Riding Thermals

As the son of a hairstylist, I have a lot of time to look in the mirror. I get to watch little spikes curl and fade, drop, clip, disappear - all the while these eyes stare into mine, and God only knows what they're trying to say.

Mom's trying to tell me something. I don't hold these things against her, but now she's scared I won't make it into heaven with her.

"The End Times are near. Ray's Christian, you know," she says.
"I know." I watch my hair fall before my eyes, spiraling in little blonde and black grains to the ground.

And I do know; it wouldn't be otherwise, because that's how she finds people. I don't know how to say it; I don't know how to be strong and say I don't buy it anymore.

I'm searching my face for an answer. It just looks right back, it doesn't know what I want, it's just as clueless as anyone. More hair drops away.
"There's a test," I tell her. "I found the DNA test, mom."
"You did?" she asks.
My pores seem to soak up the bright lights of the stylist mirror. "I don't think I see much Native American in my face."
"I see it," mom says. "In your nose - your cheekbones. Have you seen your grandfather's father? You'll have to see their pictures."
"Maybe I can figure it out with the test," I say.
"I hear those tests aren't very accurate."
"Oh." More hair.

I know what I'm thinking, even if my reflection doesn't.
Deep inside, we always know. It's a cute game we play with ourselves, pretending we don't really know when we're being shady or coy. Who, me? Clever.

I know that I wish I could just get some support on this one, but that's what the Native American part is about; deep inside me, I know that's why I'm hoping to any deity you want that I've got the blood in me to call myself Native American. I don't know what good it is beyond an excuse to do something different.

I hear my family comes from Native American heritage. Indian, my family still calls it, and I guess that's as accurate as anything.
"I'm not going to change my name to Charlie Redbird or anything," I say, as the blonde hair is thinned a bit. "I just want to know where I come from."

"Just" is a funny word that way. It's in the same boat with words like "only" and "simply", and the whole thing is that they're usually lies, right up front.

We're only trying to help. I just want to know.

I'm crying out for help, I think. When I lose my support - when I'm drifting a bit, it gets to that level, where I'm searching my face for my features for my heritage for an answer, just like that. God in my cheekbones.

I tell her that maybe that's what I'm doing. Maybe.

"I don't think the answer is with your Native American heritage," she argues, clipping away. "I think the answer is with God."

How is it, to buck tradition with other tradition, trading one trend for another? I'm asking to be defined a little better, searching for a past.

"I know there's some Dutch in you, too," Mom says, grasping my head, tilting it about to catch the light, watching me watching myself in the mirror.

Well, maybe the Dutch have an answer. Beats me.

Test Post #2

This is a test post.

It's a bit late in the game to do things like test posts, but I'm doing it anyway.

The idea is to test the handling of line breaks, as some have expressed understandable frustration in having to read text that's chopped up like white lines of cocaine.

And so, the solution, as proposed by Daniel in his blog at evocateur.org, is to do some of the work myself. That's how it's going to go. I'm not sure what the ultimate result of this posting is going to look like across the blog-to-feed line, but you can all be the judge.

This is test post #2.

If you're still getting the crappy spacing problems, then it's time for another solution.

Test Post #1.

This is a test post.

It's a bit late in the game to do things like test posts, but I'm doing it anyway.

The idea is to test the handling of line breaks, as some have expressed understandable frustration in having to read text that's chopped up like white lines of cocaine.

And so, the solution, as proposed by Daniel in his blog at evocateur.org, is to do some of the work myself. That's how it's going to go. I'm not sure what the ultimate result of this posting is going to look like across the blog-to-feed line, but you can all be the judge.

This is test post #1. If you're still getting the crappy spacing problems, then it's time for another solution.

Serves Six

When the night’s feeling late when it’s early, and when the wind has a taste of summer on it, I always end up somewhere stupid, with a stupid thought.

This time it was in shorts, walking out of the Safeway supermarket at a quarter to eleven, with a bag that held just one item. Just one. Nobody goes to Safeway for just one item. Not unless it’s flour, or eggs. Not pop-tarts.

But there they are, in the bag, and if I had to go to court right now, and it came up that it’d “please the court” to know if I had indeed bought these things, on my own, on a summery-spring night in my shorts, not sure of what I was doing or why I needed them, I’d have to say it was a fair cop.

And so, like with much of civilized life, I’m staring at the back of these pop-tarts, realizing, perhaps for the first time, they’ve already been cooked. I’m sure it’s scientifically evident to everyone that there’s a need to do it, preventing the spread of foodborne illnesses, insuring good taste if nobody cooks them, and besides – there isn’t a single machine anyone owns in their home that could really cook a raw pop-tart. What do they look like raw, anyway?

Already cooked. Sometimes you’ll get a pop-tart that’s already brown on one end, like whatever machine they put these pop-tarts through just spent a little too long on one side, and now the cat’s out of the bag and some twenty-something is wasting time wondering “howtheydunit?”

I’m in my shorts with already cooked pop-tarts, about to cook them again, when the thought happens, like it happened on the way to the supermarket, and at the supermarket, and right as I walked out of the supermarket, and in every aisle of that damned supermarket, from the spilled coffee beans in aisle six to the donuts on that aisle they don’t have a number for because it runs the long ways across the back of the store, and what do they call those? Ends? Rows?

The thought, that’s echoed in every thread of these shorts I’ve had since I wasn’t old enough to know any better, that’s right there in that pop-tart, that’s on the silver wrapper and on the back of the box, the box that always says “Hey Kids” on it like they were talking to me, the thought, the thought, the thought: What do I do now?

Now. NOW. N-O-ow, now. I imagine tossing the three letters around, juggling to pass the time. I can’t really juggle – they go everywhere, just like the coffee beans in aisle six, near the breakfast cereals and the pop-tarts that are brown on one end.

The question’s taken different forms. One form I’ll have out in the night air. Another form comes around in the kitchen. Still another, in the bathroom. The walls are green, the toaster gives up and ker-plunk – the pop-tarts are ready. Ready as they’ll ever be.

Now, the tricky part. Eating them.

How do you make an epic? I ask these pop-tarts. There are two of them, and, giving them plenty of time to think about it, I sit down, folded little paper towel keeping them from making moisture on the glass table. They’re brown sugar and cinnamon. The question’s the same, just a little more esoteric.

How do you make an epic? How do you live in a future you don’t own, that you’ve never been to, and that you can only dream about in fits and starts? I figure, starting with the pop-tarts, I can either ask every inanimate object I come across for the answer, which might have some utility by the time they all get around to talking back (I imagine at least my appliances in my house will be talking to me by 2015), or just eat and figure it out with more energy to do so.

Got to spice it up a little, I figure. I don’t know whether that means trying something new with my writing, or putting Tobasco sauce on my pop-tarts. It won’t matter much what I choose in thirty seconds; I’m a quick eater – I don’t give them time to suffer.

But the glue – the very real experiences that tie my thoughts into new and strange patterns – feels a little runny. It gets into the crevices, yes, but it doesn’t turn sticky when it had ought to. I feel like things are floating by me, unnoticed. That’s the difference, I guess, between observing and seeing.

I’ve got to work on that.

In the meantime – how do you make an epic? How do you make a story?

Starring Funkmaster Flex

MSN Finance's M.P. Dunleavy recently posted a report in her "Uncommon Sense" column listing seven ways to buy a home.

Among the clever names, such as "The Shared Load" and the "Friendly Option", was mine. She called it "The no-money-down Hail Mary".

Among the cons listed for this type of play was the need to have "nerves of steel (in case property values drop)". After talking with a friend about it, it's clear to me that many people feel like I do - that sooner or later, the world's just going to want to get off this crazy property merry-go-round and *boom*, no equity.

I'm pretty sure all the same that the scenario above isn't supported by the numbers. Still, I feel like a recluse, but it reminds me that in this crazy world, nothing ventured is nothing gained. I'll be waiting a good two or three years to tell whether my financial long bomb gets caught in the end zone, or if that goddamn Funkmaster Flex is just going to intercept it again and remind me how much game he's got.

Well, bring it on, Funk. Ain't gonna be laughing after I put those hardwood floors down, are ya?

You Don't Become Mark Burnett...

http://www.the-agent.net/future_marketing_e3_2005.htm

I saved this article because it'll go away from Gamespot, which is where I got it in the first place. They may think it's just E3 crap they could care less about (give me Halo 3 and nekkid chicks d000d), but it's not; this guy they're interviewing is one of the top five marketing geniuses in the world, according to Time magazine.

And he works for a company that is extremely powerful.

I'm not sure even I understand the full extent of how marketing decisions, catering to demographics, experiences, hidden wants and fears, really make us decide to do things differently than we would otherwise, but I feel its influence everywhere.

Bombarded with images, we don't simply ignore everything around us. What we pick, what we choose out of this mess of options is an expression of our passions and desires. And what's happening in this interview convinces me that at least one person is aware of this, and is working hard to make it work for him.

You can contend, of course; marketing isn't everything, it's just a piece of the pie, of course.

But read this interview - understand how what you'll see as you move forward has already been designed. It will change, of course, and it will grow in different ways, converging in some, diverging in others, but the framework has already been proposed by someone many powerful enterprises listen to and trust.

I'm not saying this is conspiracy. I'm not running a website full of scattershot theories. I'm not even telling you to be scared, or to fight anything. I don't think that's what I want; it's not what I'm asking for.

I don't really have any point to this, other than feeling I got inside my guts when I saw this broad-brush vision, this feeling of defining the future. I think, maybe, the feeling is: I'd like to know humankind in this way, to feel responsible for tapping into them in this way. I want to be able to change the future like this guy does.

Right now, he, and others like him, are defining what we'll be surrounded by tomorrow. Someone is in a room, making a case for the experiences we'll have in the very near future.

Am I the only one that's got this feeling of ... wonder?

The link, in case you missed it up top:
http://www.the-agent.net/future_marketing_e3_2005.htm

Note To Self

You go online, check your mail. It feels like you do it every fifteen minutes.

What for?
What are you waiting for?

What's going to be in that box that's going to be more important than what you can do right now?

Get moving!

Marketing Green

This is Johnny Playback; I'm running the play-by-play for tonight's MTV Next-Xbox unveiling.

9:30. Whites, greens, the visuals seem to be pointing to something; at least I can say the designers have put together a decent set of visuals tonight.

9:31. I never realized gamers looked so metropolitan. Does this just happen in California?

9:32. Elijah wood is about 4 feet tall. It's not a camera trick.

9:33. It's called Xbox 360. This makes me angry. Strike one.

9:35. The Killers - did you know Gary Numan was still doing music? I didn't either; it sure looks like him, in a red half-trench with black eyeliner, and he's about Elijah's height. The song lasts about two minutes. If you were in Vegas, where they usually play, it'd be about seventy bucks for that.

9:37. They're using the Halo music to push a Samsung HD TV commercial with Xbox 360 tie ins. There's still 23 minutes to go, but I'm going to have to call this one strike two.

9:40. Tony Hawk's pitching a whole-LA skate game. There's Madden 06, Tiger Woods 06, Need For Speed Most Wanted. There's more of that swish-motion blur effect, and yet it's looking more real. Someone said leaps and bounds.

9:41. The Pimp My Ride guys are retrofitting old Xboxes. Sanding down the cases, airbrushing skulls, industrial looks. What the hell is going on here? Hey, they put on a flip-top monitor.

9:44. The Xbox 360 has customizable face plates. Customization: it's micropurchases. You want to style your character with a Mark Ecko T-Shirt...you buy it. Online. Damn; someone took a big gamble on that. I'm not sure I expect to see more than 15% of the games for Xbox 360 to use that sort of thing, but let's wait and see.

9:46. Same goddamn commericals. Each one plays at least twice before the program is back on.

9:47. Kotex bought an advertising spot. Looks like they're expecting to get more girl gamers. Haven't seen anything yet that makes me think they'll get 'em.

9:49. MTV bought an anti-war commercial. "Think", is the pitch. Never saw that before.

9:50. I want Ghost Recon 3.

9:51. And Perfect Dark Zero.

9:52. Shots of boobs. A redhead. The new Joanna Dark. It's a neat No One Lives Forever-look. Oh, and they're competing now. Wireless controllers.

9:56. My bad. Elijah Wood is 3 feet tall.

9:58. Gary Numan's eyeliner is running. Strike three. I'm turning this TV off. But there'll be a couple of the Xbox 360's in this house by November.

Speaking of Phones

A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum today. The last three days have seen me putting up with having to re-configure and generally re-learn my cell phone; the Audiovox 5600 that I use suffered a stroke and, well, you generally wipe phones when they do that. I should have warned you - it's a sad story.

Anyway, before wiping my phone, I thought - is there anything on here that I might want to keep? Pictures, music, the like? Well, the phone I have uses a removable memory card for all of that stuff, so I felt pretty sure that after removing the memory card, I could nuke the innards until they started glowing and nobody'd be worse off for it.

But I'm the kind of guy that always forgets something when I pack my bags to travel. Same goes for phones, apparently. I forgot that I take voice notes to help me remember ideas for my book - notes that I only occasionally transcribe to text. You see? My memory is so bad I don't even remember that I use notes to help me remember, and then horrible things happen.

So, one minute, there I was, with eighty voice notes forming a surrogate novelist-brain that I was going to plug in one day and download, I swear. The next minute, after a white screen and holding down buttons like I was plugging in the cheat code for Contra on the old Nintendo, all eighty notes were gone.

The trick is, I didn't find out until today, when I went to record what I thought was going to be note number eighty-one.

I stared at the phone for a few seconds; there was some dramatic music playing on my stereo at that moment that made the stakes feel even higher. And then, like anyone that's had to grow up around technology that bears constant surprises, like a true technology child, I let it go. What can you do? What can you really do when the machine wins this round, and you know it?

It's better this way, I thought to myself. I don't have the task of transcribing them now. And I don't have to feel pressured to use them in my story. And, of course, those things that were really good, the best ideas, have already floated up to the top of my mind, connected with other things, and become solid; the phone has already served its purpose. The notes, such as they are, serve no real purpose.

But what were they? I can't remember now, and it's starting to bug me. Was there something good in there? Was it dynamite? Napoleon Dynamite? Did I say something about that thing I saw at the mall, or an idea I had while driving? Did I get inspired looking at an economics book?

Damnit, what was in those notes? I don't want this keeping me up at night. I have enough to put off sleep as it is.

A Victory

I'd like to pull away from books and pictures of myself to focus on a recent victory I'm happy to celebrate and pass on to everyone.

If you've been reading The Stranger, the NY Times, or MSNBC, you've probably seen articles about Microsoft's suspiciously-timed shift from a supporting stance to a neutral stance on the Washington legislature's HB 1515, an anti-discrimination bill whose most notable call-out was protecting sexual orientation from workplace discrimination.

The shift was additionally compounded by strong words from an influential conservative religious leader, Rev. Ken Hutcherson, who suggested that Microsoft caved in and withdrew support for the bill due to a threatened boycott from his conservative supporters. "I told them I was going to give them something to be afraid of Christians about," Hutcherson boasted to the New York Times.

Sadly, the shift was initially supported in Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's initial email, which is reproduced on The Scobleizer. It spells out a more frightening thought overall - that Microsoft simply wouldn't be taking a stance on "public policy" issues.

Why do I care?
I have two main reasons to care.

One, I work for Microsoft.
Two, I believe in Microsoft.

The two aren't necessarily the same thing, and while it's possible that I may work at a company I don't believe in, I wouldn't appreciate doing it.

I believe in Microsoft's committment to diversity. I believe they've been a pioneer of industry in promoting workplace diversity and championing its protection, not only within its walls, but outside as well.

That's why, when the email came down emphasizing some sort of need for "neutrality" for HB 1515, I couldn't get behind it. I do have my regrets now that I didn't send Steve an email. But I did the next best thing, signing up for a petition critical of Microsoft's official position, and urging a change.

Today, Microsoft has announced a reversal, via a Steve-mail.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/misc/05-06-05StevebPublicPolicy.asp

"Given the importance of diversity to our business, it is appropriate for the company to endorse legislation that prohibits employment discrimination on all of these grounds. Obviously, the Washington State legislative session has concluded for this year, but if legislation similar to HB 1515 is introduced in future sessions, we will support it."

On this announcement, I did take the time to send Steve an email. I hope he reads it, along with the hundreds more he will receive, thanking him for taking up the torch and leading the charge all the way to the legislature.

It is in my mind now a forgone conclusion that we need corporate advocacy for public policy. It is not an option, it is a requirement. Companies can simply not stand idly by and allow law to be passed or reject right by them. Certainly, the rules differ internationally, but corporate sponsorship is allowed here in the United States, and, in so being, it is now a part of the equation of government participation whether companies like it or not.

Corporations, as much now as their human counterparts, must play an active role in the process of government; as much as is allowed by the bounds of law and ethical considerations. For a company to fail to do so is to willingly cut out their own tongue. I am glad Microsoft has their voice and is willing to use it to push for the encouragement and protection of diversity in the workplace and elsewhere.

I am glad for this decision, and hope that words will come to action for next year's legislative session. I'm sure plenty of people have their skeptic's hat on now, and will be waiting to see the proof in the pudding on the next vote for a bill similar to HB 1515.

I can at least say that the first steps have been taken, and I couldn't be happier. Microsoft, for whatever other merits or detractions they may have to their name, is, at least on this issue, no longer on the fence.