And thanks for all the laffs

Of all the tributes to Chris Locke so far, Steve Larsen’s comes closest to capturing the Chris/RageBoy I knew. It’s so good I keep returning to it. Steve knows what it was to experience being hit with idea bullets from Chris’ machine-gun brain, and then riff and co-create the next world-bending or stupidly hysterical (but always catchy) concept. To be one of his co-imaginators of meaningful and meaningless things was a gift I will take forward with me always. When someone truly informs your voice, that’s what happens. 

The last exchange I had with Kat Herding/Chris Locke was a chat shortly before he was hospitalized. I was trying to encapsulate how his obsession with infectious disease disaster movies was another example of how he’s always ahead of his time, given our current global, viral predicament. 

So, I called him “Pre-relevant”.  

“PRE-RELEVANT LOL!! Made me laff more than once!” 

I can’t think of a better final exchange. 

Two pieces of Steve’s tribute are ways of describing Chris and RageBoy that I could not have said better myself if I tried for the next 20 years:

First, what the ride of being his friend was like:

“How can I tell you about that conversation/monologue? Mix up a vat of hard information, coffee dregs, healthy contempt, real world pragmatism, mashed Toxico cigarette butts, visionary eloquence, trailing-off-in-the-haze 60s enthusiasms, pure rage, a sense of mission, Thirteen Ways of Saying Fuck It, a highly-tuned bullshit detector with wires and lights and everything, democratic zeal, arcane rock and roll, a dollop of Howl, a cloud of menthol smoke and a driver with his head in and out of the window, trying to breathe, at ninety or so, bearing down on the Hanging Gardens of Newark”

And second, what it was like for him to get off the ride:

“If Chris had a problem, and this is just my opinion, it was this:  given the brain space and time spent in the future, a place he needed to go, sometimes arriving back in the here and now was difficult and disconcerting.  In his trips to the future, Chris figured out a great many things. He had a clear picture of how certain things would be, what would continue to exist and work, and what things would be discarded.  He used these insights to formulate ideas, products, services, and life in general to describe what life in the future might look like and how it would work. When Chris ‘came back to earth,’ he was troubled to see things around he’s discarded in his head as ‘dead men walking,’ and learned he couldn’t do some things he wanted as they hadn’t been invented yet.”

Pre-relevant. That’s our guy. And it’s only an iota of his legacy. Just wait and see. 

Addendum: My estimate is that Cluetrain and Gonzo were 25 years ahead of schedule. Somewhere in the back of Chris’ brain there was an intricate choreography between the power of connected hearts to cut off capitalism and oppression at the knees, and his obsession with deadly viruses and narcissism. All we needed was one well-placed disaster to set off the powder keg. Here we are folks!

Goodbye, Voice.

We’re living in a bad dream
They've forgotten all about mankind

And you were the one they backed up to the wall

All those years ago

And you were the one who imagined it all

All those years ago

-George Harrison

More respect I have for you than any writer of hearts under the sun. I will miss you my friend, my brother, my caped crusader, my Clientology CEO, boss of Jeremy Outterbridge, tamer of the mystic bourgeoise, founder of the town of blogaria’s 2001 homestead, our Uncle RageBoy-Chris Locke-Kat Herding.

I’m not sure what it means to be in this loosely joined online world without your presence. I’m not sure we should be. But for today, we celebrate the words, the laughs, the ripping out of hearts, the incredible brilliance of all we lit up and burned down. 

“Spark to flame, ignite.”

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: Web without end. 

From Chris’ classic Chapter 1 in the bestselling book that kicked business righteously in the ass, The Cluetrain Manifesto:

—————————

Chapter 1: Internet apocalypso

Premature Burial

—————————

We die.

You will never hear those words spoken in a television ad. Yet this central fact of human existence colors our world and how we perceive ourselves within it.

‘Life is too short,’ we say, and it is. Too short for office politics, for busywork and pointless paper chases, for jumping through hoops and covering our asses, for trying to please, to not offend, for constantly struggling to achieve some ever-receding definition of success. Too short as well for worrying whether we bought the right suit, the right breakfast cereal, the right laptop computer, the right brand of underarm deodorant.

Life is too short because we die. Alone with ourselves, we sometimes stop to wonder what's important, really. Our kids, our friends, our lovers, our losses? Things change and change is often painful. People get "downsized," move away, the old neighborhood isn't what it used to be. Children get sick, get better, get bored, get on our nerves. They grow up hearing news of a world more frightening than anything in ancient fairy tales. The wicked witch won't really push you into the oven, honey, but watch out for AK-47s at recess.

Amazingly, we learn to live with it. Human beings are incredibly resilient. We know it's all temporary, that we can't freeze the good times or hold back the bad. We roll with the punches, regroup, rebuild, pick up the pieces, take another shot. We come to understand that life is just like that. And this seemingly simple understanding is the seed of a profound wisdom.

It is also the source of a deep hunger that pervades modern life — a longing for something entirely different from the reality reinforced by everyday experience. We long for more connection between what we do for a living and what we genuinely care about, for work that's more than clock-watching drudgery. We long for release from anonymity, to be seen as who we feel ourselves to be rather than as the sum of abstract metrics and parameters. We long to be part of a world that makes sense rather than accept the accidental alienation imposed by market forces too large to grasp, to even contemplate.

And this longing is not mere wistful nostalgia, not just some unreconstructed adolescent dream. It is living evidence of heart, of what makes us most human.

_________

I’m sending love and comfort to Selene Locke, Lauren Locke, Jesse Locke, Shanti Locke Villarreal, and Joe Locke. And to Doc and David, Chris’s Cluetrain co-conspirators and OG rage channelers 

Penny Snow Dream

How many times you put me

In your back seat,

Listened to me chatter down

Sun-soaked roads

On our way to the park or

The music store. 

This time it’s a dream. 

You are the passenger 

In the car ahead of me. 

In a dream, everything is real. 

Turning the corner,

Some familiar landmarks.

Lined leather gloves, 

Wool caps and winter coats 

Pump gas at the Mobile station.  

Across the street 

Regulars line up for a fish fry. 

Eyes forward now,

blinkers offer a sign

Of what’s ahead.

You turn right

Onto South Clinton

Toward home. 

I try to keep pace

To stop you 

From disappearing

Into what’s next. 

Flash forward:

Next door, I wait for you

Inside a neighbor’s house 

I’ve never seen. 

Rick is there. 

From the bay window 

We wonder

Why isn’t she home yet?

You left so fast. 

I never took my eyes off of you

Until I did. 

Moving the curtain aside

Headlights rounding the corner,

Falling sleet dulls their beam. 

The faceless driver 

Pulls in to your driveway,

Turns on the brights so you

Can find your way.

Through quickening flurries, 

You rise. 

Look how your smile 

Lights the night,

Snow turns headlights into halos.

You walk 

As if you had never stopped,

Climb your porch steps,

Turn to the waiting car,

Wave a thank you, goodbye. 

With a twist of the knob

You are home.

Rick Beato on Aunt Penny: The Hardest Video I've Had To Make

Aunt Penny 💔

Today sucked the breath out of me. 

My guide, my compass, my sidekick, my other-mother, my laugh, my friend, my ground wire, my collaborator, my co-creator, co-conspirator, my inspiration, my song, my beautiful Aunt Penny passed away thanksgiving eve. 

The one who sat beside me on my bed when I was six years old. Explained to me the inexplicable

My father, her brother, had died. 

“Can I go out and play,” I asked?

“Can I come too?” She answered. 

I understood then, because children do, we were in this together. 

Over the next 52 years, when either of us faced a tremendous obstacle, one of us would ask the Big Question: “Can I go out and play?”

My father’s words, I would later learn, she took as an oath. “My baby sister, take care of my baby daughter.” She was only 26. She didn’t have to take that job. But she did. She saved most of us children more than once. 

Her spirit sparkled through what for most of us would be unimaginable adversity, taught us not only how to move through fear, dread, and uncertainty, but also how to look for enjoyment, passion, fun, humor—and music—on the path, at every turn, under every leaf. 

I have her lessons in me. How to recognize every small joy. Every quiet delight. 

I have no words for how much I will miss her. Our adventures with Jenna Sessum and Ge Sessum. With my brother Frank Dimino, her incredible sisters, our cousins and extended family and friends. 

Our lake visits and road trips. Our shopping excursions. Our daily FaceTime chats. Our late-night texts. Her kitchen table talks were legend. 

I will miss her every part of every day. 

And yes, we will go out and play.

Lay down with a child

I forgot i ever wrote this, but then i remembered...

lay down with a child

May 8th, 2006

Lay down with a child; watch them let go of the day.

Not a pet. Not a lover. A child.

Listen to her stories, to her final fury of lucid thoughts before she gives in to sleep; listen to her questions, always profound at this time of the night, about God and oceans, about life and death, about how she’ll never be 90 years old.

Be quiet and listen to her. Sketch her face with your eyes as she stares out the window at the stars from the universe that is her covers. Follow her breath with your own, in and out, and wait for the moment when she releases the day.

Then rest there longer. Let her dreams climb into yours, feel the softness of her small hands, and feel so blessed for that moment, ache for everyone who has had it and lost it, and realize that sadness will one day be yours, when you don’t have her night times anymore.

Touch her hair, brush her cheek gently, and kiss her softly as you rise.

Posted in Prose, Remembering, My Child | No Comments »

Elithea and AKMA said so

AKMA today announced he is going back to Blogaria—a way to redecorate the web, take back territory from trolls, and reduce time on social “networks” infested by bad actors. And I don’t mean Sylvester Stallone.

So I thought I’d see what it’s like to post from the old iPhone. And what better than showing off one of the three things I appear to be sufficient at growing. Potatoes. 🥔

Here is my latest haul.

You may be amazed that I grew two varieties. Like you, I’m skeptical of the purple ones. How do I know if a potato that doesn’t look like a potato is okay to eat?

I thought back to how my mother made potatoes, before microwaves, and remembered that everyone boiled potatoes. As I looked at the weird skin on the purple potatoes, I decided just to be safe, I’d take the skin off and boil them. Honestly? They taste just like the red ones, so next year I’m skipping the purple and the peeling and the boiling.

Now the red ones are interesting. I really thought my potatoes would taste special. Soil to table. I used organic fertilizer. I grew them in containers. I watered them lovingly. And they grew well.

But you know what? Unlike strawberries and peppers (the only two other foods I seem to be able to grow), which tasted way better than store-bought versions, the red potatoes I grew taste exactly like potatoes. No more no less. Not sweet not dull. Just potatoes.

I’m not complaining. I’m glad something grew out of my steroid-induced patio container garden that my frustration with some Tragically Really Unbelievable Malicious People made me plant.

This way, I am prepared for the coming undoing—at least once I learn how to grow tofu. Or soybeans. Or something with protein. Because I’m not raising cows. And our chickens are all dead now.

#RIPgeorgiarose



So, after some time away, this catches us up for now. Dinner is in the crockpot. No that is not one of our chickens. The opossums or raccoons got them.


I guess my blogroll is going to need some attending to.

I feel like this is so old-school that I should go chop some wood.

Do what you can to #resist.

Grow something. Throw something. Mow something.

❤️

from warbloggers to trumpeteers

This blog has been the frying pan for my thoughts for a long time now, going on 17 years. That's through GW Bush's administration, Obama's cool 8 years, and now this nightmare: Trump and the alt-right. I look back on how irate we were at "W," at 911, at the warbloggers who took "the war on terror" as their rallying cry to hate anything peace loving. The warbloggers were the genesis of today's Trump base. Ask-no-questions, flag-waving, globe-hating war enthusiasts that suddenly had a platform for hating anyone outside of our  boarders.

Today the warbloggers have come home to roost. They have their President. He has his nukes. And it feels like all the passion and resisting we did back then made not a bit of difference. Maybe we got complacent during Obama, a President that tried to be on the side of the people, or most people. Maybe there is no winning for the good guys in a country with a legacy such as this.

The Alt-Rogue vs the Alt-Right

We certainly live in interesting times. For social media, the use and misuse of a single communications channel may have just changed the course of the free world. Which makes for even more interesting times.

I don’t know about you, but I could use a little less excitement.

In the recent 2016 U.S. election of Donald Trump, a concerted and strategic social media arsenal was unleashed, one that the Democrats seem to have been wholly unprepared for.

How is that? While we (yes I’m one) were busy laughing at people who watch Fox News, a “network” whose news stories and celebrity-talking-heads have been debunked time and time again, the last laugh was on us.

“Fake News” became facts, and fears became fuel, and fools became leaders.

The new white house itself is proud of its reliance on “alternative facts,” which — although Twitter has had a ball with the notion — is scary as shit.

Many of us original bloggers (Y2K here) remember when Ev Williams started Blogger and began self-publishing around that time. When Ev started Twitter, I don’t think any one of us ever saw the future: A POTUS spreading fallacies and threats and rumors, and then drawing dangerous lines in the sand with enemies and allies alike, all in 140 characters or less.

How did a medium that once was, if anything, super honest and highly personal — with early bloggers and twitter users making themselves vulnerable and human in sharing from the gut — become a channel for hate, hyperbole and falsehoods?

The medium isn’t the message, folks. The messengers are.

In this case, the alt-right’s Bannon and company ran a brilliantly strategic social media campaign, complete with a literal paid island of young people manufacturing a digital arsenal of fake new stories that made them rich, along with paid trolls posted at every corner of every comment section that mattered.

Bannon thought of that. We didn’t.

Because at our core, liberals and progressives believe that no one would believe it, that people are intelligent enough to distinguish hyperbole and alternate facts from truth, and that in the end, we should believe the best about our fellow man, and that love should trump hate.

Boy were we wrong. DEAD wrong.

So, how should we take back social media? Can we? What would it take? Do we have to fight “fire with fire,” as Trump said last week about national security?

While I’m glad we are building an army of comedians like Alec Baldwin and the SNL cast, who is building our army of truth-tellers that can deprogram and sway a public that has already been captured by an army of trolls?

One sign of hope this week: the ALT-rogue twitter movement

When the National Parks twitter users were silenced by federal order, some brave rangers went rogue and launched their own “AltUSNatParkService” handle. Scientists (@ScienceMarchDC) who have been directed to run all findings through the new administration before publishing them have followed suit with a planned march on Washington and bevy of rogue twitter handles of their own.

Suddenly the Alt-ROGUE movement is rising up against the Alt-Right movement.

This week – I see it as our best hope.

But we’ll need more. A lot more.

Teens, Drama, Dollars

Had my first try at a long-form linkedin post today. we waited 13 years and blogging came right back around.

In Social Media, Size Suddenly Matters (OR: I guess it's not the motion of the ocean)

LinkedIn's opening up it's Long-Form publishing -- described as posts of "three or more paragraphs" -- while digital publishing boy genius Ev Williams goes after the "medium" market. This, after Ev got us into the babbling mode of 140-character communication in the first place, but only after he trained a dozen years ago to be wordy and prolific on his pioneering blogger.com platform.

It all leaves online publishers are wondering: what the heck do you want from us?

Short, medium, long? All of the above? And how are their best practices around length when performance is commonly measured through engagement? To engage, don't I have to connect? And if I'm all over the place spurting out 100-character tweets, medium-size mini book creations, 200-character status updates, and 5 paragraph missives, how can I actually have a conversation with you?

Answers will have to wait. Today, I have only questions. What do you think? Please respond with short, medium, and long-form tweets, posts, and updates if you feel so moved.

Georgia Goes High Tech with Email and Text Weather Alerts...

Apparently GEMA just realized such advanced technology was possible. Help. me.

Jeneane Dimino Sessum

Wow. they're going to send text alerts and emails now. what did they send previously - the stinkin pony express????? telegraphs???? "Don't worry yer purdy head; i'll fax the gubner in the morn."

"Effective immediately, a storm warning will trigger a message to cell phones in targeted areas, as in the Amber Alert system, and advise against road travel," said Deal. "We will go one step further with school superintendents by emailing them weather condition updates, so that they have the most up-to-date information when determining whether to close schools." 

11Alive

It's time for solutions. If you could sit down with Kasim Reed and Gov.Nathan Deal and suggest one real way to put us in a better position for the next winter storm: What would it be? You can read about plans already in place: http://on.11alive.com/1j7F5qa

Facebook post-mortem, from Facebook comments

Tony Pierce

Hey Mark Zuckerberg, maybe you should make it easier for relatives to have access to their fallen family members' FB accounts so they don't have to hope that their vids go viral to get your attention. People do die, you know.

My appeal to Facebook

youtube.com

We want to see my sons 1 min movie on fB

Like ·  · Share · 3 hours ago · 

• Mike Rodriquez and 8 others like this.
• 

  Jeneane Dimino Sessum they collect every other kind of information - ought to be a couple of check boxes for "other(s) who may access" - or emergency contact or something. I mean the dentist asks for that. can't bookface?

  44 minutes ago · Like · 1
• 

  Rob Lawrence Good idea. Some people might opt for "delete all my shit immediately upon (official) notice of my death". Others might specify " give access to this person and NOT that person."

  38 minutes ago · Unlike · 1
• 

  Jeneane Dimino Sessum I like that!

  31 minutes ago · Like
• 

  Jeneane Dimino Sessum [ ] Deactivate my acct and donate my images, videos, and posts to a the Internet Memorial (business model forthcoming)
  [ ] pay $___ to immortalize my profile on facebook - keep my FB page alive foreva: __ allow __ disallow comments
  [ ] Turn my private profile public 
  [ ] Turn my public profile private
  [ ] Send login information to my emergency contact at ______

  20 minutes ago · Like · 1

Smokescreen - my journey off cigarettes

In Smokescreen, I've combined blog posts from the four years during which I quit and started STAYING OFF cigarettes into a book for the Amazon Kindle! If you've ever chewed your nails off trying to NOT smoke, wish you never started smoking, hope one day you'll be able to smoke a magical cigarette made of nothing addictive and have a happily ever after, or know someone who needs to understand these things, GET the book!

My time

Air thick with algae and driftwood decaying, breeze light but crisp, the lapping of lake waves kept us company. 

The leather reins braided, playing loosely between my thumb and index finger. 

Into the water, hocks pumping, somehow we float, swim, snorting, then back to the beach. 

Down on two knees, a roll in the sand to scratch, wet mud in crevices cooling, the power of ages paws its way to standing. 

Back on, bareback gallop across familiar trails all the way home. 

Ya Down with OCD? (Ya you know me)

Mental Health Tip of the Day. 

I remember when a well-meaning family member told me that if i didn't stop tearing the skin off my fingers boys wouldn't want to hold my hand. 

I was 10. Maybe 11.

Of all the worst things you could tell a tween with anxiety and panic issues, this would be right up near the top of the list. 

Still. The advice was meant to be helpful. Probably motivating enough for the occasional picker. 

BUT I was not casual. I started tearing at my feet at 5 years old. To make the skin even. Peel a layer, another layer to even things out. Do the surgery on myself that could not save my father's life. All without knowing why. 

So If you have a 10 year old who is ripping their skin off in your own family, consider not saying this to them and instead suggesting some help for anxiety and OCD issues. They will do better with boys long term if they aren't living in a total hell of agonizing distress. 

Ya you know me!

Are you kidding me iPhone 5?

If anyone had told me that you would be able to speak a blog post into a phone I wouldn't have believed it. 

But that's exactly what I am doing. I am not sure how well this will work but if it does no one should have an excuse not to  blog. 

Dude, it works. 

This is a tired dumpster face

I

Day ? of dumpster cleanup, and I'm wondering why the bark collar on bando isn't working. Every time something goes kerbang into the dumpster he yowls his displeasure. 

We opted for the bark collar because at the apartment he suffers from both dementia and separation anxiety to go along with his OCD manifested in licking and scratching. All in all not bad for 93 and heart worm positive. 

ANYWAY that hundred dollar bark collar is going back to the store as soon as the 100 percent life sucking dumpster adventure is over. That was the point of this post. When you get a dumpster, the rest of your life must be put on hold to focus Utterly and completely on filling that dumpster. 

Today's dumpster fodder included an old litterbox that was hiding a black snake underneath. More boxes. Lids for things that no longer exist. Broken chair backs. LOTS of papers. Dust. Strapless purses moldy computer bags. Yum!

In a dumpster all things are equal. An accidental gold necklace is the same as a broken baby gate. Ashes to ashes. Dust to landfill. 

I took 150 pounds to goodwill today. The goodwill guy was happy to see me. He eyed my Disney tv and remote. I know who THATs going home with. 

George is calling me. Time to go haul another load. 

Travel light my friends. Travel light. 

the dumpster

We have, my husband and I, obtained a dumpster to try to get a handle on things. As you know, dumpsters are the Number 1 device for getting a handle on things.

We have the dumpster for 3 weeks, so that should allow quite a handle.

The last time we got a dumpster, the only thing that ended up going in was a king size bed - a bed I didn't really hate that much - and a bunch of empty boxes and wood to make it seem full. That wasn't much of a handle. It left me feeling depressed and incompetent of getting rid of stuff.

But this time we are ready to get rid of stuff.

stuff that is killing us.

so much stuff the house has expelled the people in it, mostly.

This time though, we are ready to get a handle on things, and we have spent hours so far trying, and together saying ONE TWO THREE, TOSS! hurling into the dumpster old desk drawers and bed frames and suit cases covered in cat hair and dust -- and I'm not so sure new species haven't evolved from the combination thereof.

meow-sneeze.

you really shouldn't have to go through so much to get a handle on things.

last night I thought the anaphylactic reaction I had from the cat hair and dust was going to send me to the ER. I could post a picture of my oozing eyes, but it's on my phone and I'm not sure how to beam it onto my old blogspot blog here. Plus it's really gross. It may keep you from ordering a dumpster, and I wouldn't want to be responsible for that.

There's so much more to do. but for the next three weeks I will allow myself to fool myself that the presence of the dumpster means we are getting a handle on things.

And I'll enjoy the days and nights of feeling the fooling notion that things are being handled. And I don't want to talk about what comes next.

Dear Internet: The more I read, the crazier I get

of course, the more I write the crazier i get

the more i work the crazier i get

the more i cook the crazier i get

the more i rest the crazier i get

the more i drive the crazier i get

and kind of like so on and so forth.