Really

DARPA’s latest unveiling -
Is it really a sophisticated polling system and a creative new solution, or is it what it sounds like to Congress : an obscene means of gambling, of raking it in on an information futures market. Creativity is good. The pentagon team that invented the Internet, one could say, utilizes a very interesting and in-depth form of creativity that our country needs. But then there’s the power issue and the politics issue, and the realization that most don’t know or even understand the ideas and programs hatched in the minds of the think tanks. And there are reasons to be wary of those boys. Wait, that aside.

Money and the hope or expectation of making a lot of it, changes everything. Even good, creative defense ideas. What I see lacking here, screaming out like a siren, is the basic human compassion issue. The strain of decency, the human life fragility, vulnerability, virtue….all without a presence here. All less important than the capitalist spirit. All pawns to be trampled. And that disappoints, cuts right to the core….

In the daytime, during the weektime
The Blog is a worklife disaster. I promised myself I wouldn’t write about work anymore, because it’s superlame when I do it, but dammit here I am. So blogdom will eventually get me fired, fo shizzle. I never admitted this to anyone, but at the ad agency, I would read blogs for 2 .5 straight hours in the morning and maybe for another hour after lunch. I made the Office Space Ron Livingston actually look weak. Space out for 15 minutes? That’s WEAK! Try a couple of hours, you WEAK little weiner! (and I don’t really like that word, but it makes me giggle like a first grader) After I realized that no one was doing any work but my boss, and no one had any work to do but me, I decided to get another job and flake flake flake on the current one. So then, at the lowest point of my addiction, I was reading blogs, beginning an intriguing email seduction with a “stranger”, and sometimes doin’ a little shopping from the moment I walked in late at 8:45 until lunch. The entire billable morning. Which I did in fact bill. To unwitting -but most likely witting- clients I was leaving behind me. And I would have felt terrible and guilty but I wasn’t making any money, and I was paying for my salary by the hours I was billing each month. So the agency was making back my salary in less than a month, each month, and sharing none with me. So the math resulted in no guilt. And then I sold sold sold myself and my *capabilities* to a new flack machine and haggled for more money and a paid vacation to Hawaii to be enjoyed within a month after I was hired. But I totally pulled the wool over their eyes, and the crap is that they can tell…….pretty much. I think they’re feeling cheated. Which makes me feel bad b/c I’m actually a nice kid and there was a time when I had a killer work ethic and I wanted to add value. Granted, I am talking about a business having feelings here, which is well, ridiculous, so maybe my pecadillos are not so obvious. And now, dammit, I really don’t think I’m even earning my salary, which is still not enough of a salary but I’m not even earning it. They should remove the Internet from my computer to be quite honest. Self control is failing me. I can no longer blog at work. Or read all of you at work. But this is the deal; the reason I do it is because the web here is on cable and the computer of course is on a fastass network, so everything is zoom! Zoom! And presto!

Baby Dell at home isn’t so much. She’s old and rickety and slowwwww. She makes blogging frustrating. She makes reading anything frustrating. She takes her sweet time to load images. She will literally keep a peep off-line, just to not have to deal with her. I think she’s a her because she’s a little tempermental the way a tempermental car is a her. I think.

So, the question: write for readers or for yourself. For them or for you. For art or for consumption. I’m in one camp – but have an opinion on a number of sides.

I really don’t write for readers. I don’t know who those people are. I’m lucky people stop by, I think they’re all people who know me and are wondering what I’ll write about or if I’ll write about them. That’s who stops by. Sorry I never got around to writing about Dave, Rossifer. I should have. But now that you brought it up I can’t! I missed the window…and I don’t remember all of it to be honest…. J

And I don’t spell out bad words but it’s not to keep from offense. It’s because I like ‘em better that way. And I don’t always indulge my soul on these pages – instead I do it in emails to lovers and later find myself thinking that in that human way, that was art. That was my expression and those were my words. But here it’s not quite comfy. It’s an itchy sweater sometimes, a really 90-foot lateral face that I consistently only reach 30-feet of. That’s one excuse.

The other is that I’m tired. And I was making the unfortunate decision to write at work – which is a terrible idea – because if you know me, you know I’m not even myself while locked inside the orifice. My voice changes on the phone. My emails are short curt sentences lacking pronouns and feeling. But I was doing it, thinking that it was better than not writing at all, which is the side I was erring on….so that’s another excuse.

And the last is regret. Because people take things personally. You know this, it keeps happening to you (wink). People misconstrue, people project, people think that they actually know what I’m writing about……. People think they have me pegged. But people also judge, and subsequently move right along, and of course I don’t care about those people, but sometimes they’re people I know and then there’s an ouch felt ‘round the world and straight back to the corazon de encantada.

I say art. I say expression. I say bravery and fear and nakedness and love. But then that means you have to actually be brave and fearless and naked and in love, which is a difficult precedent to set sometimes, but of course damn worth the effort when you pull it off.

But I also get tired of reading some of the mind dumpings I find out there, which I can understand is just me. It feels self important, narcissistic, reminds me too much of the fat girl side encantada. So there’s that to contend with too.

So probably the thing to do here is to keep marching on. Try on all the sweaters in the closet to find the softest down-est one. With a hood no doubt. And try to get comfortable with expression. And with mediocrity and with indulgence and with embarrassment. And don’t set any precedents or expectations. And quit caring that I will disappoint.

Guy Clark tells me in my favorite song of his that I’m like the morning side of the best day he’s ever seen.

How ‘bout them apples? (ha!)

Si quieres ayudar -

There’s this small way….

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What is it now? 5:17 in the morning? What are we doing still awake? What is this music you’ve got us plugged in to, what is this conversation I’m overhearing? It’s learning. And it’s you. Oh sht…just got found out…gotta go now, gotta return to the room and the experience.

I got caught.

So the British have landed. God, I need cable…and cable internet access.

And to The Sophist, we agreed that we are intrigued. and honored. It’ll be a fabulous weekend.

Ahhhh, good evening and how are you?

Are you tired? Are you surrounded? Are you carried and carry*ing and getting ready for something good? Are you searching? Are you finding? Are you taking those chances and indulging and fearing and dying – or are you living and smiling? Are you doing that? Are you listening and hearing and being taken to some new place?
Are you missing out?
Are you missing it?

When I introduced you, I didn’t think you’d read. I had a small hope that you would, a little imagining that you would check in from time to time. But you didn’t and now I’m glad. Thank god you didn’t. Thank god there’s not you to consider. or not to consider, as it goes.

Dammit David, how are you?
How is Maddy and un-Paris and the life of an artist both in and outside of his element?

Potential. In a bottle. Or in a brain or blue eyes or small hands. Or in a weekend, or in your sound. Or in our *meeting* in March in a crowded Austin backyard of people and noise and a line for a drink during Catpower.

I think you didn’t want to be found, but you’re on the Internet, Sir, and you were found. Technorati gave you away. And now you don’t write anymore. And although your little secret-no-one-knows-about-my-blog was going to be safe with us, it is no longer because The Man gave you away. Which begs the question….did you want to be found out or were you outed?

And I meant to mention it before, but you look better than the picture. Yes that looks like you and Merrill, but not completely. And you should write more instead of quoting. You should write more.

And would ‘ya get a load ‘a me…. just saying it all. And writing a little. But making an effort to put words after words for the sake of it. There are times when that effort is obvious in bloggers, and I spot it and don’t always like it. But then there are times when I do it too, like when I first started out and hoped it would evolve into something greater. Which we will see. Sometime.

And lastly

Last week’s crazed rant wasn’t about any of you. It should probably be deleted but I won’t. It was just a rant about a disappointing person…not any of you, to be sure.

El Fin

Friends, I just post these to show you what journalists are asking me. They ask me all kinds of things, but it used to surprise me how often they asked me about blogs. Now I’m not surprised. Now I realize what a sizeable chunk of pop culture we inhabit…which leads me to another conversation on the matter what I hope will be my next post. If you ever want to answer them, go right ahead. Sidekick answered one 2 weeks ago and now she’s a “contributing expert” to msn b-central.

That’s it. That’s the deal with these things:

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Need leads by 12:00 PM US/Eastern JUL 24
>>> Davide Dukcevich URL: http://www.forbes.com

You sent me This

It is not our abilities that show what we truly are. It is our choices.

Guess what

Seliot’s back from the Peninsula!

And YOU, as always, came through in torrents for me last night. At 4:30 in the morning, when my expectations were liliputian-ed to a long-winded voicemail, you gave me your voice and your attention. Funny how in contrast to the damned New Yorkers I ended up hosting, your light is 478 times brighter. Guess I should start getting used to that; it continues to – and always will – happen. And I’m still mad at them, her in particular. I think I woke up angry.

And for some strange and known-only-to-the-gods reason, argument ensued last night over the use of the serial comma. Between me, Drunken Law Student and crazed-overworked, underslept Vinson & Elkins associate, I took the stand of anti. I am, in practice, against the use of the serial comma. Yes, I was raised on it and for some that means I should keep it. But yes, as well, I learned style, and style prohibits the use of the serial comma as a principle, relegating it’s use to the realm of exception. Which is nice, because that’s style too.

Really though, that minor tiny thing is just to humour me for these few moments before my client call. Because I really haven’t slept yet, and I fear the remnants of Tecate still in the system.

Welcome home, Seliot. And good morning Compatriot and Friend. Bear with me –