Fresh home from LA and posting this more or less straight from my journal in a brazen attempt at intentional reification.

An idea for new artistic process:

• Workshopping text online, possibly backed with quick audio recordings of readings.
• Workshopping performance for small intimate trusted live audiences.
• Creating finished artistic product for online video (YouTube, etc) distro.

A lot of what I did for Axiom, spoken-word pieces directed at the audience, would adapt well to this form I think. It fits with a lot of my thinking, both about what will work and what I feel like doing. I also think that creating a process for this will help me actually do it, and to produce a high-quality result when I do.

Any comments from the peanut gallery?

It's coming on the turn of the year, a time to draw up to my full height and survey the scene. I've been going around and seeing people I've not seen in a while, which has revealed that I really don't have a good 30-second explanation for myself these days -- you know, the kind of quick encapsulated "elevator pitch" of what's new and exciting in your life. It's not a particularly great or important thing to have in the can or spring on lots of people, but it's usually something I've got down pat, and the absence of this trusty bit of performance is indicative, I think, of the larger ennui with which I grapple.

Intention is a tricky bitch. It's hard line to walk between trying to force yourself upon the world and taking a back-seat role in your own life. One wants to be an active participant, to listen and respond in conversation with the universe, but at some point you've got to pull the trigger; and it sucks being wrong, to gamble and lose. It burns rare and precious soulful fuel taking these shots, runs down some energy reserve that seems to take an aeon to recharge.

I haven't done too well with decisions over the past four years. Most of the big things I've set myself towards doing intentionally -- personally, professionally, creatively -- have ended up going bust. In spite of this, or probably because i've had the good fortune to have so many fine at-bats, I've landed amazingly well: poised on the brink of a the best jobby-job ever; living the neobohemian dream; penetrating the global power-elite seemingly without even trying.

It's an old story. "...And I stumbled to safety" was designated the title of my autobiography years ago.

So I don't lament my lot in life. I am lucky and blessed beyond knowing, and everyone seems convinced that I'm bound for some sort of glory or another, an opinion I don't necessarily dispute even if it can get to be a bit of a weight to carry at times.

Part of the fun of being a web application professional is bitching about crappy online services I'm stuck with on my work blog.

UPDATE: Wes schools me. B of A and MBNA ROCK!

UPDATE TWO: In the spirit of fairness, and because this blog post is apparently somewhat popular, I should mention that many of the points in my post have been addressed in terms of BofA's user experience.

Glenn Greenwald just fucked Thomas Friedman up:

Tom Friedman is a morally bankrupt narcissist whose only devotion is to the self-love of his own genius. He emphatically advocated the war beforehand but included every caveat possible so that, no matter what happened, he could claim to have been right, which is exactly what he has been doing.

But tragically, there is nothing unique about Tom Friedman. What drives him is the same mentality that enabled the administration's invasion of Iraq and, so much worse, it is the mentality that is keeping us there and will keep us there for the indefinite future. We stay in Iraq in pursuit of goals we know are fantasies, because to do otherwise requires the geniuses and serious establishment analysts to accept responsibility for what they have done -- and that is, by far, the most feared and despised outcome.

This all seems true to me, and it's going to change very slowly if at all. Totally depressing. The hope is that as the current crop of individuals who comprise the current "Establishment" begin to retire or finally lose relevance, they are not replaced by more of the same, but rather by something structurally different.

This is the first time I've been down to LA under my own power. Previous trips were at the outset of Vagabender and way back in 1994 when my dad took me and the step-fam down for the Rose Bowl.

It's an interesting place. Lots of bright colors, flash, sizzle, spectacle. It's structurally totally distinct, but reminds me of NYC more than any other city I've been in lately. Something about the international diversity, the smell of a liquor store/deli, the type and tone of affluence...

Tonight I hung out with Julia and my sister. We chatted it up, watched a little Wheel of Fortune, had two beers (one at a depressing bar, the other judgemental) and told some old stories. It was nice. I'm totally beat from the 4am wakeup for the 6am plane ride down here.

I enjoyed this.

Tomorrow 6am flight to Los Angeles, there to stay with my sis, do a little biz, hang out with some friends, and attend my niece's Bat Mitzvah.

It's been freezing cold (literally) up here in the State of Jefferson, so 70 degree weather sounds like fun to me.

Real Audio Link for this tune which I picked up thanks to my exposure to Satellite radio. Dave says it's "like hippie Massive Attack." I like it. I also like the video of their design studio apple made.

Also from satellite picked up on Eastern Sun, which is less poppy and more electronicistic, but also good.

And finally, from Pandora (riffing off "Supernaut" by Sabbath) I found "Sin's a Good Man's Brother" by Grand Funk, which will definitely make it into my weight-lifting rotation.

It doesn't happen often, but today I may be a dittohead:

Fine, just blow the place up. Just let these natural forces take place over there instead of trying to stop them, instead of trying to use -- I just -- sometimes natural force is going to happen. You're going to have to let it take place. You can spend all the time you like with diplomacy, and you can spend all the time you want massaging these things with diplomatic -- you're just -- you're just delaying the inevitable.

Some on the left blogosphere (e.g. Atrios) have lumped the first sentence in the above with the "More Rubble Less Trouble" strategy advocated by the anti-Atrios Instapundit and other less visible wingers. I think the positions are distinct. "More Rubble Less Trouble" means more indiscriminant use of long-range explosives with the idea that this will work out better. It's both inhumane and incorrect (c.f. Cambodia, bitches), but it's not the same thing Rush is advocating.

Limbaugh's tone is petulant and nihilistic; he's "just fed up with it," expressing demoralization, wants to take his army and go home. He's clearly bitter and a bit passive-aggressive about the whole thing. However, his point seems to be we should withdraw regardless of the consequences. This is the only strategic direction we can take, and it's better to take it by choice than to be forced.

So here's an idea. I've been thinking more and more about the video medium. I liked making that commercial for my work, and I want to do more. I'm also attracted to the power of the form, and the fact that I'm still paying (and will be for a while now) for a shmantzy education that should give me some kind of edge on screen.

So it's resolved. I'm gonna learn me some final cut and eventually get a better camera -- the one I have makes a really annoying buzz on the audio -- and start playing with the medium more extensively. The question is content.

What about just reading some of the better prose being written on blogs already?

It would probably be mostly political stuff. I don't think I can really go for the emo/confessional personal videoblog, and I think the most important political contribution I can give is to push progressive ideas among the younger set. I've got plenty original content in me for sure, but part of building an audience is posting often. I'd need other sources. It seems like a natural fit.

I think of this when I read Gelnn Greenwald and Digby and a bunch of others from time to time. There's a bunch of really good language out there and the performer in me wants to make use of it!

And now, an unrelated webquiz: