Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/09/11/the-big-idea/
Stolen from gapingvoid, which has some delicious perspective on creative endeavour:
Every creative person is looking for “The Big Idea”. You know, the one that is going to catapult them out from the murky depths of obscurity and on to the highest planes of incandescent ludicity.
The one that’s all love-at-first-sight with the Zeitgeist.
The one that’s going to get them invited to all the right parties, metaphorical or otherwise.
So naturally you ask yourself, if and when you finally come up with The Big Idea, after years of toil, struggle and doubt, how do you know whether or not it is “The One”?
Answer: You don’t.
There’s no glorious swelling of existential triumph.
That’s not what happens.
All you get is this rather kvetchy voice inside you that seems to say, “This is totally stupid.This is utterly moronic. This is a complete waste of time. I’m going to do it anyway.”
And you go do it anyway.
Second-rate ideas like glorious swellings far more. Keeps them alive longer.
Mainly, I like “don’t quit your day job” . . . gives you something to do on the long commute to work. I’d take from that: have a long commute to work that leaves your arms free, if you can swing it. One thing I am completely loving about San Francisco is that I can stumble out of my house when I am good and ready, catch the next Muni that happens by, and repeat the process at the end of the day. People pay good money to drive cars, but the $45 monthly Muni pass . . . . . . at the current rate, I may part with my wheels. I spend more time driving the car around from one street cleaning zone to the next than I do actually driving anywhere!
(Still reading the darn thing. ’tis a delicious fountain of philosophy that most any of my friends should find somewhat gratifying. :)
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/09/10/romancing-myself/
At Church, this morning, was read the following poem, which resonated with current life activity:
Love After Love
Derek Walcott
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
On Labor Day I took myself out on a date: we went to Peet’s, then had some pizza, and then popcorn and soda while watching the new Woody Allen movie at the local theater. “I was born in the Hebrew faith, but when I got older I converted to Narcissism,” said Woody. (more…)
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/09/05/popularity-pays/
Says Paul Graham:
Of course you have to have a business model eventually. But experience so far suggests that figuring out how to make money from something popular is a lot easier than making something popular.
I get a lot of criticism for telling founders to focus first on making something great, instead of worrying about how to make money. And yet that is exactly what Google did. And Apple, for that matter. You’d think examples like that would be enough to convince people.
Is this another Bubble? I don’t think so, not so far. There may be a lot of lame startups being started, but that’s not the definition of a bubble. A bubble is when a lot of money is being invested in lame startups, and that’s not happening yet. The reason so many new startups are getting started is that the cost has gone down, not that funding has gone up.
This is one reason I’m optimistic about my present employer: we’ve got something that is proving to be very popular. We’ve got a good thing going such that we can become hugely popular, and if we can capitalize on that even a little bit, we should be doing alright.
As to whether this is the mentality that brought us the Bubble, I think the thing to watch out for is Irrational Exuberence, and over-reaching. Popular or not, VC-backed or not, I haven’t heard any of that since the bust. I’d like to think that we of the Silicon Valley have Gotten Over Ourselves a bit–our experiments, called “startups”–have some sense of scope, and few companies outside of Microsoft or Google have barrels of F-U money to throw around. We’re no longer surrounded by IPO-funded Mercedeses and BMWs, and nobody I know is paying $2,000/mo rent. I hope we retain this sense of sensibility.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/08/21/nice-girls/
Anna, thanks for the link.
This ode rocks:
I’ve read the tribute to the nice guys; this is my response.
This is my tribute to the nice girls. To the nice girls who are overlooked, who become friends and nothing more, who spend hours fixating upon their looks and their personalities and their actions because it must be they that are doing something wrong. This is for the girls who don’t give it up on the first date, who don’t want to play mind games, who provide a comforting hug and a supportive audience for a story they’ve heard a thousand times. This is for the girls who understand that they aren’t perfect and that the guys they’re interested in aren’t either, for the girls who flirt and laugh and worry and obsess over the slightest glance, whisper, touch, because somehow they are able to keep alive that hope that maybe… maybe this time he’ll have understood. This is an homage to the girls who laugh loud and often, who are comfortable in skirts and sweats and combat boots, who care more than they should for guys who don’t deserve their attention. This is for those girls who have been in the trenches, who have watched other girls time and time again fake up and make up and fuck up the guys in their lives without saying a word. This is for the girls who have been there from the beginning and have heard the trite words of advice, from “there are plenty of fish in the sea,” to “time heals all wounds.” This is to honor those girls who know that guys are just as scared as they are, who know that they deserve better, who are seeking to find it.
(Read the whole dang thing.)
Reads a bit like “Howl . . .”
I think that one thing that gets a lot of us derailed is the whole consumerism aspect of modern life. It is suspiciously weird when you’re “shopping around” for someone to walk up to you with their heart on their sleeve and be real. At best, its too-good-to-be-true. “What’s the catch?” And, often enough, you’re not that interested, because you’ve gotten used to being attracted to people who are more screwy than this.
And I think that’s how we end up with “nice guys” and “nice girls” having such a hard time getting anywhere. Everyone’s after the bling . . .
I, on the other hand, for the time being, get to let go of my love and my anger, such that I can kind of observe from the sidelines and try not to get overly-fixated on this game. Ahhh, delicious abstraction! Hopefully I can keep my consciousness with me as I move along with life. Of course, life itself never gives you a “break” . . . we keep it interesting over here.
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/08/14/quotes-quotes-quotes/
While waiting on a file transfer, perhaps I can share a variety of quotes that have caught my mind lately.
I attended San Francisco’s Unitarian Universalist church for the first time this Sunday. One of the hymns has some lyrics which I dug:
We’ll be a land building up ancient cities,
Raising up devastations from old;
Restoring ruins of generations.
Oh, we’ll build a land of people so bold.
Barabara Zanotti
“We’ll Build a Land”
Then, several quotes from the August, 2006 issue of The Sun, dealing mostly with romantic relationships. (A subject especially near and dear to my heart this year.)
It remains inexplicable to me that we can finally become happy again after someone we love has died. Yet there I stood at the end of my bed, a scant four years out, feeling happy. Was this not betrayal? It does not help to say that the dead are gone and do not care. The problem of grief is never with them; it is with us, with those who remain. Like the bed we lie in, it is ours.
Susan Carol Hauser
“The Marriage Bed”
And a bunch of “Sunbeams” starting with something light-yet-presidential: (more…)
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/08/02/what-i-got/
Lyrics brought to mind by recent conversations:
Well life is (too short) so love the one you’ve got
Coz you might get run over or you might get shot
Never start no static I just get it off my chest
Never had to battle with my bullet-proof vest
Take a small example take a ti-ti-tip from me
Take all of your money give it all to charity
Love’s what I got, is within my reach
And the Sublime style’s still straight from Long Beach
You know it comes back to you you’re bound to get what you deserve
Try and test that, you’re bound to get served
Love’s what I got, don’t start a riot, you’ll feel it when the dance gets hot
Lovin’ is what I got
I said remember that!
For the longest time I thought it was “life is–so not the one you’ve got” which I thought was very philosophical. However “life is too short” is also eminently true, so . .
Taking a brief break from a technical mystery at work. Back to being serious! At least I have a cool soundtrack.
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/06/16/good-poems/
On the way home today I stopped at Barnes & Noble, thinking to find either some poetry or a book of jokes. Specifically, I was looking for some good poetry that might stick in the mind. I visited my old friend Ginsberg, but he can be awfully tedious. When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a book called “Good Poems” . . . selected and introduced by Garrison Keillor. Now, Garrison himself is a tedious windbag who shouldn’t spend the hours each week he does on public radio, but I have heard some good stuff on The Writer’s Almanac and these are poems from there.
I grabbed a Tazo, sat down across from a pretty student, and opened the book and indeed, found a good poem. Then I found a good poem I thought I’d share with Yayoi, but then I recalled I don’t share with that person any more. I found instead a poem I will share here, since it is kind of topical: (more…)
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/06/05/suffering/
This morning at church I was talking to Aiko, who had heard through Yayoi how much I had enjoyed Dave Sammons’ May 7 sermon on Suffering. I had been especially attuned to his words that day given how much I had happened to be suffering at that time. Aiko had said that she had not enjoyed the sermon as much. She felt that when it came to understanding suffering, the Buddhists were better at it than the UUs, because after all, suffering is central to Buddhist philosophy.
Anyway, Dave’s sermon was, in a way, akin to a blog post, in which he reviewed, quoting at length, the work of Gerald Sittser, who, in his book A Grace Disguised, narrated his own confrontation with suffering from the death of his family in a car accident. So, here I’ll share some of Sittser, some of Sammons, and some of Howard.
(more…)
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/05/17/advice-avoiding-divorce/
Some time, sooner than you may think you will, you may find yourself in a situation where your marriage has turned inside out. It’ll hurt worse than you’ve ever known before and you’ll try desperately to hold on, only your initial reaction may in fact be exactly the wrong thing to do. And you’ll step back and try to figure it out, and nothing will make any sense, until you swallow your ego and look back at yourself from your spouse’s eyes, and get some sound advice from friends, therapists, or in this case, perhaps by reading a blog entry that quotes a book.
The following are some of my dog-eared passages from “The Divorce Remedy” by Michele Weiner Davis. I’m transcribing them here since they strike me as sufficiently interesting to share, and because after I transcribe them I can flatten out the pages. A nice book shouldn’t live its life with permanant dog-ears. In all likelyhood, you are not in a crisis at the moment, but if the poop ever hits the fan, maybe you’ll recall that there’s some knowledge to turn to . . . (more…)
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/03/11/be-lyrical/
So, last night we were listening to Common’s album, “Be”. We both enjoy this album, some songs a lot more than others. Yayoi likes the tune but the lyrics are a real challenge . . . do black people always understand the lyrics? No, I said, from what I have observed of my step-siblings, you listen to the tune over and over, picking up lyrics on each pass, and perhaps argue with your friends and siblings, until you mostly get it. We did this. I’ve got most of the lyrics. Can you write them down? Yes. And so we worked our way through . . . over and over.
“Be” — Common
(Intro – guitar, synthesizer, piano, strings)
Yeah
Yes
I want to be as free as the spirits of those who left
I’m talkin Malcolm, Coltrane, my man Yousef
Through death grew conception, new breath and resurrection
For one’s new steps in a direction in the right way
Told inside is where the fight lay
And everything a nigga do may not be what he might say
Chicago night stay stay on the mind
But I write many lives they lay on these lines
Waving signs of the times many say the crime’s on they mind
Shorties blunted out and everyone wanna rhyme
Bush pusher lies killers immortalized
We got arms but won’t reach for the skies
Waitin’ for the Lord to rise I look into my daughter’s eyes
And realize that I’m a learn through her
The Messiah might even return through her
If I’m a do it, I gotta change the world through her
Furs and the Benz (greps?) wantin’m
Demons and old friends pops they huntin’m
The chosen one from the land of the frozen sun
When drunk nights get remembered more than sober ones
Walk like warriors we were never told to run
Explore the world to return to where my soul begun
Never lookin back, or too far in front of me
The present is a gift, and I just want to Be.
(be, be, be, be, be ….)
It is a good song, starting with a strumming guitar, then a doo doo doo Pac Man synthesizer, and a piano tumbles in, joined by strings, before Common explodes with some complex, uplifting, starry-eyed lyrics, and then its over. A good anthem to start the album.
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/02/03/danish-mohammed-cartoons/
You know . . . there are a lot of ignorant religious fanatics in this world. Our country has its share, but Islam . . . well, the mullahs and their Western allies have been doing what they can to maintain power and obtain cheap oil by keeping their people ignorant.
And, in the Western cultures . . . we spend our time writing a lot of silly things, and drawing silly things, and we have a hard time getting anyone to take us seriously.
So, when some Danish paper publishes a set of dumb cartoons, and contends with death threats, and now a bunch of fools threatening to boycott Danish products, well, I feel like I want to do some small thing. (more…)
82 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/01/09/ikea-emeryville-bah/
IKEA Flags, San Diego (Thanks,
Juan23)
Don’t get me wrong, I mean, I love shopping at IKEA . . . the drive to the mega-store, the search for parking, the endless meandering through furniture and accoutrements, only to find yourself facing the stark reality of a giant warehouse, asking yourself if the Black-Brown BILLY bookshelf, which looks so black in the warehouse, is really the same color you were looking at in the showroom, and standing in line, wondering just what kind of crap they put in a 50c hot dog. But once you pay, and you’re rolling out the door, you know you’re not far from the actual joy of wrangling your heavy flat-packed furniture up the stairs and getting busy with the allen wrench.
But yesterday . . . well, I have officially given up on the Emeryville, CA IKEA. Here is my tale, as told in the call-and-response format that passes for “customer service” via the “Internet” these days: (more…)
9 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/12/09/americans-cut-some-slack/
Well, so we know that Americans put in a lot more time at work than our counterparts in Europe. We get fewer benefits, but higher salaries. Of course, we tend to commute by car, and live in very hot or very cold places, so we spend a lot more cash on energy, or we would, if our government were not structured to keep energy artificially cheap. As a consequence, we convert valuable cropland into large suburban houses, and spend more time driving SUVs around the freeways.
Anyway . . . higher pay or not, I’m jealous of the five weeks of vacation that I’d get if I worked in Europe. On the other hand, Wired reports that American employers have mostly come to accept the fact that Internet access means some amount of employee slack time:
Companies are growing more accepting of the idea that workers will fritter away part of the workday shopping online, according to purveyors of employee internet-monitoring tools. Most employers engage in some sort of monitoring of workplace internet access. But rather than block all shopping sites, employers preoccupied with productivity are more apt to set time limits on access. Today . . . employers commonly permit use of non-work-related sites for around an hour a day.
(more…)
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/12/07/starbucks-not-evil/
I am not a big fan of Starbucks. It’s not merely that I’m anti-trendy, but it just isn’t my idea of a nice coffee shop. (My idea of coffee doesn’t encompass “twenty ounces served in a paper cup with a plastic lid,” unless I’m stopping at a gas station on the Interstate.) But they give benefits to part-time employees, and as far as I have ever heard, the company conducts itself in a decent manner uncharacteristic of many greedy megacorporations. The latest evidence comes from AP / Yahoo: (more…)
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/12/05/gilmore-v-gonzales/
If you are free to visit San Francisco on Thursday December 8, then this may be an interesting activity. Even if you can’t go to this thing, you may be interested in your freedom anyway:
On the 4th of July 2002, John Gilmore, American citizen, decided to take a trip from one part of the United States of America to another. He went to Oakland International Airport — ticket in hand — and was told he had to produce his ID if he wanted to travel. He asked to see the law demanding he show his ‘papers’ and was told after a time that the law was secret and no, he wouldn’t be allowed to read it.
He hasn’t flown in his own country since.
On December 8th 2005, oral arguments in Gilmore v. Gonzales will be heard before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. At stake is nothing less than the right of Americans to travel anonymously in their own country — and the exposure of ‘secret law’ for what it is: an abomination.
You may think he’s crazy, but it is good when people challenge the government–read more at http://papersplease.org/gilmore/facts.html.
Thanks, Jeff!
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