Monday, September 25, 2000

4:28 PM
Richard Evans sent me this wonderful quote. Its for those who have or would like to escape Corporate Land. I spent almost 29 years there.

It is not childish to live with uncertainty,
to devote oneself to a craft rather than a career,
to an idea rather than an institution.

It's courageous, and requires a courage
of the order that the institutionally co-opted
are ill-equipped to perceive.

They are so unequipped to perceive it
that they can only call it childish, and so,
excuse their exploitation of you.

-- David Mamet

4:05 PM
BEHIND THE CURTAIN: a day in the life of webloggers
This is the site with everyone's Behind The Curtain.

What the 'behind the curtain' project is ...

on september 17 and 18 of the year 2000, over 150 webloggers coordinated to photograph 24 hours in their 'normal' lives.

It is amazing to not only see all the pictures but how everyone presents them so differently.

Sunday, September 24, 2000

2:40 PM
Behind the curtain: a day in the life of a weblogger 09-18-00
Reality is really getting in the way! The behind the curtain site is done, I am going crazy revising, creating, and completing my other web sites and I helped move Katie. WackaWacka! More sooner or later.

Tuesday, September 19, 2000

1:08 AM
Behind the Curtain: a day in the life of webloggers - finish
It's been interesting taking pictures all day to document a day in the life of this weblogger for this project. How do you take pictures of trying to get a Perl script, that has been running just fine for almost two years on a Netscape server (thank you very much), to run on an Apache server? How do you take pictures of talking to your ISP trying to figure out what is different? How do you take pictures of reading an e-mail from you daughter stationed in Germany who wants me to meet her new boyfriend? How do you take pictures of someone that you haven't seen in over 5 years, someone that you first met in 1971 when she was a teenage Acid Queen, and find out that she recently had a heart attack and has lost a lot of memory? She remembered me and my kids but sometimes had a hard time remembering words. Life is a horizontal fall.

Now to take the pictures and put them together for the Behind the Curtain web site. My day, and 170+ others, will be up on the 24th. It's been different going through a day being concious of what you are doing and and how you are going to present it for others to see. A self imposed fish bowl experience. I recommend it.

Now it is nighty night.

Monday, September 18, 2000

9:59 AM
Behind the Curtain: a day in the life of webloggers - start
Let the day begin. Actually, it began about an hour ago. Coffee and morning surfing. Should get to work.

9:22 AM
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Neo-confederates want out of US
The Southern Poverty Law Centre's report, Rebels with a Cause, lists 14 different groups which it says operate in 25 states, mainly in the south, to promote the confederate cause. They include the Heritage Preservation Association which has declared "total war" on those who attack southern values and culture, and the Confederate States of America, a group which would like to repeal laws that gave citizenship to blacks and votes to women.
We all have our own realities but some of them are certainly more out of touch than others or I certainly hope they are.

Sunday, September 17, 2000

1:32 PM
The Seattle Mariners just beat Baltimore 3-2 to sweep the series. They've won the last 4 series and Kazuhiro gets his 33rd save tying a club record. They are 2.5 games over Oakland and the sun is out. Yes!

Saturday, September 16, 2000

10:14 PM
I'm listening to this CD as I write this.

Big Mama Thornton - Ball N' Chain
Leiber and Stoller wrote Hound Dog for her. She made it a hit before Elvis got hold of it. You can hear it on this CD. These recordings are from a series of recordings in the mid 60s. She is singing with Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, Fred McDowell, and Edward "Bee" Houston. She does a great Little Red Rooster. Big Mama wrote Ball N' Chain. Janis Joplin asked her permission to sing it but, by that time, she had sold it. It's here. But my favorite are the two done with Fred McDowell, Mississippi Fred McDowell. She is jamming with Fred McDowell's eery slide guitar recorded in a hotel room.

Mississippi Fred McDowell - This Ain't No Rock N' Roll
I bought this album around 1969. Unfortunately, I don't have the CD so I can't listen to until I get the turntable fixed. "I don' play no rock n' roll. I jes' play the straight, nach'l blues." Blues to make the hair on the back of your head stand up. Saw him live in a tavern in Seattle in 1971. Hoo boy!

9:06 PM
Hurricane Gordon aims for Florida, a hundred or so miles above Tampa. Sat Sep 16 2000 11:30pm EDT
This is the first time I have shared my name with a hurricane. It's pretty weird.

Tuesday, September 12, 2000

3:49 PM
TestingTesting - Three Boat Wait
The archive for last night's webcast is up. It was a fun show and you can hear the News From South Whidbey. Learn about the mushrooms and the Jays.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
I finished this last week. Katie brought it up. She has ordered the third volume. Anyone that hasn't started reading these must do so immediately!!!! You will thank me.

1:45 PM
IBM Announces Voice Recognition Brake Threw
The possibilites for this are ex siting.

Monday, September 11, 2000

2:14 AM
The Church of Baseball
Things have been very busy lately. It's that old deadline thing. Sunday was time for collecting my birthday present from Zoe. An afternoon of baseball. The Mariners are playing well again and lead Oakland by 2 games in a pennant race. My first time to Safeco Field. It is definately a shrine to baseball. This is how it is meant to be played. They beat the Twins 8-1. And I got to share it with Zoe. Can it get any better? I think not.

Friday, September 8, 2000

1:18 AM
Digging through piles on my desk can be an archeological expedition. Two items from Jenny and Katie's past turn up...

Sunday, September 3, 2000

5:06 PM
The Inscrutable 8-Ball Revealed
This site was found by Weblog Wannabe. This site poses some very disturbing questions for it brings into question the prophecy powers of the Magic 8-ball. If you do not want your faith shaken then *do not*, I repeat, *do not* go to this site. It is only for those with the strongest delusions...er, faith.

1:34 AM
Pop Goes the Culture: All That Jazz, By Paul Tatara
I spent a good fifteen years of my life religiously absorbing rock & roll before I ever approached jazz. In 1993—when I finally decided to take a break from Dylan, The Beatles, and their lyric-heavy progeny—I carefully read up on jazz history and purchased heaps of landmark CDs. Soon, I came to appreciate what I now believe is the most reliably stimulating of all musical idioms. It's an understatement to say that jazz means a lot to me. I honestly feel that my orientation toward the world has been altered by this distinctly American art form, just as it changed when I first started listening to rock & roll.

It's a good article about one person's discovery of jazz and his recomendations. Check it out. I discovered jazz in the late 60s. I got to see Miles Davis live with his classic quintet in 1966. But it was when Miles went electric that it got real interesting. Like Dylan before him, Miles was accused of heresy when his band went electric. Actually, he still is. Miles once said he could put together the best rock n' roll band ever and then he did. There are three incredible albums of his early electric/fusion period. Within weeks of ending the acoustic quintet he recorded In A Silent Way in 1969. Six months later he did the classic jazz/rock fusion album Bitches Brew which I'm listening to as I blog. This has been a big influence on musicians such as Trey Anastasio, lead guitar for Phish. In 1970 he did my favorite, A Tribute To Jack Johnson, which was a film score. I can only listen to one now, Bitches Brew, since it is the only one I have on CD. I have all three on vinyl but the turntable is broken. Sigh...

Friday, September 1, 2000

11:11 AM
A couple of nights ago I was doing some late channel surfing before retiring for the evening (actually early morning) when I came upon All the President's Men. For those who weren't there, it is the story of Bernstein and Woodward's uncovering of the Watergate scandal. This morning I come across a book review of Arrogance of Power : The Secret World of Richard Nixon.

It is sad that too many people today think the events surrounding the Monica Lewinsky scandal meant anything. So much about nothing. Seeing All The President's Men brought back something that was really scary. 1968 to 1974 were very intense times. From the Tet offensive and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy to the resignation of President Nixon. The Viet Nam War had the most press but, in the end, it was the attack on the Constitution that Nixon and his cronies perpertrated that should scare the beejesus out of anyone. It's been a long time and I had forgotten. Not so much forgotten about the facts but forgotten about the feelings. The fear and the outrage. The feelings of helplessness as those around me who trusted in authority couldn't see or believe.

The movie is a great movie but when you realize that it is all true it is more terrifying than any movie I have ever seen. Anyone who wasn't there should see the movie. Anyone who was there should see it too. The book provides a much wider coverage beyond Watergate. What happened at Watergate was the tip of an iceberg.

The movie also shows reporting as it should be and not what it has become. It showed reporting that was more than passing on press realeases unquestioned.