Maybe I’m just tired from shoveling snow, or maybe the chemical goo I’m smearing on my arms twice a day in an effort to quash a little mild skin cancer has got me down. Feels like I’m cracking peanuts with a pile driver. The problem with Listics lately (among others I’m sure) is the lack of intentionality. I’m in a season of withdrawal, reducing my commitments, reserving my strength.
The tech stuff here is just a pain in the bottom. Doug Alder was kind enough to offer shared services, but I think I’ll pass because I hate computers. Well, maybe it’s a love-hate thing, but I don’t want the responsibility right now for monitoring capacity and performance and planning upgrades and trouble-shooting the little quirks along the way — sounds too much like a JOB!
And every day I ask myself what will I write about? I could rail against the wars. I could review some of the better stuff I read. I could beat my head against the ivy covered ivory tower of the academic post-modern movement. What about an essay on the net as a digital distribution mechanism and fuck-all who confuse distribution with production? What about taking off on Stowe Boyd’s brilliant insights regarding the dynamics necessary for productive dialogs between “corporate centroids” and we the “edglings?” How about an impassioned diatribe promoting progressivism and lambasting the thoughtless libertarian greedballs who somehow see Ayn Rand as more than a queen bitch novelist with some real narcissism problems? What about the Kurds? The Persians, the Venezuelans, the Nicaraguans?
How about those Chicago Bears? Someone should comment on whatever it is the Fox network thinks it’s doing with production values on American football games. I tuned in for fifteen minutes of commercials and five minutes of play this afternoon. The staging reminded me of some high tension action drama… sort of an “Enemy of the State” thing with shoulder pads.
There’s a lot to blog about… SXSW, F2C, Enrico Fermi, Nikola Tesla, Tim Berners Lee, Dervala, Mohs, Mohs, Mose … but I think I should shut it down for a while and clean out my office, clean up my vendor relationships, my web sites, square away my life.
I still have the deck to shovel, and I ought to clear a path in the snow to the barn.
After that, who knows? Goodbye Gutenberg, hello Broadway!
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Scruggs 01.22.07 at 4:25
Some interesting thoughts at Boyd’s place. The problem with corporate communications is they’re inherently and inescapably defensive, they leave people feeling unclean ( the people who don’t feel that way are creepy), and the more that’s said by the spokesperson the worse it gets. As Jeneane said, an attention-getter is call from someone you respect.
A better model for promoting something can be found in the kinds of assistance Ken Camp gives people, utterly and remorselessly free of hogwash.
Mike Golby 01.22.07 at 4:38
I was going to say “I know just what you mean,” but then you started to sound like Robert Frost and I got nervous…
By the way, what in God’s name is Scruggsy going on about? Good corporate communication has been used for centuries. It’s what got the wealthy to where they are today. Give the boy his tablets. Oh yeah. And the enema, black clothes and all the rest…
Scruggs 01.22.07 at 5:42
I’ve been through some bad times, Mike. I was working PR and thought I’d go out looking for “end users” — the kind that seek “robust experiences” — but I never dreamed I would wind up doing . . . those things, or that language itself would turn on me.
Johnno 01.22.07 at 7:18
I went on a hiatus for a while and it was bloody good.
In corporate speak Frank, you are taking part in “High Payoff Activities” I’d throw in a refernce to “metrics” somewhere but I’m still unsure how to use it in polite conversation.
madame l. 01.22.07 at 9:18
nothing like a little mild skin cancer… i always say.
Frank Paynter 01.22.07 at 12:30
Yes. Well it sounds so much more dramatic, so much more clinically correct than “white-guy-rot.”
Brian Hayes 01.24.07 at 11:13
Robert Frost and nervous?
Of course.
soon too soon caldron us,
no e’ drop’d near,
bit a’breath,
bit a’dirt,
bit a’are,
a’ we.