Ring Me Up, Netherlands.

More evidence of the coolness of the Netherlands. Check out these ringtones. I was searching up information on player pianos, thinking back to my friend who had one growing up, and how I loved to watch the rolls go round and round while an invisible maestro pressed the keys.

I landed on the National Museum van Nederland website and found my favorite ringtone--one I wish I could get on my Blackberry, but I don't know how any of that new fangled stuff works. Can we download these? Or do we need to be cool like they are over there? I don't know--I don't reada the language.

For easy digestion by Amerikans, I would give the ringtones English names:

Schwarzwalder Speelklok de Trompetter - becomes: Ticktock lil Clock

Cilinderorchestrion de Heizmann - becomes: Ride My Painted Pony

Speelklok met glazen bellen - Glasglöckchenuhr - becomes: Gentle Fairy Wings

Straatorgel de Limonaire - becomes, well, Old MacDonald?

Maybe they should make mechanical music rolls for wireless.

I could handle that.

--more: see the collection page.

Oh, THAT Pompitous

George and I were just having a discussion about The Joker, no not Steve Miller fans really, more about what the hell is the pompitus of love, yes it is, no it's not, sort of like that.

And you have to love the net.

you no lead I no follow

a refrain for shelley...courtesy of genesis...

I will (no)follow you will you (no)follow me
All the days and nights that we know will be
I will stay with you will you stay with me
Just one single tear in each passing year

I will (no)follow you will you (no)follow me
All the days and nights that we know will be
I will stay with you will you stay with me
Just one single tear in each passing year there will be...

followyoufollowme.au

Pieces

Unsettled
born and bred
on the cusp
of the lost
and found

moldy boots,
thumbless mitten
always one hood
ties frayed
without its jacket

what does one do
with such things

I am patchwork
torn edges
stitched by hand
anything but
beautiful

You should have
seen that
from the start.

Red State, Blue State...

Who lives in a flu state?

Documenting BLOJO CRED

Jon Garfunkel, who attended BLOJO Cred at Berkman, has written up a thorough summary on some of the touchier issues around the conference. He polled some of the excluded and included some thoughts from critic-skeptics, I think in part so that there would be a centralized record of what some of the outlying blog voices were talking about when the initial criticism of the conference began.

Jon did a lot of work compiling his analysis, and it shows. While I agree with his assumption that the lack of diversity didn't affect the outcome or the tenor of the conference, I maintain my dismay: That's the point. That by not assembling a more diverse group both the high priests of blogdom and high priests of journalism were safe in securing their desired positioning without challenge from their own parishioners. Each desired to win the coveted credibility grail from the other. In the end, no one got to take the trophy home.

As for the rest of us? Well, we were right, and a hell of a lot more funny, but that doesn't count for much in closed circles.

Jon concludes his essay by describing what happens when a homogeneous group tries to achieve something meaningful:

"Getting a group of fifty in a conference room tilts the conversation too much. There are just too many affluent men (and too few women) strutting their own stuff without anybody to challenge their assertions. I know; I was there; I offered the challenges. I got support from the people on the outside looking in, but the insiders had little response, and the good folks in academia who should have led the questioning had checked their skepticism at the door."

And while the conference apparently failed to achieve any accord or agreement (the best news I'd heard come out of the Berkman Center in a long time), Jon concludes that perhaps we can do a better job at talking with the elite without attacking them:

There's still work for the readers to do, and perhaps this is what Dan Gillmor meant to say. Outsider participants need to figure out ways to get the insiders' attention without dropping into personal attacks.

There are moments when I think that having civil discourse over heated matters helps. But I've found that usually it doesn't. There is a certain demographic among the blog elite that doesn't hear unless you get in their face. I'm willing to keep doing it. Partly for me and partly for those more civil than I who otherwise don't get heard when posting opinions of dissent. The ones who email me saying, "That rocked what you said on your blog."

If three or four years of fine writing and thinking -- of humor and horror, of piss and passion -- on the part of the excluded aren't enough to get the "insider's attention," then it's just not going to happen.

And that's okay.

Because what they don't seem to realize is that they are quickly positioning themselves as the "business as usual" crowd of blogdom and journalism, the institutionalized among the amateurs. They are becoming what they came here to diss.

Tee hee.

The CEOs of Blogging are no sooner going to forgo their $50,000 in "pocket change" than I am going to stop pointing out how silly they look in their fancy-dancy ties.

I think we don't need their attention. We simply need to keep talking to one another, and when they do and say ridiculous things within the hallowed halls of conferenceland, attempting to define standards and ethics for an "unspace" like the blogworld, then we keep talking to each other.

That's what we do.

Obama!

Yah! I like seeing his name up there in my google ads.

In other news, I ditched the old sidekick finally. I initially bought an HP IPAQ 6315, thinking that it would be way more relevant to me than it was. I hated it. What's with making a Pocket PC with a detachable keyboard and not making a case that houses said keyboard. Well, key"board" is probably best described as hyperbole. I should call it an itsybitsyletterbox.

Anyway, I spent a total of 10 hours on T-Mobile support calls trying to 1) Get the IPAQ do some simple tasks like say give me the email I actually WANTED, not deliver them as SMS's every two seconds. Then when I gave up and returned the IPAQ, I was left with residual data "FEATURES!" on my sidekick that insisted on delivering an Instant Message every single time I got an email in either of my two email accounts. I can tell you precisely how many SMS email alerts fill up your sidekick SIM: 39. I get 39 in a half hour to an hour on a typical workday. WHich means, in order to keep my phone SOMEWHAT functional, I had to delete messages every 45 minutes.

BYE BYE SIDEKICK.

BYE BYE IPAQ.

BYE BYE T-MOBILE.

Hello Blackberry.

Miscommunication

LONG LIVE KOMBINAT! IMAGINE GLOBALLY. PICTURES TALK TOO. PIXELS ARE WORDS PIXELS ARE PICTURES DO NOT DISCRIMINATE.

Miscommunication Originally uploaded by marekj.

Sisters CONTINUE Doing It For Themselves...

Blog Sisters has a new look and vision, thanks to the edgey eye and keen talent of Andrea and Rox. Just in time for our anniversary in February.

We turn 3 years old.

Makes a mama proud.

Blessings all.

Still Alive

There are so many things I want to post about that I can't post a thing.

I have not the time, for I am currently in customer aquisition and retention mode. i.e., busy selling and doing work.

You won't believe how well it's going. Just wait until we have a web site. I hear people use that internet to check out companies before they do business with them. 'magine that. And the whole time I thought it was just about p0rn.

So, for now, I'll spark your interest with our name:

The Content Factor.
stay tuned - coming soon to www.contentfactor.com, or for those of you who like a good article, www.thecontentfactor.com.

don't go rushing there yet.

too soon.

this is a pre-launch message.

I'm me and I approved this message.

Some Cluetrain Clarifications...

People of Earth,
[[-->Not just White People of the U.S.]]

A powerful global conversation [[-->punctuated by hyperlinks, not business cards]] has begun. Through the Internet [[-->not one-off exclusionary institution-centered events]], people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—-and getting smarter faster than most companies [[-->even popular media conglomerates, and that's good]].

..People of Earth
[[-->not just White People of the U.S.]]

The sky is open to the stars. Clouds roll over us night and day. Oceans rise and fall. Whatever you may have heard, this is our world, our place to be. Whatever you've been told, our flags fly free. Our heart goes on forever. People of Earth, remember.

[[-->no edits to the above paragraph.]]

with thanks to Cluetrain.

Remember, February is "Re-Read Cluetrain" Month!

Pick a buddy and read to one another!


Above: Doc reads Cluetrain to a class of third graders at his neighborhood elementary school

How homogeneous Can One Room Be?

About like this.

The frightening thing is, they have no idea how ridiculous they look to the rest of the world. For some of them, the world is what they report on--their oyster. Little brown bodies floating in the sea and such. They are tolerant in their own country. They will send money to others.

For others of them, not all of them of course, the world looks much like Boston, a white-friendly little jewel in the tolerant blue state area of the U.S.A. They don't like W. They might even vote for Barack Obama. But they don't think anything's odd about a room full of so many people just like them discussing ethics and standards for an online world they assume as much privilege over as their offline neighborhoods.

Hey, ho, girl, you're outta line.

And you?

I wouldn't care if they were getting together to share recipes or tips on selecting the right tie for navy blue pants. I'd even be glad if they got together to work on how to be better writers.

But I do care that they were discussing "credibility," "ethics," and "standards" about a space that is as much mine, ours, as it is theirs. A space that they can help ruin because of shared "trust" among an alarmingly homogeneous group.

What's not to trust--they don't look like criminals, they're educated, they're sitting around a table at Harvard for the love of God. Certainly they are who they say they are.

Thing is, they are assuming they know themselves. No no no. You don't know who you are. You don't know who your wives are, your husbands are--you have no idea what kind of ticking time bombs are tucked inside your hearts.

But it's easier, isn't it, to fix this space, to examine it, to quantify, verify, validate, and ejaculate it into a neat and tidy transcript. Baby, it don't work that way.

How many bloggers of color did you invite? How many reporters/journalists of color? I'm making assumptions here--I better be careful--like I'm always so careful. It wouldn't be ethical to be careless. Yes, so, I just want to know.

"It's about business models," one of them said. It's about a "shared vocabulary." It's about "a shift from analog to digital." It's about changing "the mainstream press' ideas about journalism."

No it's about your raw ass. How's that. It's about ebonics if I want it to be. It's about strawberry jam and toe jam. It's about whatever it's about.

I am glad that it had a happy ending though:

We're certainly a long way from a shared set of principles, or a code of ethics, or even an understanding of how they could come about.

Well thank the Blue Eyed Jesus for that.

For Immediate Release: BloMe Pre-Registration Begins

Don't forget--pre-registration begins next week for the spring Blogging and Media (BloMe) Conference.

This year's theme is "BloMe: Those Who Can't, Confer." During the popular Case Study track, a dozen middle-age white male bloggers will facilitate a panel discussion at Chuck-E-Cheese entitled: "The Credibility of Child's Play: How Do We Verify Enjoyment?"

Attendees will discuss the panel's growing discomfort with creativity before stealing their tickets and turning them in for tattoos at the prize counter.

When we write it, we can link

Disclaimer: I dont' have time to disclaim. Or edit. On a good day I might get time to spell check. That day's not today. Blogging is not my job. It's just something I do. And carpool starts in 15 minutes.

I hopped off to David's site today hoping to read something usually witty and realized the much anticipated BloJoCred conference is underway. Finally. Now it can be over and people can go back to writing.

I read a little bit of David's coverage. I thought, there everybody is again. Third paragraph: Winer speaks. What else is new. Then I got to Jay saying this at the conference:

Jay: Every reader is a writer. Every reader is connected horizontally to all the other readers. In Web publishing, the editing occurs after publication.

And I bristled. Because that was mine -- my words -- and though a New York Times reporter echoed this thought to Jay on the phone the same day I did, Jay agreed and we did what we do in blogging -- jammed on in the comments using one another's thinking to build the collective braintrust.

I know Jay is smart enough to have thought of all of that on his own, and I respect Jay. My beef isn't that anyone used or didn't use an idea I once had. It's seeing ones idea fly out of a community and into a closed-loop environment -- especially an environment that is exclusive rather than inclusive.

To me, the point is that in blogging, I would have been quite literally "linked" into the conversation. Here, it's Big David at Big Conference typing that Big Jay (all of whom I respect, aside from Big Conference) said X.

How is that different from the business-as-usual these folks proclaim they are helping to turn on its head? They are so right-side-up their feet should be hurting.

I am grateful to Tom Matrullo for noting this when it first happened back in April. Even then I was excluded as a 'thinker,' but the difference is, on the open frontier of the net, connections to ideas are not erasable.

All the above are sensible folks with sharp ideas, and blogging is supposed to be an open realm. The credibility of that depends on our being able to avoid selective deafness. A good idea should be recognized for what it is, not for who offers it. For that we already have academia, the mainstream press, and other white networks. The idea that blogs serve an editorial function has legs. In this case, they happen to look like Jeneane's.

Tom wrote that last April. Seems time stands still in the land of conferences.

Even Peggy says...

"Some things are constant, such as human imperfection, injustice, misery and bad government.

This world is not heaven."

I was sick that week

There's this hoopty-doo going around the land of the blogs and the home of the snobs lately. It's not just lately, actually. It's of late. I mean: it's a lot, and for a while now.

The hoopty doo in question is almost always about blogging itself and is generally intensely interesting for those involved in it. Also intensely inviting for those who'd like to get involved in it.

Then there's me. I'd like to get involved in it, but lately I've been so busy that all I catch is the backwash. By the time I get there, the lava lamp's unplugged and everyone's gone back to writing about whether or not blogging is journalism. Well that's unfortunate.

A good flame war used to last a week, sometimes two, leaving ample time for others to dive in and singe their eyebrows. Now a blogument ignites like a fourth-of-july sparkler, all flashy and dashing for about two minutes, and by the time I get a chance to catch up--get close enough to partake--all that's left is that little charred stick.

It's not fair.

It was like that in high school geometry for me. I was sick for two weeks with incredibly bad bronchitis which, if a doctor had seen me, would likely have been diagnosed as pneumonia.

Nonetheless, I missed a lot of school, and by the time I got back, they'd covered two whole units that are now very evident holes in the mathematics memory chip of my brain.

I don't want our own arguments to end so swiftly around here. What's wrong with carrying a good old fashioned grudge for a couple of months. For crying out loud, what's with all the "This is the last word on the subject" posts. Shut up. It's never the last word.

Didn't you hear? No one gets the last word on the Net.

Least you could do is give a girl a chance to catch up.

Throw a punch or two.

Not that I condone that kind of behavior.

Not me.

Unrelated Thoughts

January is never so busy for me usually. This is a good sign. Perhaps a sign of business picking up for everyone. It certainly has been good around these parts--especially for the month of the year during which I traditionally beg for a new-hire press release or two to write. That's akin to begging for scraps off the master's table. In case you were wondering.

Speaking of the master, props to the president's speech writer, professionally speaking. I could tell by the tone and messaging where he was headed, tuned an ear into how he was weaving pieces of a brilliant positioning that moved the emphasis from "fear" to "opportunity" (we do that a lot in the marketing biz), from "terror" to "freedom."

I'm driving, mind you, and I'm thinking, holy roller, he's setting the prez up as the "Global Abe Lincoln," and then I hear the radio guy who's reading the speech say something about "slavery" and "just as Abraham Lincoln," and I had to 1) pull into a Chick-Fil-A, 2) Not tell them what I was thinking 3) Get a #1 combo 4) cross the street and get gas 5) use the restroom in the gas station which gave me the rare treat of examining a made-for-men urinal in the unisex lav, and 6) collect my thoughts.

America: Freeing Coloreds 'Round the Globe.

It's a good thing I like Chick-Fil-A.

Epiphany notwithstanding, it was a typical drive home, complete with tractor trailer accident or three, me glad I stopped for gas and urinal.

So here I am.

The day was puzzling.

Tuesday's Song

You say Alprazolam
I say Lorazepam
You say Oxazepam
I say Diazepam

Alprazolam
Lorazepam
Oxazepam
Diazepam

Let's call the whole... thing...

Estimated Tax Day Illness

Hello! What's a blog? Where am I?

We've been sick overhere in our parts. I'm just coming to. To what, don't ask me. To the realization that estimated taxes are due today, and by due I hope they mean postmarked, and if that's not what they mean, please don't tell me, because I don't have time machine. Curses.

I'm sending the $. Period.

Jenna and I have been battling the upper respiratory infection from hell. Where's the shot for this? Shit. I finally gave in and popped to steroid pills today. That ought to be good for another Xanax prescription down the road...

Speaking of which, I had the pleasure of being in the company of an orthopedic specialist this weekend who mentioned that there's a NEW flavor of Xanax out--not cherry or berry, but Long Acting. He said the initials are LAX. And we both laughed about panic and air travel.

Do I know how to have fun or what?

As I mentioned recently, it's an odd thing, but I'm getting more referrers coming through various google search results each day. Looking through them today, seeing terms that take me back in time -- like my father's name, recovery room moaning, digiorno pizza, Rochester garbage plate, family dollar paper towels, and redneck neighbor -- it was very much like watching my life flash before my eyes. And I wondered, when it's my time, down the road a piece I hope, God willing, and all of that, if I won't skip the haunting visuals and simply sit back and let site meter do the work.