to see who grabbed the domain name, figuring it would be gone, and it was:
Congratulations to johnboy, the proud papa of axisofevil.com, born January 29, 2002!
Helgeland, Clair John
johnboy@visi.com
2151 COMO AVE
SAINT PAUL, MN 55108-1807
US
If he puts up a site, let's hope he sides with good and not with, well, evil.
Oh, and b!x, you should know that assesofevil.com is still available. Hurry, supplies won't last!
Congratulations to johnboy, the proud papa of axisofevil.com, born January 29, 2002!
Helgeland, Clair John
johnboy@visi.com
2151 COMO AVE
SAINT PAUL, MN 55108-1807
US
If he puts up a site, let's hope he sides with good and not with, well, evil.
Oh, and b!x, you should know that assesofevil.com is still available. Hurry, supplies won't last!
February 01, 2002
the asses of evil
This from the one true b!x, who encapsulates the mighty one's state of the union in his latest blog:
Bush, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft -- the Asses of Evil -- are asking these nations, begging these nations, to try something. Try anything. Hit us again. So we can wipe you off the face of the then-bloody Earth.
Madmen. Every single fucking one of them. Theirs and ours alike.
If it weren't so true, it would be hysterical.
Bush, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft -- the Asses of Evil -- are asking these nations, begging these nations, to try something. Try anything. Hit us again. So we can wipe you off the face of the then-bloody Earth.
Madmen. Every single fucking one of them. Theirs and ours alike.
If it weren't so true, it would be hysterical.
This blog has gotten far too depressing. For me at least. Let me take a cue from my fellow blog chroniclers and summarize some of my more interesting findings this fine Friday. Let's run through them, shall we?
You got your everyday "lady nurses a monkey" story. What is there to say?
Craig at BookNotes is incredibley prolific. [ed.--I thought I remembered reading that he was the last liberal in texas, but on further exploration of his blog, I'm not sure where he's from, but his blog is indeed awesome.]
Doc's talking about Jackson Browne, and then gives us a disturbing hollywood update--Jeff Bridges sings?
RageBoy's back--He's going to the movies.
Helen Razer made me a really cool graphic for this blog, which I have to figure out how to incorporate, and I will.
I am completely digging Mike Golby's blog, and his human nature.
Marek hasn't blogged since his soul food for thought. You okay Marek?
I think this is b!x's mom.
That's all for now.
You got your everyday "lady nurses a monkey" story. What is there to say?
Craig at BookNotes is incredibley prolific. [ed.--I thought I remembered reading that he was the last liberal in texas, but on further exploration of his blog, I'm not sure where he's from, but his blog is indeed awesome.]
Doc's talking about Jackson Browne, and then gives us a disturbing hollywood update--Jeff Bridges sings?
RageBoy's back--He's going to the movies.
Helen Razer made me a really cool graphic for this blog, which I have to figure out how to incorporate, and I will.
I am completely digging Mike Golby's blog, and his human nature.
Marek hasn't blogged since his soul food for thought. You okay Marek?
I think this is b!x's mom.
That's all for now.
January 31, 2002
My friend marge calls from Rochester. I miss her so much it still hurts. She says, "Are you okay? I've been reading your blog." Think about the connections in our connection. I had just finished posting--she's at the other end, looking at her monitor, sees my pain. My flat screen, a two-way mirror. The kind where concerned social workers watch family therapy sessions, invisible, observing the grief and anguish from a distance. Then we reconnect--coversation--over the phone, voice to voice. Ah--refreshing. I tell her ya, I'm okay. Margie, I'm okay, well, except for wanting it to be okay.
I miss ya Margie. I miss our camelot, the biosphere, oz.
Damn that wizard.
I miss ya Margie. I miss our camelot, the biosphere, oz.
Damn that wizard.
In hiding
I lie silent at last
I am free from my past
I walk among the tall trees
This is beauty I know
I am in love with it all
I have the freedom to love
In hiding
-Genesis, In Hiding
Split, twist, engage, extend, morph, converge. Sometimes, you're 40 years old before you find out that something you always thought was so isn't. Shall we say I had a revealing therapy session yesterday? Yes, let's just say that. These truths that are emerging about my life--what do they have to do with blogging? I think everything. In writing ourselves into existence (as David Weinberger describes this little exercise of ours), we have a chance to change what was wrong the first time around.
Born again blogging.
It goes like this. You reach inside your soul--where else are you going to get all this material, the stuff that matters--and you pull out all of your collective experiences, understandings, rights and the wrongs, all better known as baggage. You approach this clean slate--the net, your blog--and you begin to define yourself.
Come out from hiding and share your life with the universe.
Man, there's no better way to see how fucked it's been.
And it's not always the things we write about--sometimes the significance is in the omission. The things I don't blog. But still, they inform my writings. There is no hiding in good blogging.
So back to therapy. Things are happening, coming undone. Lies and Truth have intersected and I stare at the axis, blinking. Amazed. confused.
Where have I been?
W-h-e-r-e have I been?
There is comfort in pretending, in hiding, which is why I think a few posts back--in leaving my read of Cixous--I was comfortable to stay in exile. Remember that? That's where Cixous left me. Wrapped in the notion of exile. And I thought that was where I needed to be.
With no camoflage left
Naked I stand shaking
Waiting for rebirth.
I lie silent at last
I am free from my past
I walk among the tall trees
This is beauty I know
I am in love with it all
I have the freedom to love
In hiding
-Genesis, In Hiding
Split, twist, engage, extend, morph, converge. Sometimes, you're 40 years old before you find out that something you always thought was so isn't. Shall we say I had a revealing therapy session yesterday? Yes, let's just say that. These truths that are emerging about my life--what do they have to do with blogging? I think everything. In writing ourselves into existence (as David Weinberger describes this little exercise of ours), we have a chance to change what was wrong the first time around.
Born again blogging.
It goes like this. You reach inside your soul--where else are you going to get all this material, the stuff that matters--and you pull out all of your collective experiences, understandings, rights and the wrongs, all better known as baggage. You approach this clean slate--the net, your blog--and you begin to define yourself.
Come out from hiding and share your life with the universe.
Man, there's no better way to see how fucked it's been.
And it's not always the things we write about--sometimes the significance is in the omission. The things I don't blog. But still, they inform my writings. There is no hiding in good blogging.
So back to therapy. Things are happening, coming undone. Lies and Truth have intersected and I stare at the axis, blinking. Amazed. confused.
Where have I been?
W-h-e-r-e have I been?
There is comfort in pretending, in hiding, which is why I think a few posts back--in leaving my read of Cixous--I was comfortable to stay in exile. Remember that? That's where Cixous left me. Wrapped in the notion of exile. And I thought that was where I needed to be.
With no camoflage left
Naked I stand shaking
Waiting for rebirth.
January 27, 2002
All I'm saying is this: The connections we make on the net are helping us rewrite our real world selves even more dramatically than our online selves. Yep, I need to explore further, and I will give personal examples, but not tonight. For tonight I will say that connections alone are not enough. They are not the end, they are a means. Something happens, is happening, to me and to you because we're here. Something not defined by google search results or inside our blogs. It's physical. It's tangible. What is resonating with you? Where will it take you? How are you different because you've been? Who are you becoming?
I am not who I was. And I'm not alone.
I am not who I was. And I'm not alone.
January 23, 2002
What do you do when you're tired to the bone, waiting for that one more thing to push you over the edge? I'm pretty sure my one more thing is coming, and soon. Consider this a pre-blog. I'm not blogging about what was or is, but pushing the blog-forward button, telling you another shoe is about to drop. Look up--see it? I do. What's yours look like? White? Brown? Dirty with some gum stuck to it? Mine's one bigass sole (with cleets I think). Poised.
Nothing left but fruition.
If it doesn't stomp me to death, I'll let you know what it brings forth.
In the mean time, I blog. Why not?
David over at JOHO has some interesting ideas on blogging and what we are accomplishing by bringing forth these net voices:
The importance of the weblog phenomenon isn't so much that it enables people to publish their breakfast menus or even their genuine insights. It's that we now know what our "avatars" on the Net are going to be: not graphical cartoon representations but our body of writing. You are what you write. On the Web we are writing ourselves into existence. This introduces into the self the same issues of control, inspiration, invention, deception and play as have always been present in the relationship of authors to what they write.
I think Dave's right on with this, and I think we can take it one step further, and a hyperlinked thought it is: As our fingers wind around the keyboard sketching our online selves--filling in the furrows, the wrinkles, the gleam, the raised eybrow as we go--that avatar we create *recreates* us in the offline world. It is a circle of creation and recreation. That is the joy in it for me--not so much the voice, the self I have created through blogging, but how that unleashed voice is transforming me, the person, the flesh and the mind.
Food for thought. An ecosystem, a food chain, an infinity symbol... I don't have all the answers, but I do know that the hard-copy me, the one who created these five pages of search results on *me*, has been changed by that very act. For the better. I think.
joy. don't forget the joy. it's gotta be here someplace (now where did I put it?)
-night
Nothing left but fruition.
If it doesn't stomp me to death, I'll let you know what it brings forth.
In the mean time, I blog. Why not?
David over at JOHO has some interesting ideas on blogging and what we are accomplishing by bringing forth these net voices:
The importance of the weblog phenomenon isn't so much that it enables people to publish their breakfast menus or even their genuine insights. It's that we now know what our "avatars" on the Net are going to be: not graphical cartoon representations but our body of writing. You are what you write. On the Web we are writing ourselves into existence. This introduces into the self the same issues of control, inspiration, invention, deception and play as have always been present in the relationship of authors to what they write.
I think Dave's right on with this, and I think we can take it one step further, and a hyperlinked thought it is: As our fingers wind around the keyboard sketching our online selves--filling in the furrows, the wrinkles, the gleam, the raised eybrow as we go--that avatar we create *recreates* us in the offline world. It is a circle of creation and recreation. That is the joy in it for me--not so much the voice, the self I have created through blogging, but how that unleashed voice is transforming me, the person, the flesh and the mind.
Food for thought. An ecosystem, a food chain, an infinity symbol... I don't have all the answers, but I do know that the hard-copy me, the one who created these five pages of search results on *me*, has been changed by that very act. For the better. I think.
joy. don't forget the joy. it's gotta be here someplace (now where did I put it?)
-night
January 17, 2002
January 15, 2002
Top ten reasons I wish RageBoy would blog more:
10. I don’t have to blog if I’m busy reading his.
9. My dire straits album is getting dusty.
8. I need an excuse to read The Harvard Business Review.
7. I got my war on with no place to go.
6. One word: Zeitgeist
5. Every once in a while, I kinda, sorta understand him.
4. What good’s a meme if no one’s there to propagate?
3. That "Grumpy Fuck" Winer is starting to make sense.
2. Can’t get enough of that funky stuff.
1. I’m still waiting to find out how the LoveLeash worked out.
10. I don’t have to blog if I’m busy reading his.
9. My dire straits album is getting dusty.
8. I need an excuse to read The Harvard Business Review.
7. I got my war on with no place to go.
6. One word: Zeitgeist
5. Every once in a while, I kinda, sorta understand him.
4. What good’s a meme if no one’s there to propagate?
3. That "Grumpy Fuck" Winer is starting to make sense.
2. Can’t get enough of that funky stuff.
1. I’m still waiting to find out how the LoveLeash worked out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)