Buster McLeod

More Morale-O-Meter

Continuing to work on the morale-o-meter... the silliest project I've worked on in a while. My latest idea is to come up with a "craziness" metric for each day's report, ala flickr's interestingness score. This way, we can find out, given any list, which people are craziest on a given day. Basically, the less sleep you get, the more you drink, and the more caffeine you get, the crazier you are. I think I'm going to give points for being happy as well... maybe it should be the manicness metric actually. I really hope people start using this... it could reveal some interesting things about us I think. For example, we can find out who's the most stable, instable, alcoholic, depressed, manic, etc. The internet is a wonderful thing... play!

That feeling.

I have that weird "I need to fuck with my weblog again" feeling that comes up every once in a while and makes me embark on some futile exercise in using my weblog to bring eternal happiness to the Internet. I got in a bet with Michael Buffington at SXSW about which one of us could make a better automated weblog (one that posted interesting things without human intervention) and I think there was a pitcher of martini at stake? Buffington? Do you remember the stakes? Is the game still on? I need something, anything, where are weblogs going?

SXSWi 2006 post-mortem

What causes change?

My last 2 weeks have been so wacky and weird... in a crazy and changing and barely sustainable way. San Diego, Ensenada, Corona del Mar, Redlands, Austin, and back in 10 days. I'm spending way too much money and probably drinking too much and not really sleeping. This is okay, however, since it fits with my 2006 mottos of "Going For Broke", "In It To Win It", and "Puppets Are The New Monkeys". My weekly goal is to have a week that's more exciting than the previous (since I believe that there's a huge untapped world of excitement ahead of us and we have a long way to go before actually running out of exciting things). It'll be difficult to beat last week, but I'm going to try anyway.

South by South West was SO AMAZINGLY FUN. I met, slapped, and hugged so many great people. A few of the superstars and personal heroes I met for the first time included Roomie Willo, Dodgeball Dennis, Dodgeball Alex, Dodgeball Harry, Wine Box Dealer Helen Jane, Drinking Aubrey, Austinist Justin, Erisfree Eris, Dancing Martine, Dancing Jeremy, Findlaw Jeremy, Photographing Buzz, Socialite Danny, Technorati Ryan, Hackdiary Matt, Odeo Ev, Spongebob Diane, Armadillo Sierra, Dooce Heather, Dooce Husband Friendly Jon, Monstro Lane, Wacky Why, and oh so many others. Not to mention all the great friends I got to see who I know from previous years at SXSW or the Greater Interweb at large. Everyone! Hi! SXSW is made out of people! I love them all. Willo, my roomie, did a FANTASTIC job of taking a bunch of pictures, and even tossed up a couple videos of the dancestage.

I see a story emerging out of the yearly episodes at SXSW... it's really interesting seeing this ragtag group of passionate bloggers and friends evolve and change over the year. It's like reality reality. The last four years at SXSW sort of follows this narrative arc in my opinion:

2003: Bloggers were the underdogs on the scene. Lots of panels about how to set up your blog, how journalism compares to blogging, and responses to traditional media. The bloggers were working on tools and plugins and aggregation sites in their spare time while paying the bills with regular day jobs at bigger (less interesting) companies. Party at Bruce Sterling's house.

2004: Movable Type and Typepad emerge on the scene. Blogging is big time. Big companies are beginning to notice, especially since everything sort of fell apart with the bubble. Maybe there's something to this grassroots revolution after all. The A-list gains a lot of sway, and we root them on. This is the future! Party at Bruce Sterling's house again! But maybe too many people show up.

2005: Flickr and del.icio.us rule. Tags and secondary blogging tools for links, photos, etc are the future! We can take over the world... but our sites are sort of struggling to stay up. And everyone needs money to grow. Party is sponsored and is at some non Bruce Sterling's house venue.

2006: Acquisitions galore. Yahoo and Google have bought all of our favorite sites! Great people put on a slew of great startup parties backed by big corporate dollars. People drink Greygoose and Red Bull, because they can. Everyone is busy porting their sites over to their bigco's platform. I wonder if anything new will happen this year? But finally our hobbies are front and center rather than on the sidelines. We're getting paid to work on things that used to be our hobbies. How is morale? It seems high. Nothing is better than working full time on your pet project.

Curious to see what it's like next year. Will we start new things in the sidelines? Will the corporations take these pet projects to the moon or swallow them whole? I HOPE the former. If not, well, there's now time for people to start new pet projects and start the cycle anew.

I'm really interested in figuring out how to make life and the world change. I'm sort of working through a bag of personal experiments to see how things work. Asking people to say "I experience life as a highly emotional person". Asking them when they last cried. Slapping them. Almost getting beaten up. Hugging them. Pointing to them and asking them to come dance on stage with you. Dancing on the roof. Telling people the expression that's on their face ("You look happy/bored/drunk right now"). Asking people for their first memory.

Constructing an elaborate and pleasing daydream with evolving characters, objects, and events is also one of my new daydreams. It's postmodern daydreaming. Objects that I'm currently working with include: a fox, a mint and chip ice cream cone, a motorcycle, a hot air balloon, a white scarf, a champagne glass, a space elevator, a bell to pull and ring, grass to roll in, sunshine, and a whale. I mix and match them into different scenes in my head, sort of like playing with G.I. Joes as a kid. It's all about setting up the scene, capturing some wonderful moment. I think I may try to draw out some of these scenes and perhaps write some music for my daydream. I started experimenting with this a bit here and here (with Willo's excellent illustration assistance).

I'm working on a movie with some friends... it was all filmed in my house during the few days before I went to Mexico. It involved making my house completely dark and projecting K's paintings as a slideshow onto the actors who are in elaborate garb and mostly still. It will be silent and it's now my job to splice it up into 2-second chunks and recombine it all into 45 or so minutes of narrative.

I have some new goals coming out of the last few days, and am going to put some renewed energy into a couple that I've been dilly dallying on:

• start a club
• consider opening a bar
• become a life coach
• join Toastmasters
• take dance lessons
• have a crazy 30th birthday
• write down as many of my earliest memories from childhood as I can remember

Yeehaw!

Andy Warhol brain dump

I need to calm down a little. I started writing this entry and within 5 seconds I was already opening two other tabs adding another goal to my list and creating a new entry in another journal. Focus, Erik! My zeitgeist is particularly rich this month. The two primary items in it are Andy Warhol and Paul Newman. Andy Warhol is by far the more active character, but Paul Newman's impact is quite influential as well.

When something enters the zeitgeist I try to follow it and see where it leads. Lately, I've been seeing Andy Warhol everywhere. Strangely, I can't remember how he entered the zeitgeist... I think it came through his Factory, and then reenforced itself through his wife, the tape recorder, and how he was essentially a blogger before his time. Recording everything, amateurizing art, business, philosophy. Also, he spends a lot of time talking about fame, which applies to a book I'm reading at the moment, Status Anxiety. Here are Andy Warhol related trails I've been following:

The Factory: Though it was full of drugs and trouble, there was something beautiful about this place he had created in the center of Manhattan. Part film studio, part art manufacturing line, part living space, part club, this location ended up embodying a large part of the 60's. The non-hippy portion, I guess.

Superstars: Ingrid Superstar, and Andy's ability to make someone famous merely by associating with them. The Velvet Underground, Basquiat, Edie, and a bunch of other people. He said the only time he ever wanted to be famous was when he was outside of a party and wanted to get in. He also said that he'd rather stay in bed and watch the party on television if he could.

Wigs: He had 50 wigs of varying quality that have become a big part of his identity. He would have other people wear the wigs and attend events for him. I think his interest in recording everything eventually made him want to also remove himself from the record he was making... or allow him to be in the events and watching the events at the same time. I am looking for a good Andy Warhol wig... the only ones on eBay are cheap and the closest thing I could find at the local wig shops was too expensive and not quite right. Come on, wig people! I'm going to try to overcome my fear of dressing up by being Andy Warhol at the next costume event.

Films: He made something like 80 films, though, after he was shot he didn't really have much interest in them. These films are also difficult to find, but a few of them are on their way to me. I think they would be good movies to play in the background at a party. Or to post to your blog.

Interview Magazine: He started this magazine as a way to supplement the Factory's influence... it does with celebrity and fashion and the media what his art did to... art. He basically removed the bullshit and the meaning from everything he touched. "The less something has to say, the more perfect it is." Most people think of him as pretentious and cold, but I don't really see him that way at all. He was refusing to participate in a lot of the things that we expect people to participate in, and that tends to give one a snobbish aura... why did he think he was better than the rest of us? But the way I see it is that he was antisocial, socially awkward, and yet found a way to make his vision of the world exist in its own little corner. And then the corner moved to the center. This magazine is great because the articles are simply conversations between people with a tape recorder. Oftentimes two people are interviewing each other... people that admire or compete with each other. Sometimes the photographer will interview the person and the interviewer with photograph. And every article lets you know what the author's last article was about, what they were wearing, and how much it cost. Even if they're just wearing a Hanes t-shirt. The current issue mentioned Camus several times, another person in my zeitgeist.

Factory Girl: There's a movie coming out in September about Edie Sedgwick, one of the more infamous personalities at the Factory. And Edie is being played by Sienna Miller, who is currently in the world's zeitgeist. I'm reading her biography next.

Velvet Underground: Andy managed this band and we listened to them in the office a couple times last week. Also, read reviews of the new Strokes album that they compared (loosely) to VU. Also, they were mentioned in DiG, a documentary about the Dandy Warhols.

The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: A great little book of Andy's thoughts on all of the things above. Framed as a set of phone calls between him and B, who is an interchangeable person that he calls every morning. His sidekick.

Art, film, music, celebrities, fashion, magazines, living space, literature... so many different elements surrounding one person. All of them quite subtle and interesting in their own way. Overlap with Paul Newman, hustling, con men, Paul Newman's own brand of philanthropism and way of life, overlap with SpongeBob SquarePants, ducks, salons, and new year's resolutions and it makes a brain wobble. Long live the zeitgeist!

SXSW Interactive 2006: Who wants a roomie?

It looks like most of the hotel rooms are booked for this year's SXSW Interactive Festival (March 10th-14th). Is anyone going that has an extra bed, or even a floor space on which to sleep? Or, want to share one at the good ol' La Quinta? I am a good roomie... just ask Bill (2003), Lia (2004), or DJ (2005). And hey who's going to this conference thing anyway?

confusion-proof

I've been feeling CONFUSED lately. So confused in fact that I don't even know what I'm confused about. The problem with being confused is that focusing on ending the confusion is a bit difficult. Because confusion is generally the lack of being able to focus, I think. And maybe involves not even realizing that you're confused. That's true confusion, isn't it? I don't know.

When I'm not feeling truly confused (just moderately confused) and I can actually articulate that I am confused (like now) I try to devise strategies that are confusion-proof. If I can make a strategy confusion-proof then it's almost indestructible. Except it would also have to be forgetfulness-proof and loss-of-motivation-proof. But it would be much better off than they are now.

What is a strategy and for what does it strategize? I don't know. I'm confused. But I think it has to do with being constantly vigilant about something. A project, maybe a SECRET project. The BRAIN is the true enemy, folks. The BRAIN is constantly trying to thwart us.

The sensation of confusion to me is one where it feels like the brain is spinning fast like a top and nothing sticks to it. Spin spin spin! Make a motion with your finger and a whirring sound to indicate this spinning. BZZZ! And not only that but it's moving vertically up and down all the time too... indicating morale changes. I think one of the reasons that I drink so much coffee and alcohol is that both of these things help regulate the madness. Coffee regulates the vertical and alcohol regulates the speed of the spinning... slows it down a little. Having a rein on the BRAIN is essential to avoiding confusion.

I've recently also been trying meditation in the mornings and the evenings. It is incredibly difficult. I like saying things out loud while meditating... anything that flies through my brain I say out loud in order to dispel it. But what happens is that I'll start drifting and then however many moments later I catch myself and have to spew out a chain of words to catch up to the many thoughts I so recently had. It sounds like this: "Shorty's! Chili Cheese Dog! PBR! Chili! Fork! Tasty!" and then silence for a few more minutes and then: "Walk! Viaduct! Eggnog Latte! Rain! Coat! Bus!" and then a few more minutes of silence, etc etc. It's sort of fun. I sort of want to record hundreds of hours of myself doing this and give the tapes to my grandchildren when I die.

Meditation has always struck me as a weird practice, because I have always misunderstood it. I always thought it was about clearing the mind, thinking about NOTHING in that paradoxical yet endearing way. But it's more about understanding and being aware of your crazy brain. Dispelling confusion! The same way you are supposed to follow your breathing and not try to control it, but just watch it come in and go out in the natural way that it does, I think you are supposed to also follow your thoughts and watch them come in and go out in the natural way that they do. So, saying your thoughts out loud is actually helpful because not only do you think them, and say them, but you also HEAR them. Each thought is made visible three times, and the two latter times make stronger impressions than the first but perhaps over time some of the impression will seep backwards into the first thought of the thought? I don't know.

Now HERE'S a question for any meditation-doers out there. Do you think stream-of-consciousness TYPING is quasi-equivalent to meditating? Typing words as they come to you... letting words lead to other words, not caring about where they go or if they repeat, but just sort of pooping them out for a period of time? Because, after trying it a couple times I think it FEELS the same. In fact, I think it feels a bit better, because it's an action rather than a lack of action. It's easy to DO something, it's not so easy NOT TO DO something. Sit and DON'T think, versus sit and write whatever. But, what I fear is that I won't get any better at noticing the impressions of thoughts because I'm forcing thoughts a bit more by pushing words out along the screen.

So maybe it's all baloney. Maybe I should stick with the meditation even though it's WAY more difficult and I start to feel claustrophobic. Stuck with myself. Is that common? Is it common to be sitting by yourself purposefully not doing anything and then to look around and realize that you're in your own company and that you are STUCK with yourself? It must be. I think.

Do you know what else I want to do? Design a custom Magic 8-Ball.

words typed while listening to Rach 3 (part 2)

twilight, soda, santa, panda, girls, elves, green, tree, christmas, thorns, carpet, blood, robe, red, yellow, BIRDS, sublime, feathery, fly-y, horns, hot air balloon, corn on the cob, scarf, trailing, wind, blowing, clouds, sky, love, romance, the great, noble, struggle, spirit animal, in it to win it, going for broke, car window, locked out, shattered!, shout, bullhorn, fog horn, fog, light house, waves, Virginia Woolf, danger, river, suicide, oven, Sylvia Plath, Ted, monkfish, ugly, fleshy, big mouth, teeth, dentist, suburbs, blond, dying, dye, cloth, stripes, dots, wall ornaments, fly, New Year's Eve, party, lace, shoes, lawyer, The Elephants, The Crocodile, play room, ball room, fast food, Ronald McDonald, hamburgers, canary, robin, torture, slingshot, salon, phone call, 7am, dreams, trouble, film noir, damsels in distress, King Kong, no desire, zealousness, zealot, war on Christmas, tired, shopping, poop, signal lights, rain, torrent, drenched, jaywalking, repeat, chorus, strings, platform, lovely, adorable, Stoli martini, hippos, merlot, good night, dismissed, blackout, burden, crazy, AAAH!, ice pick, ax, coal mines, essence of wetness, moist, sponge, sea life, oysters, jellyfish, lilies, dinosaurs, blahditation, web community, ideas, radical self promotion, brand, Switzerland, Reload Bags, pinball machine, Shorty's, chili cheese dog, PBR, clowns, mimes, circus, winking, pointing, false teeth, lions, wooden leg, whip, leather, classifieds, Volunteer Park, dog park, public art (the circular cement thing in particular), sketchy, crack, deals, Neil, safety, legalization, smoking ban, parlor, poker, grand piano, Casablanca, Morocco, Paul Newman, billiards, Croupier, born loser, The Hustler, everything is pick-up, palace of cards, limos, casino, Lusty Lady, maple, Canada, smell of Christmas, hot toddies, photography, wishlist, the larger moralic picture, flask, theater, popcorn, unicycle, hummus, carrots, tragedy, roadblock, 8 ball, fortune cookie, custom, B-Bam, drunk of the week, sucker, auction, monorail, test tubes with pigs in them, dead brain cells, focus, effort, trying, work, exercise.

words typed while listening to Rach 3

hot air balloon, landscape, flame, heat, electricity, energy, Richard Feynman, jewish, Wittgenstein, brothers, suicide, Austria, war, science, whales, dogs, frogs, foxes, den, bears, grass, eating, cows, beef, fish, sushi, rolls, plates, chefs, clean, Japanese, snow, cherry blossoms, calligraphy, hills, rolling, sunshine, sunset, Puget Sound, buildings, reflections, mirror, pond, Walden, Henry David Thoreau, existentialism, Albert Camus, The Fall, absurtity, nonsense, bullshit, meaninglessness, mu, sake, heels, red, pointy, feet, walking, peripatetic, Socrates, Rome, empire, decent people, pee, rats, disease, The Plague, coughing, hacking, sick, cold, flu, DayQuil, medicine, doctors, smell of hospitals, beeping of monitors, green lines, missles, childhood, television, air cleaners, robots, Roomba, mopping, cleaning, dishes, soap, smell of laundry, paper towels, parchment, scrolls, writing, Jack Kerouac, beat, drum, War Room, dancing, dark, drinks, alcohol, soda, Shepard Fairey, obey, giant, wall paintings, portraits, design, modern, crisp, cool, winter, sunny, haircut, parties, holidays, piano, musical, Rachmaninov, autism, obsession, passion, empathy, romance, dating, personals, eh, awkwardness, force, futility, love, messages, text messaging, beep, secrets, life is beautiful, world wars, bombs, overcoats, roses, tombstones, fire, barn, burial, guns, family, pigs, tired, 4:23, drama, livejournal, therapy, chefs, taxis, ferris wheels, business, entrepreneurship, passion, career, Mozart, genius, unhappiness, creativity, tragedy, Italy, neice, babies, brains, behavior, Einstein, mobiles, colors, tricks, painting, texture, white, uncle, Japan, art studio, smell of turpintine, wood floors, slippers, heater, frosty windows, smell of wood, quiet, fireworks, fireflies, unicycle, garden, rain, pipes, stones, bugs, dog, firewood, rice, soup, benches, cold noodles, routine, vacuuming, nuclear family, old fashioned, traditional, repression, anger, blah, therapy, help, futility, winter solstice, haircut, exercise, running, rowing, energy, self-improvement, confusion, focus, clothes, fashion, shoes, black, French, coat, shiny, wool, Truffaut, Antoine Doinel, detective, granada blue, wall, salon style, classical, sonata, Beethoven, whistling, umbrella, rain, bar, pub, whiskey, bender, Lost Weekend, flask, scarf, boots, woods, forest, Narnia, melodrama, nostalgia, Venom, Medusa, Cowgirls Inc, meat, slingshot.

being happy with being unhappy

Most things get used up. Candles, gas tanks, glasses of water, money in the bank. Other things work a bit differently, in a more biological way: rather than getting used up, there are systems that attempt to match their usage. Strength is a good example... everyone realizes that the more often you use your muscles and your physical energy, the more your body will have available for you next time you need to use it. The body tries to match the demand for its resources. The body responds to effort being used by becoming stronger. This is common knowledge, but I think that this phenomenon actually applies to more areas of our lives than we typically give it credit for.

In fact, almost everything about ourselves works this way: memory, passion, intelligence, patience, empathy, strength of will, ambition, luck, happiness. All of these things that we sort of assume are static characteristics of ourselves can be exercised and improved.

Something I've been noticing lately is that people often inadvertently discourage trying to change. People say you are forcing things, or trying too hard. People encourage you to relax, take it easy, calm down, give yourself a break. While these are meant to increase happiness, I think they are misleading in that the way to improve yourself often requires a very forced and concerted effort that in fact includes actually trying.

What are you trying to do right now. Beyond survive. Which parts of your brain and body and life and circumstances are you trying to improve? I've found that even the ability to "try" is something that takes practice, and exercise. The biggest problem is probably that it's difficult to focus on something when focusing itself is something that we don't have much natural ability in (and it only gets worse with all of our daily distractions). People don't realize how easy it is to try to do something, once you can focus on trying to. Or, they don't realize that there's a correllation between trying and actually doing. Excuses I hear a lot are that they don't know where to start, or that it's not that simple. A lot of people seem to be happy being unhappy. I find it a bit ridiculous. Why must a job "be a job"? Why must compromises be made so quickly? If compromises must be made, at which point should they be made? I think amazing things happen to people who expect amazing things to happen.

A gray blur called a fox

My camera phone sucks... especially when going through a fence and trying to capture a gray moving blur of fur.