Catching Up ...

OK, it's been a while. Like ... way. Gah, sorry about that.

I think since I've been actually writing for a living, it's gotten harder to write for my own edification. Funny that, actually ... I had an epiphany in the shower back in August that, hey, I get paid ... to write. I'm a writer! It took me 8 months to come to that realization. Well, if you knew how long I've aspired to be a writer, and never did enough (read: anything) to actually accomplish that goal, it's pretty shockingly gratifying to have somehow backed into the job.

Here's a rapid-fire, stream-of-consciousness, top-10 (and other hyphenated adjectives) recap of what's gone on since, what? May? Since my dad was in the hospital? Gah, I'm lame. OK, here goes:

1. Went down to Sun City, AZ (see also: Hell) to take care of my dad and mom while he was hospitalized and went through surgery. It was rough as hell, but it all came out well in the end, particularly my dad's physical health, my mom's mental health, and the level of mutual respect and admiration between me and my parents. There's a lot of intense detail in there, someday to be written, but in short: it was a win-win with a happy ending (not that kind of happy ending, you pervs).

2. Katie and I got two kittens from the SPCA. Two medium-length black fur brothers. They were this striking charcoal gray when we got them, so they're named Earl Gray and Smudge. Practically impossible to tell them apart, short of small tufts of white fur behind Earl's ears. Earl is known as Earl Gray Pants of the Famous Pants Family. Smudge is ... Smooodge. They're never-ending fun, especially when biting our toes during sex. Awesome.

3. Helped manage the main stage at The Crucible's Fire Arts Festival, which was a hoot as always. One of the jobs that fell to me was climbing 25' towers and lighting the pilots on giant propane accumulators (read: flame throwers) every time they were blown out. (Note to self: add to resume the ability to have large explosions go off around my head without so much as a flinch.)

4. Flew to Michigan over 4th of July weekend to help manage the greening team at the new, model for sustainable music festivals Rothbury Music Festival. And that? Was an awesome week.

5. Went to Burning Man. Please enjoy my stock answer when asked how it was: "It was great." So there you go. The event has become more of a community gathering for me rather than a let it all hang out self-expression thing, and that's all just fine. C'est l'evolution. Spent a few days post-event with friends at Katie's family's place in Tahoe which was the perfect decompression.

6. Curated the art for the Treasure Island Music Festival, which was a ball. Brought in Bryan Tedrick's giant steel wing sculpture "Spread Eagle", hanging art from Ezra Li Eismont to decorate the artists' dressing rooms, an excellent interactive piece from Mary Corey March, and artistic furniture customized by Calliope Gazetas and Heidi Sandoval. Very much looking forward to working with Noise Pop and Another Planet Entertainment again on future events ... they were great folks to work with, and they know how to put on a great show.

7. I curated a small show at Gallery N!NE, featuring the works of Thomas Hammel and Ursula Xanthe Young (who I'd wanted to show for well over a year now, and finally got the chance). It's up October 4-13.

8. Currently curating a gallery of photography, and managing a silent auction and a raffle for the Black Rock Arts Foundation's Artumnal Gathering fundraiser at the Bentley Reserve, coming up November 22. Come, dammit!

9. Katie's private massage practice is going exceptionally well (categorize under: told ya so), and she's now working less and making more than ever as a result. And she's enjoying it immensely. Thank god.

10. It looks as though I'll be doing yet more writing for Burning Man, which is exciting.

I think that about covers the important bits, other than watching blithely as the global economy circles the drain. You know, stuff like that. More to come, now that we're all caught up.

Dad Down ...

My 83-year old dad is in the hospital with 2 malignant tumors, one on his kidney, one on his bladder. He was scheduled for surgery to remove them on May 15, but he has since developed a staph infection, and is in quarantine for 7 days. He seems to be responding to IV-fed antibiotics, so hopefully it's not a MRSA (drug-resistant strain of staph), and he'll be able to get back in the surgical queue, but it's all up in the air right now.

My 80-year old mom is freaking the fuck out. And my mom does not freak out. She's realizing the full force of the potential of losing my dad, who she's been with for 45 years, and is coming unwound. Plus, her friends all left Arizona for Utah yesterday, as is their summer routine, leaving her largely alone. So she's surrounded by empty houses, no friends, no prospect of going to Utah (which she loves), stuck in Sun City (which she hates), and my dad in the hospital. Since my dad's always taken care of all the finances (somewhat secretively ... the classic East Coast farmer mentality), she's struggling with how to pay a bill, or which bank account to use. She's having trouble getting answers out of the doctors, and it's clear from our conversations that she can't even process the answers squarely at this point.

This all came on my radar really abruptly (welcome to my stoic family), and I don't even know what to think about it at this moment, except that I gotta get down there and take care of my mom. I'm working on getting DSL installed in their house so I don't suffer under the dial-up, and I'll be able to continue working apace. I have no idea what my timing is right now for going or coming back ... or what's going to happen.

Yay ... good times.

Alchemy

San Francisco isn't much of an art buying town. Art creating? Yes. Art appreciating? Certainly. Art buying? Not so much. If an artist wants to make a career of it, the sad fact is that they have to leave the Bay Area, and head to one of the big art cities: New York, LA, Chicago, or Miami. San Francisco runs a distant (and depressing) 5th.

As unfortunate as that may be, it shouldn't be too surprising, really ... more than anything, San Francisco has a storied tradition of bleeding edge creativity, rugged entrepreneurship, and flying in the face of the norm ... oftentimes swinging wildly at it. Our strength is thus in underground and emerging artists who aren't aiming at the mainstream unless they're doing so through a set of crosshairs.

When that's combined with the laid-back attitude and studied casualness for which the Bay Area is known, it can be understood why audacious spending on a scale commensurate with serious art collection just doesn't happen here. San Franciscans value one another more for what they create than the price tag of the art they hang on their walls.

What the Bay Area needs is an innovative structure for its art market that takes this reality into account, and works with it -- augmenting its strengths and offsetting its weaknesses -- to enable Bay Area artists to make a semblance of a living creating exactly the art they want to create, without having to compromise their vision. Otherwise, artists whose work deserves to be seen, and whose voices need to be heard, will forever while away their days as your neighborhood barista.

I'd like to see this new market become a reality, and to that end, I've been curating art exhibitions for a variety of events featuring an eclectic mix of emerging artists, styles and media. The most recent was part of False Profit's Alchemy, an interactive art event at San Francisco's CELLspace. It hosted over 600 attendees, all of whom seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves as they took part in the various interactive aspects of the evening. The gallery featured a variety of oil paintings, pen and ink drawings, photography, collage, print-making, sculpture (works in steel, vinyl and cement), video, and an interactive site-specific installation. The represented artists ranged in age from 21 to 50+.

It was great working with the smart, driven folks at False Profit, and to have the opportunity to exhibit a strong showing of emerging artists to an appreciative crowd. Now ... to just get that crowd to put their money where their appreciation is ....

The Crucible's "Firebird" Fire Ballet

I just wrapped up stage management duties for a two-week run of The Crucible's latest fire ballet, this time it was their take on Stravinsky's Firebird.

I say "take" loosely, of course, since I have a feeling the traditional presentation of Firebird didn't include disco, funk, fire, a stunt motorcyclist, a flaming tutu, and an actual (not a prop) Pontiac Firebird being flown onto the stage. Yep, for reals.

It's always a good time working on the Crucible's productions. You missed this one? Sucks for you. Big mistake. Next time, go. Good cause, good show, good time ... you won't be left wanting for "You have got to be kidding me, they did not just do that. Good lord, they did just do that."

Big props to the Cru crew and their raging talents, constant innovation, and big hearts.

Yuri's Night

Billed as the annual celebration of Yuri Gagarin's being the first human shot into space (the first terrestrials sent were fruit flies ... followed by a dog, which died a panicked, painful death within hours of launch ... brutal, but I digress), Yuri's Night World Space Party is a collection of 198 parties taking place in 51 countries on 7 continents around the world on April 12th. The Bay Area, certainly no slouch when it comes to parties, stacks the deck by throwing it at the birthplace, home and retirement community of awesome: NASA's Moffett Field.

If you're lame, like me, and get your tickets late, like I did, you really take it in the pooper. At $50 a pop, that's a tall order for getting your money's worth. At the very least, there had better be singing frogs and free-flowing booze and mile-high porn if I'm shelling out $50. Sadly, none were in attendance. And yet ...

It was way cool. Long story short, Yuri's Night was simply the closest thing to Burning Man off playa. It was like somebody had taken the coolest parts of Black Rock City (the art, the scientific innovation, the music, the interesting smart people), combined it with long beer lines, and paved it.

Instead of artists slaving away on large-scale art installations all year long, Moffett Field's freakishly large, awe-inspiring buildings, mongo planes and gigantic signs warning of various ways you can be killed more than provided the recommended daily allowance of WTF? Plus, looking around and seeing a NASA logo when you've got a head full of whatever (and many seemed to, I might add)? That's pretty cool.

Next year, check it out. Get your tickets early.

Hillary Is Officially Pathetic

Today was the Pennsylvania Democratic Primary. Hanging on to any shred of hope, against the odds and all evidence to the contrary, Hillary Clinton remains determined to stick it out and "fight". Because she's "a fighter".

*sigh*

Hillary has become that girl at the prom who hasn't quite gotten the clue that nobody wants to dance with her. She moves in a personal fantasy world, determinedly oblivious to the fact that nobody's going to make out with her tonight ... she keeps trying to talk to different boys, smiling expectantly. Now she's trying to get in a limo to the after party, while the people inside are making quick excuses that there's no more room in the car, Hill, but she just knows she can fit!

Barack, the nice kid, who had spent all school year being kind to her, now sits in the corner of the limo, uncomfortably half-smiling toward her before looking down at his shoes as the doors of the limo close and it pulls away, leaving her standing at the curb.

She's that girl. Nobody wants to remember that girl, and the suffering she brought upon herself. Because we're reminded of the suffering we wrought upon ourselves through our complicity.

The Pope Goes Shopping

On his first trip to North America, Pope Benedict
took some time out to do some shopping.

Sorry. I couldn't help it. Yes, I offended you.
If it makes you feel any better, I offended a lot of people.

Got Torch? No, You Didn't.

Somebody asked me the other day why there should be political protests of the Beijing Olympics, rather than leaving them be as a sporting event. Short answer: opportunity and attention. When the eyes of the world are on a country with such an abysmal human rights record, particularly when they're attempting to bolster their global image, it's a unique opportunity to shed light on the other side of the story.

The Olympics have been politicized ever since Hitler refused to put a gold medal around Jesse Owens' neck at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin. Appropriate or not, it's a world stage like no other.

The thing to scratch your head about, if anything, is that America has absolutely zero moral right to call the Chinese out for human rights abuses (we're living on Native American land, don't forget, while they're living on reservations if they weren't eradicated, and people are currently whiling away their days at Gitmo as I type), but nonetheless we still have the moral responsibility. Protests like this are likely to spur people in power to put more pressure on the Chinese government in ways individuals simply can't.

As for the San Francisco torch run itself, fearing massive confrontations, the powers that be decided to pull a full-blown bait-and-switch, publishing a route, saying it might change, then changing it "at the last minute". And boy what a ruse ... elaborate, expensive, convincing, and very disappointing for the people who really wanted to see it. They did an excellent job of it, but I shudder to think of the cost.

Admittedly, it was smart to deceive everybody in that a) the protesters got to protest, b) the torch got to run, c) the cops had significantly fewer heads they needed to crack, and d) San Francisco suddenly became a big "where the fuck's the torch" game, pitting the media outlets' live coverage capabilities against each other in grand fashion. Everybody won, except those families and kids all dressed up and performing at McCovey Cove and down the fake torch route, waving flags, all happy and proud. Those folks? They got royally screwed. And that? Sucks.

Of course, undaunted, the protesters protested away ... and the media was there, awaiting the big confrontation with the very scary rows of tightly-wound riot police. Unfortunately for the protesters, they had to find other excuses to get violent ... which meant there wasn't any violence of note. According to the official reports, the total number of arrests was in the 10's or less, and violent confrontations about the same ... just some pushing and shoving.

But still, lacking an actual torch at which to aim their five zillion cameras, the media covered the protests instead, and everybody's message got out. So the City danced a nice little dance: they allowed free speech, without lighting the fuse of what was obviously a potentially explosive situation.

Interestingly, I was struck by the massive numbers of pro-Chinese supporters on the streets. Many were apparently bused in by the Chinese consulate and other pro-Chinese business groups, but many more came of their own accord. They all carried very large, very uniform Chinese flags, meaning they were supplied by an official source. To a one, these folks were all very, legitimately enthusiastic, which goes to show that patriotism is as binding as it is blinding. Hmmmm ... sounds famiiiiliar.

After it all went down, I listened to Mayor Newsom's post-mortem radio interview and I kept saying to myself over and over "bullshit". I believe he totally lied about it being a last minute decision to change the route as dramatically as they did because "the police couldn't guarantee everybody's safety". While I had thought (and still do) that it was a good decision overall, his statement angered me not only because it was utterly disingenuous and self-serving, but it was just an obvious lie.

There's no way the police can guarantee people's safety at any protest ... protesters are, by nature, angry, volatile and unpredictable ... you think SFPD isn't used to handling them? And there's no way they'd be able to make a split-second decision to magically reroute this whole phalanx of police and support vehicles to Van Ness and Pine (why there of all places, right?), creatively think to head up to the Golden Gate Bridge via Bay Street, and then whisk it along 19th Avenue right to the airport and outta town ... meanwhile magically securing this entire new route with the wave of a wand. Sorry, no. They had the bait and switch planned all along, and the original published route was an elaborate ruse from the get-go.

Why? The police don't do impromptu in the face of a predictable foe when they control the game, folks. They just. don't. The least Newsom could do is nut up and show us enough respect to tell the truth. I guess that's pretty naive, though. He knows it'll all blow over after the next news cycle and be forgotten.

And by the way, I'm actually a fan of the mayor ... I have friends in his administration, and they (including Gavin himself) have been good to me ... but he definitely just dropped a small notch in my esteem (I'm sure he's crying in his beer club soda). But alas, this is what ultimately happens the closer one gets to higher office.

Sound Check: Anatomy of a Theatrical Debacle

I arrived at the theater, and as I walked up the stairs, Tim came around the corner towards me, looking calm. Tim's my partner in running Everyday Theater, and our company's artistic director. Tim looking calm before one of our shows is unheard of ... the fragility of his pre-show psyche is legendary. Something was wrong.

"What's up?" I said.

"Well, we have no monitors," he said, way too matter-of-factly. "The monitors are gone."

"Gone?"

"Gone."

I looked at my watch. 9:15. Doors were at 10:00. We had 45 minutes to get set up, sound check all the performers, and open up what was going to be a sold out show. And there were no monitors.

Monitors are the speakers on stage that point towards the performers so they can do important things like hear themselves. They are critical for any musical act, but even more so for beat boxers, and we were producing the Vowel Movement's Bi-Monthly Beat Boxers Showcase ... or trying to, anyway.

The previous group's performance had just wrapped up, and the audience was filing out as I waded upstream into the theater. I reached the sound booth and met Dan, our sound technician who was replacing our normal sound guy, who had been called out of town that day. Dan, I was assured, had worked this theater before, and knew the system and the board.

I found Johnny, the guy who oversees the physical theater and the gallery-cum-event space that occupies the adjacent room, and asked him about the monitors. That day, they'd taken them down and removed all the wiring to create a "screening room" for their event in the gallery that night. Apparently he needed reminding that we're a musical show, requiring monitors, just as we had for the last dozen shows we'd done at that very same theater. Johnny just scratched his head and looked genuinely bewildered, like we hadn't been doing shows there for the past 12 months. It felt like talking to a crackhead about geopolitics.

After making some pointed requests through clenched teeth, we got the monitors back. But no cable ... rendering them useless. We scurried to jury rig the system, running an XLR cable (borrowed from one of the performers) down to a single JBL speaker we propped on stage. It was 10:00. We sound checked quickly, and everything sounded pretty good. We'd dodged a bullet. We opened the house at 10:15, unaware that the real trigger had yet to been pulled.

Despite the sound check, the sound started off buzzy and hissy. Dan rationalized it with a somewhat random, but vaguely plausible explanation. I asked him to try and correct it. From that point on, things went off the rails for Dan. The sound was too quiet, then too loud, too much bass, then not enough bass, feeding back, tinny -- in short: all over the place, and constantly changing. The beat boxers didn't know what to do ... and their frustration was so palpable you could touch it from the back of the room. There were a handful of moments where Dan lucked into a sweet spot where it actually sounded good, the performers rocked it, and the audience went nuts. I told Dan that whatever he did, to just. leave. it. right. there.

But it got bad again. Really ... embarrassingly ... bad. I winced. I gritted my teeth. It became clear that the closest Dan had ever come to being an actual sound technician was hauling speaker stacks and setting up mic stands. Eyeball deep in frustration, I leaned in and calmly said to him, "You really have no idea what you're doing right now, do you?" He wouldn't admit it, but he was clearly in way over his head ... he was just twiddling knobs at random, hoping for something to go right. And it wasn't. And Dan, truth be told, was dumb as bricks. To this point, the only dumber people I've ever had to deal with were mopping the floors in my high school, or pumping my gas. He had absolutely no hope in this situation, which required some intellectual acuity ... or at the very least an ability to follow a finger.

I ran back stage and grabbed Tim, telling him I was booting Dan off the board, and he had to fix it. Tim struggled to untangle the system as Dan had left it, and managed to get it somewhere close to sounding decent. But by this time, the sound had run out of ways to suck.

And while my night felt like that nightmare where you're driving a car from the back seat, and you can't quite reach the pedals or the steering wheel, and you're heading for a wall -- the audience absolutely. loved. the show. At the end, they were screaming for more and more encores ... true testament either to the absolute brilliance of these performers, or the myopic perspective of a producer.

I will say this: the post-show cocktail that night tasted particularly good.

Epic Spam

Try as you might, you just can't. make. this. stuff. up ...






Hohe hoholulu


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it cagey.' 'what about the chancellor?' a sort of coincidence.
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with the brackish water of the sands. It takes have me,
jerry. He's very very proud and and i i don't know that
my poor wife's up to seeing another street, its occupants
exchanged easier came across to him. She knelt down again
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the large chesterfield sofa was placed near the round the
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must not close this account it, and turned the key in the
lock. To do so he.

A Bad Day for Katie

It's a bad day for Katie. The opening of the 2008 Major League Baseball season.

From here on until October, she'll be talking to me over the dulcet tones of Mike Krukow and Duane Keiper (better known as "Kruk and Keip", whose on-air chemistry is that of legend), calling Giants games on the radio. Yes, I'm a baseball dork.

While I eschew all other sports throughout the year, baseball is my vice. There's something undeniably soothing about it, resonating from early in my childhood, when I'd nestle my spherical green radio under my pillow -- (supposedly) hidden from my parents' sight -- listening to Mets games late into the night, well past my bedtime. Tom Seaver was my hero, the greatest pitcher of his day. Dave Kingman was a man of mythical proportions, hitting towering home runs into the depths of Shea Stadium.

I still have a faded, creased photograph of myself at 8 years old, posing with the great Tom Seaver in his back yard ... I'm nearly bursting out of my Cub Scout uniform, the crooked teeth of my smile aimed up at him in pure unadulterated bliss. It's in black and white, but you can fairly see the blushing excitement blasting from my face.

At school, I would hover intently over the Mets' roster with my friends, a tiny finger dancing over the faces of the players -- Mazzilli, Torre, Milner, Stearns, Henderson, Koosman, Foli -- my soft-sided Mets lunchbox sitting by my side, holding my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple. When my dad would take me to Shea for a game, the orange seats would pop against the perfect green of the infield grass, mixing with the mesmerizing sounds, sights and smells of what was, for a small child, an absolutely larger-than-life experience. Still to this day, I get that same feeling in my gut when I turn from the concourse, heading down the steps towards the field, and first see that grass, and the players languidly tossing a ball across the infield. Every. Single. Time.

Back in 1977, when I was surreptitiously listening from my bed, the top player made $160,000, not $30,000,000. Until recently, I'd revel in the nostalgia that the players had loyalty back then, they'd stick with their team year after year, and the game really was about the game, and not the money. But in the cold light of mature perspicacity, I now see that really, they didn't. They too followed the necessities of salary, of opportunity and waning skills, as younger players inevitably came up from the minors to supplant them. Ultimately, the majors are a business. It goes where the money is.

What I realize now is that it doesn't matter. For a kid laying in his bed, listening to a broadcast, despite knowing his mother's gonna kill him if he she catches him, none of that matters ... there's just something about the flow of baseball that becomes a quiet fire sluicing through the veins, inevitably becoming part of the very make-up of your being. And every time you get to the ballpark ... every time you hear the crack of the bat ... the commentators giving the count ... or calling a quality out ... it moves through you like an old familiar friend. Katie will surely never fully understand it, but baseball -- the sensation of baseball -- is truly a part of my internal reserve.

I'm certainly not the first to write about the psychic mythology of baseball, nor will I be the last. Because ultimately, baseball holds as personal a mythology as imagination itself.

Play ball.

Since Kirk Has Died ...

Well, I got Kirk's cremated remains back in a nice mahogany box (I didn't even have to ask for the nice box, which was nice), and they're up on the mantle right now, part of a little pseudo altar situation. I have to admit it's kind of hard for me to really go full bore into the altar thing ... this one's more "akin to" an altar. I'm just. not. gay.

So, anyway, it's not like I've been actually curling up into a ball with the box, rocking ... and ... sobbing ... much, or anything.

Only half the time.

The awake half.

Katie doesn't seem to mind too much. She just keeps sliding flat food under the door.

Odd though ... I didn't realize the closet door had such a big gap.

Just screwing around. Seriously though? It's weird when your best friend, that you held to your chest as you went to sleep at night, is reduced to a small plastic bag full of ashes in a box. That's all.

p.s. no, that's not the fucking box, you idiots. c'mon, give me some credit.

Coolest Musician Ever

Oh my God, I just found the coolest musician ever: Victor Lams.

I'm downloading his MP3's as fast as I can. All of them.

(Caveat: to appreciate Victor at all, you have to be open to the idea of pure, unabashed, shameless creativity, and the simple forms in which that can be expressed. That, and a Casiotone. There's a certain naive earnestness -- a fearlessness, really -- in this music that just charms the hell out of me. It's a valuable reminder that music, like any other form of expression, doesn't have to be "cool" to be brilliant. OK, end of caveat. Off with you now.)

The Birthday Card That Never Comes

You know how sometimes when you register for a website, they ask for your date of birth?

I always hold out the vain hope that they're asking so they can send me a nice card on my birthday.

The Odd Adjustments of the Aftermath

Kirk is gone now.

I put him to sleep on Sunday night, around 7:30pm. As difficult as it was, it was by far the best of all possible situations. He died in my arms, quietly, at home. We put him in a box lined with silk on the coffee table so we could spend time with him.

True to Kirk's renowned intuition and sense of timing, 15 minutes before the vet tech arrived at the house, he had started meowing plaintively, clearly saying: "I'm done." I had a vet tech friend come to my home, rather than taking him into the vet (avoiding that unnecessary trauma), or having an anonymous service come do it. The first shot is Ketamine, relaxing him into a stupor, then a second shot to put him to sleep. He drifted off calmly, staring vacantly towards the ceiling, his head nestled comfortably in the crook of my arm. I closed his eyes.

Katie and I then went out to a nice restaurant for a great dinner in celebration of his life. I inadvertently ordered an absinthe cocktail that was called "Death at Dusk". Perfectly apropos.

I woke up in the morning feeling good ... satisfied, really ... with a sense of completion. I have effectively been mourning Kirk for years now, knowing he was on his way out, and I spent time consciously appreciating him. So since his death, I haven't gone through the classic stages of grief. Instead, I'm experiencing a vague melancholy while adjusting to life without him. 20 years of repeated behavior is hard to unlearn.

I instinctively look for him when I come into a room, or open the bathroom door after a shower, or while sitting at my desk. I repeatedly think I see him out of the corner of my eye. I figure this will happen for a long time.

Though Kirk was mostly quiet, moving about the house feels quieter now.

While I still have my appetite, meals seem less interesting without him vulturing over my plate.

Working at the computer feels emptier without having to reach awkwardly over his head to type on the keyboard.

I'm more aware of these activities now that an integral part of them is missing.

Oddly, I find myself laughing harder than usual at good jokes. But then I feel the loss when the laughter ends ... a certain hollowness that's not usually there.

It's all part of the odd adjustments of the aftermath.

Thank You, Captain Kirk

Captain Kirk is my cat. He's 20 years old now. I've had him his entire life, since he was a squiggly little nugget I would jiggle around in the palm of my hand. I'm just about 40, so Kirk has been with me for half my life. Odd thought.

Odder still is that of all the things that have come and gone in my life -- cities, houses, girlfriends, cars, roommates, friends, jobs, hairstyles, attitudes, clothing, hobbies, you name it -- he's been the one single constant throughout it all. Unlike other aspects of and people in my life, he's never left, never changed, and never judged what I do, or the way I've done it.

Well, he's been a strong and dignified cat throughout the years; more like a dog in a cat suit, really, and smart as a whip. 20 years for an outdoor cat is pretty remarkable. He's been through his share of raccoons, feral cat fights, surgeries, chunks taken from his ears, an amputated toe, new houses, unwanted house guests, and being unceremoniously knocked off the bed at random points during my sexual encounters ... the gamut of a cat life well lived.

He's finally reaching his end, his body giving up on him and starting to succumb to age and gravity. He can't walk anymore, though he struggles like a drunken sailor to get to a bowl of tuna I've put down for him as a celebratory last meal. He takes a couple wobbly steps and falls over, rests a bit, then doggedly gets up and tries again. When he goes down, he flops full-out on his side like a splayed rag doll, and lets his head fall to the ground. I carry him where he needs to go, and hold him up and steady him to drink from his water glass. I have an appointment to have him put to sleep tomorrow, though I hope he goes on his own terms before then. Either way, it's time.

Am I sad? Yes and no. I'm sad to see my friend deteriorate. I'm sad to see him go. I'll miss him curling up on my lap, pawing my nose in the morning, and hopping into the shower when I'm done to lick up the fresh water. He's become an integral part of my life ... I can't remember what it's like to not have him around all the time. That's going to be a difficult adjustment.

At the same time, I'm profoundly grateful for the time I've had with him. He's been a gift, and the universe was kind enough to give him to me while I needed him. While my life has been great up until now, it's also been tumultuous and dramatically shape-shifting, resulting in some pretty significant upheavals. Now I'm in a different place in my life and my path, and I owe a lot of that to Kirk, and the constancy he's provided me in the face of change. I'm excited to see what the universe has in store for me next.

Thank you, Kirky Boy.

Obamanaut

Friends who know me well will likely fall of their chair upon reading this post.

I'm active in politics this year.

Normally, I don't even vote. Hell, I usually don't even know if I'm registered to vote. My level of cynicism towards, disillusionment about and disregard for our political process is legendary. And yet, here I am in 2008, donating money (money!) to a campaign, and volunteering my precious "free" time to help get a candidate elected. I've even got a sign in my window, and a bumper sticker on my car!!

Yep, I'm an Obamanaut.

I spent my last weekend in a room full of like-minded individuals -- and a strikingly diverse crowd at that, of all ages, genders, races and cultures -- calling strangers in Texas to encourage them to vote for Barack Obama. I made nearly 250 calls over course of the weekend on my own cell phone.

Now, the trick here was that the list was not pre-screened and filtered for important things like ... political party affiliation. Keep in mind that Texas is predominantly Republican (go figure), and you start to see where this is headed.

Each call was like Russian Roulette. You didn't know what you were going to get on the other end of the line when you spun the cylinder. Your odds of even finding a Democrat were slim. More likely than not, you'd get a Republican, the style of which would vary along a spectrum.

Occasionally, it would be the polite Texan housewife ruthlessly exercising her well-bred Southern hospitality, listening to the whole spiel before sing-songing: "Well yes, darlin', I sure will give that some thought ... thank you for callin' now," which is Texan for "I'm not listening to a fucking thing you're saying." Sometimes it would be a pick-up interrupting my leaving an answering machine message: "Boah, you can go an' till Barack Obama he can jis go ta Hill! I think he's an injit!" ... okaaaay. More often than not, the answering machine message itself would be disheartening, with a Boss Hogg-style voice finishing up with "God bless, now". You wondered if leaving a perky message for Obama was just doing more damage than good. But, you just have to cringe, ignore the odds, and try. Ironically, the hang-ups were the least tormenting of all the pulls of the trigger.

The one silver lining, out of all 250 calls I made that weekend ... the single call that made it all worth while, was the guy who supported Obama, and wasn't aware of the "Texas 2-step". This is the set-up allowing Texans to vote in the primary election in the morning, then a second time in the evening caucus, and their vote counts twice (apparently, squirrelly politics is not unique to Louisiana). He was surprised to learn that was the case, and enthusiastically promised to vote and caucus for Obama. Score one.

All this is to say, when you decide who to support this election, consider this. Our country, more than ever, needs its people to get off their asses and to think differently about politics ... to act locally in their communities ... to stand up for what they believe, rather than letting politicians make decisions against our will, and we all need to work together to move this country forward in a positive direction. Obama inspired me to get involved. And believe me: if he can inspire me, he can inspire anybody. And this country will be the better for it, I guarantee you.

Great Mouse Massacre of 2008 (Part 9)

We seem to have won the initial ground war against the mice, and have moved into the insurgency phase.

Strategically-placed traps have been picking off the few remaining troops, who appear only intermittently at best. Their "calling cards" of poop trails have diminished to the rare sprinkling. When found, we simply place an unmissable trap that will reliably nail them on their next foray through what they'd thought to be a safe pathway.

Their outposts are isolated and few ... their morale broken ... we presume they will move elsewhere in search of less hostile environs.

The little bastards.

Great Mouse Massacre of 2008 (Part 8)

Oops.

Remember how we had that one mouse in the humane trap, that we were going to "release into the wild"? Yeah, well, we kinda took him on an accidental tour of Lake Tahoe first.

We kinda sorta accidentally left the trap in the car with us as we headed up to Tahoe for a couple days of skiing. We debated whether to let the mouse loose in the snow, but we figured he would've just frozen to death, which wouldn't exactly fall into the "humane" category. So we decided to feed and water the little guy until we got back out of the mountains, where we could release him down in the flatlands.

And we decided he needed a name, since he was now in our care. He was thus dubbed Mao Tse Tung.

We plunked ice cubes (e.g. water) and Cheerios into Mao's temporary home, and things were going pretty well. For a day, anyway. He started to deteriorate pretty quickly. Like ... really deteriorate. We couldn't exactly let him out of his somewhat-cramped trap to run around the cabin (couldn't presume to hope he'd hop back into it when called). I suspect he started to get despondent, or at least was wondering what the hell he was doing in Lake Tahoe, and he started losing his marbles.

Long story short, Mao died last night. In his sleep. Or something equally as soothing to our consciences. Hell, he just keeled over for all we know. RIP Mao. We will always remember you and keep you in our hearts, as we kill all your remaining relatives.

Returning from Tahoe, we were pleasantly shocked to find not a single mouse in a trap, and no trace of poop anywhere. We might be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Great Mouse Massacre of 2008 (Part 7)

Returned from a night out to find two mice posing for "Still Life With Last Meal" in the neck-snappers. That makes for an impressive grand total of 5 mice in one day (including the two that Kirk ate) ... there really does seem to be an endless supply of them.

Several of the traps had the hardened stale cheese removed from them, so it's time for some re-baiting. Going to try some chocolate in a few traps this time around, and staying with the cheese in the rest ... just to keep them on edge.

And it should be said that baiting and setting a neck-snapper trap is one of the most nerve-wracking exercises possible. I'm a shattered wreck by the time I'm done setting a few of them. You don't believe me, try one sometime. You'll see.

The 1% of the day that he is not in a comatose slumber, Kirk now stands attentively at the last place he saw the mice (evidently his memory's intact), playing the role of our newly recruited sentry.

Great Mouse Massacre of 2008 (Part 6)

GAH!! Kirk just caught and ate another one. These mice seem to be going nuts and doing really stupid stuff. This is getting seriously bizarre at this point.

OK, it'll be a miracle if he doesn't barf up two mice.

Great Mouse Massacre of 2008 (Part 5)

Things got unexpectedly exciting in the battle today.

While I was working away at my desk in broad daylight, with Captain Kirk (my 20-year-old cat) sleeping on my lap, two mice skittered by near my feet. Shaking off the astonishment that they'd be so audacious (or outright stupid) all of a sudden, I tossed Captain Kirk at them. He's a little slow on the uptake these days, so one had enough time to scamper behind a part of the desk, while the other sprinted back into the living room.

The mouse behind the desk was cornered. I placed Kirk on one side of the desk, and poked a pole into the other side, scaring him into Kirk's path. Luckily, Kirk's still got some instincts, and he pounced on him, snapped him up and ate him wholesale. Bad. Ass. Mofo.

Double-checking the other traps, I was surprised to find one of the green humane traps hosting a terrified new resident, soon to be released into the wild.

All in all, the mice are acting more and more erratically. The disorientation strategy seems to be working well. Here's hoping Kirk doesn't barf it up.

Great Mouse Massacre of 2008 (Part 4)

Field Report: Day 4

The mice are either demoralized, disoriented, or dead. This morning found all the traps unsprung. Nary a mouse turd was to be seen.

In the early dawn, while carrying my cat (he's 20, this is what you have to do with a 20-year-old cat sometimes) through the kitchen to the laundry room to use his litter box, I surprised a mouse on the counter. They, like my friends, don't expect to see me upright before 10am.

He scampered and hid, before skittering behind the stove through its ventilation system. Now I know how they access the counter, and will block off that route (probably with steel wool or a metal grate), thus establishing yet another oasis of mouse-impenetrability, together with our kitchen island.

I'm considering switching up the bait to either chocolate or pretzels (which would be tied down to the trigger mechanism), in order to catch the smarter mice who might at this point be understandably wary of cheese, having seen their relatives' brains splattered next to a Vermont cheddar.

Great Mouse Massacre of 2008 (Part 3)

Field Report: Day 3

The kill was good today. Two mice. They were stiff and cold when we found them. They were the ones we were seeking. The one of the counter and stove. And the one that frequented the highboy.

I had my doubts about baiting with cheese. A brief intelligence reconnaissance on ideal baiting material turned up absolutely no recommendations for cheese ... only peanut butter.

Well, not for our mice, apparently. They can lick a trap clean of peanut butter without setting it off, but not an iota of cheese was removed from any of the traps that didn't have a dead mouse attached to them in the morning.

Yes, it's not pretty. But war isn't pretty. We're making progress. The next phase in the plan is to mix it up and keep them disoriented. Mice will ignore things they know or expect, but will pay attention to things that are new. Therefore, the traps will be moved around to slightly different locations and angles, catching them unawares.

The campaign continues apace.

Great Mouse Massacre of 2008 (Part 2)

Great Mouse Massacre of 2008 Field Report:

While we've seen some surprising setbacks, we've also made some decent progress in our fight against the mouse scourge.

It turns out that mice have an uncanny, if not supernatural, ability to pick hair-trigger trap mechanisms perfectly clean of peanut butter without springing them. At least 3/4 of the time, anyway. Of our 8 traps, 6 were licked absolutely clean -- even the one whose sensitivity was so high it took almost 5 attempts to set it properly without losing a finger. (Note to self: mice must give horrible blow jobs.)

But 2 mice weren't so lucky. I guess it's a crap shoot for them ... you lick, you live. You lick, you die. Life lesson there, somewhere, I'm sure.

The humane traps are apparently a joke to the mice. The mice laugh at them, if they bother to pay them any mind whatsoever.

Time for us to up our odds. We will now switch up the game. The survivors, happily stuffed full of peanut butter and swaggering cockily with the success of last night's foray, will likely be somewhat more complacent in their eating habits. For Round 2, we will upgrade the trap bait to cheese actually wedged onto the trigger mechanism, so it is actually impossible to remove it without setting off the trap.

For now, it's off to the mouse morgue (e.g. the back yard) for last night's two victims. Morale is guardedly high amongst the troops, as the Commander-In-Chief reconsiders strategy.

Great Mouse Massacre of 2008 (Part 1)

Ms. Katie Pants,

Our house is now the field of operations for what I'm calling the Great Mouse Massacre of 2008. The plan is to wage absolute armageddon for Chez Chaserland residents of the mouse persuasion. My strategy is to wipe out their entire population in one fell swoop: absolute, rapid attrition, resulting in an inability for them to further reproduce (e.g. there's gonna be nobody left to fuck). This is round one of three, I'm guessing. And this is our theme song (I suggest you listen to it for inspiration, while reading through the tactical plan below).

Akin to the ever-so-impressive "shock and awe" strategy employed during the Iraq war, the plan is to hit them overwhelmingly, right where they live, and to disorient them with surprise. The survivors, if there are any, simply won't know what or where's safe anymore. It goes without saying that any remaining insurgency will be met with merciless retaliation.

I've deployed three types of traps throughout the kitchen and living room, wherever mouse poop has been found.

There are 8 spring-loaded neck-snapper traps. 5 of them are on the cubby-hole bookshelf, hidden behind the nicknacks (so we don't see them all the time, or accidentally touch them) in ALL but the upper right-hand cubbies (including behind the cookbooks, where I discovered that the mice had an absolute FIESTA). 2 of them are in the living room: one directly behind the couch, and one to the left of the high-boy, between the white boxes and the window pane, which now blocks alternative entrances to the backside of the high-boy, forcing mice into the trap's path. 1 is in the cabinet to the right of my desk, on the ground.

They are all baited with peanut butter, which can't be snagged off without springing the trap, which will (yes) immediately and abruptly snap their little spines. These traps are HAIR-TRIGGER sensitive, and should not be touched, unless VERY delicately, and ONLY on their wooden sides. If you need to move them, or it's awkward, it's actually best to trip them first with a pencil or stick, THEN move and reset them. For reals. Note that they're all where Kirk [ed note: our cat] can't accidentally get at 'em. This is obviously important ... he's on our side.

(IMPORTANT NOTE: the peanut butter in the fridge is now MOUSE BAIT and NOT FOOD. IT IS CONTAMINATED. DO NOT EAT IT.)

Then there are our humane traps. Any mice caught in these pansy-ass, weak-kneed liberal traps will be spared ... we're not monsters, after all.

There are two grey "victor" humane traps at ground level. These little rectangular boxes are very sensitively balance-triggered, so don't touch them. There's one next to the cubby-hole bookshelves, and one by the printer. They are baited with oats/grains. mouse enters, upsetting the balance of the trap, tripping the door, mouse is trapped. Then there are the two green humane traps. One remains deployed to the right of the couch. The other will be re-deployed in the studio closet once it has been emptied of its current mouse occupant, cleaned, and re-baited.

This will get ugly. Very ugly. Our home may look like a slaughterhouse for a while. but ultimately, with courage and perseverance (cue swelling patriotic music here), we will prevail over the mouse scourge that threatens our very way of life. There is good in this world, and there is evil ... and if we stand together, we can be sure that good will totally kick evil's ass up and down the street (oh ... and we are good, by the way).

OK, so um ... that is all. Yours in the fight,

-Will Pants
Commander-In-Chief
Great Mouse Massacre of 2008

5 Recruiters for Every 1 Position ... Enthusiastically

Today I got this email in my inbox:

I am the President of Grafton Executive Search, and for the past 20 years we have specialized in recruiting Corporate Sales and C-Level candidates. I thought your company may be interested increasing your company's revenue through the addition of new sales reps that could bring over a book of business. I do have a number of highly successful Sales & Sales Management candidates that happened to be ranked within the top percentile of their respective companies that I'd like to submit to you for any current openings you may have, or that you may want to make room for.

We are more like the older traditional recruiting firms that you used to hear about, that would actually "cold call & headhunt candidates" from any industries, companies and/or competitors of your choosing and all on a contingency basis! We do not run ad's in the newspaper or pull resumes off the internet, as is the trend these days with the majority of the other recruiters. We figure that's probably what you are already doing? What we do is go after the best candidates & the elite that are not currently looking for a job as they already have one. We personally present and sell your specific company's opportunity to their individual needs. Our clients find that these hidden candidates are more stable, more qualified and haven't been interviewing all over town.

We will assign 5 recruiters for every 1 position you have and we'll treat each opening as a "priority-retained search," but we will still only bill you if you hire a candidate of ours. You get "retainer service"; but we will be working 100% on contingency. Our company has been providing just this service for 20 years. We work with all sizes of companies ranging from small start-up companies to Fortune 500, including multi-billion dollar International conglomerates. I've personally specialized in Sales and Management Staff for over 13 years.

So please give me a call at your earliest convenience, so that we could start filling your current open positions both locally, nationally and globally with the exact backgrounds your looking for. Obviously, the burden will be on me to produce only candidates that are better than your those that you have found on your own. I look forward to talking to you soon! Give me a call or pop me an email with your contact info and I'll be happy follow up with you immediately.

Enthusiastically,

Ryan

PS What would it mean to your company to be able to hire your #1 competitors, #1 Sales rep?

BWAHAHAHAHA!!! Yeah, thanks for the offer, cheesebag.

Enthusiastically,

Will

Yet Another Most Retarded Hacker Movie Ever

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Edwardian Ball 2008

I had the distinct honor of curating an art gallery for the Edwardian Ball last weekend. I've been going to the Ball since ... what ... 2003? As I've always been a big fan of this excellent event, it was very cool to be invited to curate a Hall of Fine Arts for their Edwardian World's Faire, new this year.

It was especially fun to curate for a specific genre ... particularly one that can't be found in the average art gallery. People aren't exactly clamoring for Edwardian era artwork these days, as you can imagine. I was humbled and flattered to be working alongside Paxton Gate, who created the Hall of Natural Sciences; Dark Garden, who did the Hall of Fine Fashions; and Kinetic Steamworks, who brought their steam engines to the Hall of Industry. Really the best company with whom to be working.

I received a lot of great compliments on the gallery, which was really gratifying. All in all, a great success!

Big thanks to Ann Jastrab, manager of San Francisco's RayKo Gallery, who helped me out by hooking me up with the artwork of Kenn Coplan, an amazing Los Angeles-based artist.

KPFA Radio Interview

A couple weeks ago, I was invited to the studios of KPFA 94.1FM in Berkeley to talk about Burning Man. The interview (with Jane Heaven, a very nice radio personality) went quite well, and it gave me the opportunity to tout the extensive year-round activities of Burners and the Burning Man Project off the playa (such as Burners Without Borders and the Black Rock Arts Foundation), discuss this year's art, and to expand upon the concept behind the "American Dream" art theme.

You can listen to the show, stored here on KPFA's archive.

(Note: I join the show exactly 1 hour (or 1/3 of the way) in. If you're at all allergic to hippy, you might want to skip the first hour ... trust me on this.)

Enjoy!

Kafkacast

Today I learned that Comcast customer support is actually being paid to "understand your frustration with the issue."

I was just indoctrinated into the Kafka-esque world of Comcast, who recently, and inexplicably, blocked my access to port 25, through which SMTP connections are made, allowing for email to be sent through a mail client. See, I use Mac Mail to manage my approximately 12 email addresses from which I send email to conduct business. Yes, really ... I have a dozen of 'em. And, correspondingly, about 6 SMTP servers I use to send email through. Suddenly, they were all blocked.

Here's the transcript of my chat with the amiable, but policy-restrained customer service representative. (Notice, by the way, how he uses my name no fewer than 18 times during the chat. Anybody who says my name more than like ... 5 times in a conversation is either highly medicated, or utterly sociopathic. It's like talking to HAL.) Here's how it went down ... stick with it ... it gets twistedly hilarious:

Live Chat

user Will has entered room
analyst Mac has entered room
Mac 21:29:08: Hello Will, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Mac. Please give me one moment to review your information.
Mac 21:29:53: Hi Will.
Mac 21:30:00: What error message do you get?
Will 18:30:16: can't connect to smtp server
Will 18:30:34: i use mac mail, and i have a bunch of smtp servers that i use to send mail through
Will 18:30:37: normally they connect fine
Will 18:30:42: suddenly, they don't
Will 18:30:53: i'm assuming this is a blocking port 25 issue on your end
Will 18:31:12: so how do i unblock them? i need access to my smtp servers
Mac 21:31:16: Thats not possible.
Mac 21:31:20: Yes you may have to change it to 587 port.
Will 18:31:25: 587 will work?
Mac 21:31:30: Yes.
Will 18:31:35: does it redirect to 25?
Mac 21:32:30: Port 25 is blocked for most users as for security.
Mac 21:32:36: All spam is sent on 25.
Will 18:32:42: ok. will changing it to 587 affect me if i go to another location (e.g. another ISP) and try and connect?
Will 18:33:05: (i work from a laptop, and am always on the move)
Mac 21:33:19: It shouldn't Will.
Mac 21:33:24: You would have to try it.
Will 18:33:36: right
Will 18:33:45: let me try it here real quick
Will 18:34:56: didn't seem to work
Will 18:35:00: though i get a different error now
Will 18:35:20: i'm trying to access the yahoo smtp server
Will 18:35:50: now it says trying to log into this smtp server failed
Will 18:35:55: which is different than not connecting to it
Will 18:36:08: see, i'm not using comcast for my smtp ... just as my pipe
Mac 21:37:13: Ok, Will, they may be blocking 25 and then it wouldn't work.
Will 18:37:40: so, what's my solution here?
Mac 21:38:14: Well Will, comcast doesn't unblock ports for anyone.
Will 18:38:41: yes, but i need to send email through my pop account, mac
Mac 21:39:01: Couldn't you do this on there webpages?
Will 18:39:06: no way
Will 18:39:23: no possible way i could do my job through a web mail client
Mac 21:39:20: I know on Yahoo you can.
Will 18:39:50: oh, i know you *can*, but doing so is incredibly impractical, you know?
Will 18:40:18: i'm a contractor ... i use at least a dozen different email addresses for my work
Mac 21:40:38: I understand Will. The port may have been banned as business was being conducted using Comcast HOME internet which is not allowed
Will 18:41:10: so why is it that all of a sudden they're blocked?
Will 18:41:16: i've been using this for 3+ years now
Will 18:41:31: and this is completely screwing me, btw
Will 18:41:52: i absolutely need a better solution than using webmail
Mac 21:41:55: That could be a possiblity.
Mac 21:42:05: Its mostly for security purposes.
Will 18:42:29: i'm aware of that ... but in this case, it's throwing out the baby with the bathwater
Will 18:42:41: you guys need a provision for trusted users, like myself
Mac 21:43:08: Will, you still wouldn't be allowed to conduct business on the home account
Will 18:43:11: if you guys see (or have reported) spam coming from my IP, i'd understand a desire to block it
Will 18:43:30: wait ... huh?
Mac 21:43:53: You mentioned you conduct most of your business emailing using comcast internet, which is not allowed.
Will 18:44:15: i'm not allowed to conduct business from my home?
Will 18:44:33: how do you guys presume to limit people to business vs. pleasure?
Mac 21:44:56: Not with your home internet service. They can watch activity on the account. We have a seperate business service we offer.
Will 18:45:09: which is what ... more expensive?
Mac 21:45:31: I believe so, I'm not sure of the pricing exactly.
Will 18:45:43: i run a home office, mac. it's not like i'm running a corporation here.
Mac 21:45:46: Either way the port 25 couldn't be unblocked in any circumstance.
Mac 21:46:04: I understand Will, I am simply stating the policies.
Will 18:46:05: i'm a contractor doing business sometimes out of my home, sometimes on clients' sites.
Will 18:46:47: so, if i had a business account, i'd be able to use port 25?
Mac 21:47:34: I believe so yes.
Will 18:48:27: well, i kinda need to know that for sure, mac.
Mac 21:49:03: Will, we dont do the business side. Let me give you a phone number.
Mac 21:49:21: Phone: 1-800-316-1619
Will 18:49:30: is comcast my only option for DSL service at my home?
Mac 21:49:52: I'm not sure Will, we don't offer DSL.
Will 18:50:22: or ... better said, then ... high speed internet
Mac 21:51:14: Will, I'm not familiar with the area, I assume there would be some other providers.
Will 18:51:32: i'm sure to be looking into that at this point
Mac 21:51:49: Great Will, whatever solution works.
Will 18:51:56: i've got no problem with your *personal* service here, mac. just so we're clear.
Will 18:52:14: i'm just flabbergasted that this is how your company conducts business
Will 18:52:54: more than anything else right now, i'm really curious as to why suddenly my smtp was shut down, without so much as a peep of warning or anything.
Mac 21:53:23: However if you want to cancel the internet you will have to call 1800COMCAST
Will 18:53:30: i consider myself lucky i happen to have enough technical savvy to any idea what was going on
Mac 21:54:35: Well Will, in your contract with us it does state that we reserve the right to block ports at anytime we find suitable.
Mac 21:54:42: It is a security issue.
Will 18:55:14: yes, but there hasn't been a security breach to my knowledge
Will 18:55:39: and blocking ports isn't just an arbitrary thing to do ... it affects people's ability to conduct business, mac.
Will 18:56:05: or forget business for a second ... to use the internet as it is supposed to be used
Mac 21:56:43: Will, you can use the internet without using port 25.
Will 18:57:03: yes, but i can't use my mail client, mac
Will 18:57:22: so what you're saying is that if i'm using comcast home internet service, i can't use a mail client
Mac 21:58:06: You can use it on the website as I stated.
Will 18:58:25: sorry, but that's not helpful
Will 18:58:55: is there some kind of analysis that i could see that shows why it was warranted or deemed necessary to shut down my ports?
Mac 21:59:29: Will, this is a non-negotiable decision
Will 19:00:52: this is a load of crap, mac.
Mac 22:01:24: Well I'm sorry you feel that way Will.
Will 19:01:44: please note to your superiors that you should absolutely have a port access provision for trusted users
Will 19:02:05: i totally understand why port 25s are blocked ... but not in this case
Mac 22:02:14: I will definitely pass the chat along to them.
Will 19:03:47: thanks mac
Mac 22:03:59: Not a problem Will.
Will 19:04:02: i appreciate your answering my questions ...
Will 19:04:25: ... and sad that this is such a pitifully lame situation
Mac 22:04:24: Thats what I am here for Will, I understand your frustration with the issue.
Mac 22:04:49: http://www.comcast.net/help/faq/index.jsp?faq=SecurityMail_Policy18990
You will have to fill out the form provided on this page to have the email unblocked.
Mac 22:05:02: You can try the network support team here.
Mac 22:05:11: Just leave a detailed message and a phone number.
Mac 22:05:19: Its basically worth a shot I guess.
Will 19:06:40: so that form is to request unblocking a port 25?
Mac 22:07:33: Not exactly, but it is the closest thing.
Will 19:07:45: right ... i hear ya
Mac 22:08:20: Is there anything else i can help you with?
Will 19:09:09: unless you've got a button on your keyboard that says "unblock Will's port 25", i guess not.
Will 19:09:16: :-)
Mac 22:09:34: Sorry just out of service at the moment!
Mac 22:09:35: wink
Mac 22:10:07: Answers to many Frequently Asked Questions regarding Comcast High Speed Internet service can be found at: http:\faq.comcast.net/faq/ You may want to bookmark this site for future reference. Thank you for contacting Comcast. We appreciate you as a customer. Good bye.
Mac 22:10:11: Analyst has closed chat and left the room

Sigh. Welcome to Kafkacast, where You're Our Bitch (tm).

Dinner Conversation 101

So I went to Katie (my girlfriend)'s grandparents' house for dinner last night. It's always an enjoyable time, as they're fun people with whom to spend an evening, and the food is always delicious.

They live in Orinda, CA, which is the West Coast equivalent of Greenwich, CT, where I grew up. And now that I live a very Left Coast SF urban lifestyle (tm), visiting Orinda makes for a pleasant reminiscence of my formative years. And seeing as how I have absolutely no other reason (or desire, for that matter) to visit Orinda, it serves the purpose. (Note here that Katie's family is rather conservative and staid by most standards ... and terrifically so by mine. They put a premium on being proper, and I very much appreciate them for that.)

During dinner, it came up that I'd gone on a solo around-the-world trip in 2003, which led somehow to a discussion of my adventurousness during the journey ... and they requested an example. Katie -- I'm not sure why -- mentioned the snake story, which, of course, everybody wants to hear once they hear the subject matter, and won't be denied.

So I kinda ... um ... told my story about eating the still-beating heart of a bamboo viper snake in the back streets of Hanoi with some heroin-addled street kids. Yeeeeah.

The shock was palpable.

Note to self: next time, pick a less gastronomically-distressing story for dinner conversation, or relate a heavily-abridged Reader's Digest version ... at least until after coffee is served.

Hot Couture at The Crucible

I work a variety of gigs and events throughout the year. Big ones and small ones, from underground to corporate. This could be curating an entire art gallery, stage managing, running theater productions, or producing full events ... it varies widely, which is the way I like it. Never a dull moment. And with any luck, I'm actually able to schedule them such that they don't overlap too much.

By far my most favorite gigs to work are events at The Crucible. First and foremost, that's because of the crew there. These are easily the most affable, solid, and capable people with whom I've ever worked. You need a 20' welded steel ball to catch fire, zip-line from 200' onto a stage crowded with fire performers, explode in pyrotechnic bliss, and not kill anybody? Sure, we'll have that for you in 10 minutes. For an event producer, it's like being a kid in a candy store.

Second, the quality of the productions is inevitably top-notch ... they put on show that are some of the most innovative and outlandish creative efforts around, particularly with regard to taking traditional mediums and melding them (sometimes kicking and screaming) with the fire arts. As you can imagine, many of these, like ballet and opera, aren't used to that kind of partnership, but it creates theatrical magic every time.

Finally, these are fundraisers for a great cause. The Crucible does more than most organizations in the Bay Area to help people in our community grow their artistic skills, expand their horizons, and build their self-confidence through an impressively extensive offering of classes in the industrial and fire arts.

This weekend, I'm helping to stage manage the Hot Couture Fashion Show, celebrating their 9th anniversary in business. As expected, it's an incredible show that leaves no stops unpulled, and no opportunity for spewing fire left by the wayside. The combination of beautiful models catwalking the creations of some of the most innovative designers in the Bay Area you've probably never heard of but by all rights you should know ... together with the pyrotechnic skills of The Crucible is simply not to be missed.

Big props go out to Danielle Cohen of Missing Piece for her formidable skills in co-producing this event, making manifest the fashion side of the show ... in spades.

(photo credit: The Crucible)

Burning Man Ticket Launch 2008

We arrived at the Burning Man headquarters at 9:00am. That's really early for us geeks, honestly, and particularly painful for a handful of the more nocturnal types in our crew.

But if there's one true thing about Burners, they're pretty smart. Our bosses know that if you're going to try and get a geek in the office anytime before the crack of noon, you'll be much more successful by plying them with bacon, waffles, hash browns, and coffee. But most importantly ... bacon.

It was the third Wednesday in January ... also known as Burning Man ticket launch day. In years past, we've had some nightmarish scenarios on launch day, where participants, eager to acquire the cheapest tickets they could get, would attack our website all at once, absolutely crushing our ticketing partner's servers. Between the confusion and frustration, mayhem would ensue ... and the electronic bulletin boards would erupt with screaming posts from angry participants.

Two years ago in 2006, I was manning the Burning Man website from the comfort of my home office. As soon as tickets went on sale at 10am, all hell broke loose. The deluge was so great that it actually overloaded the power circuits at the colo facility, taking all the ticketing servers down. Still bleary eyed with sleep, I ended up locked at my computer dealing with the fallout for 12 hours straight ... never got out of my pajamas, never got up to eat, get coffee, or even use the bathroom. It was an absolute horror. And as much as participants suffered through that day, the ticketing team suffered worse.

Since that day, we've worked hard with InTicketing (our ticketing partner), and made great strides towards improving the stability and flexibility of the servers to handle the massive load. And most importantly, we did some social engineering ... we created a queue that tells people where they are in line, so they can put their minds at rest, and know where they stand, rather than opening up browser window after window and hitting refresh until their fingers bleed.

In honor of the debacle that was the 2006 ticket launch, the whole Burning Man office staff now wears pajamas on ticket day, and we feast on a great (if nutritionally bankrupt) breakfast before we open the floodgates. It makes for a wonderful scene around the office, people padding around in their jammies, hoovering waffles.

The team here at BMHQ keep in constant touch with InTicketing and our system administrators during the day through an uber-geeky chat application called Internet Relay Chat (or IRC, in the parlance). The "topic" of the chat room this day was "Missing Apes Found Shaved." Theoretically, this should in no way affect the ticket purchasing experience itself, but one never knows.

We also keep in touch with our participants through Tribe, the ePlaya, and email, providing periodic updates and answers to technical questions that people were posting. This effort is meant to unwind potentially catastrophic spirals of imagination ... given a dearth of information, people always manage to conjure the worst case scenarios possible, and completely freak out. Just a little status goes a long way to keeping everybody happy.

We're pleased to report that things cranked along quite nicely for ticket launch 2008. By 11am, we'd processed 3,000 tickets. By 11:30am, we'd processed 6,000. The 10,000 tickets offered at the lowest price level ($210) were sold out by 1:00pm, and the 10,000 second level ($225) tickets by 10:40pm. Even though the pace of sales was a little slower than last year, our ticket partner still kept a steady hand on the tiller, actively managing server load and bandwidth, opening the doors a little wider as the onslaught eased.

And as ticket day 2008 came to a close, we turned off the ticketing queue which staved the masses, Burners around the globe rejoiced in their promise of playa dust, and the pajama-clad Burning Man ticketing team went home for a well-earned night's rest. Kudos to all involved.

Burn on, everybody ... we'll see you on the playa.

acquiescence

ok, so i finally succumbed. i'd been putting it off forever, cooking up excuse after excuse. the best of them was that a blog would "bleed my writer's brain dry of ideas and content that would otherwise be stockpiling to become the building blocks for more comprehensive stories". yeah, well ... i haven't seemed to have found the time to write said "comprehensive stories". i mean, you haven't seen 'em in your latest amazon top 10 list, have you? right. no.

ok, so, hat in hand, duly shamed, i offer you this humble welcome to my blog: "structure & flow".

periodic ramblings, witticisms, insights, rants ... you know, the usual blog fodder. but i suspect you'll actually like this one, and want to huck it in your RSS reader.

(oh, and if you don't have an RSS reader, you're probably better off for it ... they're an incredible time suck disguised as indispensable tool ... which is to say, pure evil. more on this later.)

so ... here we go ...