The adage that you'll grow more conservative as you get older is predicated on the assumption that you'll have some wealth to protect. You'll have your own little pile of plundered dwaren gold to curl around like a suburban detached single family home dwelling Smaug.
I don't feel that age has done anything but give me another two decades of reasons that capitalism needs to be burned at the stake. I'm on the bottom rung of GenX and have approximately jack shit in terms of traditional wealth (house, car, fat bag of weed)
I'd be curious to see if there's a very clear demographic fracture between support of more progressive candidates vs conservative ones as a matter of age. From exit polls I'm seeing that support for Bernie vs Biden flips between the 30-44 demographic and the 45-65 one. I'd be interested to see a more granular breakdown based on age to see where that break occurs. I suspect its actually a very narrow gap of years over which the chance of getting ahead dropped like a rock.
I'm still struggling with ambiguous feelings about coming back to livejournal.
For me, this site felt like it had the ideal blend of primarily text based posts, detailed permissioning systems, and a close community. Unfortunately facebook stole away the community aspect of the site for the most part. Returning to this site feels like walking into a very empty warehouse that a few people have drifted in and out of over the years leaving occasional patches of graffiti, cigarette butts, and cheeto wrappers.
Coming back means watching a pile dead ends wondering what the hell happened to people. They appear to have changed how the friends feed works so I can't just keep scrolling back in time. Clicking through to individual journals means seeing a few posts from 2012 or 2014, another gap of 5 years, and then needing to remember who the person was.
( Read more...Collapse )
Somehow I managed to grow a full beard in the time that I've been away from the LJ. I haven't seen my chin since 1998 and I suspect my jawline will soon fade into memory as I become yet another pacific northwest urban forestry enthusiast.
I'm hoping for a return to the older LJ community. Facebook sucked in my entire friends network (myself included) and I think its time to move back. Or at least try. I think we've been here before but its a struggle to return to the long form blog after the sweet sweet mobile optimized candy that facebook and twitter provided.
I have many thoughts on why LJ has died and I suspect that its absolutely shittastic support for mobile is a key component.
Sadly I must leave for a fine fish dinner in Ballard to celebrate my return to full employment (only two weeks on the dole, suck it Starbucks). More later.
Well, I'm trying to keep updating this thing more regularly. I might actually make a personal post at some point.
First the background:
http://pitchfork.com/news/47852-steve-albini-amanda-palmer-the-fight-continues/
I had started posting about the flak that Amanda Palmer had received after asking for backup musicians to play for her tour without monetary compensation on facebook. Palmer is going on tour and as a cost management decision wanted to limit the number of musicians she traveled with by pulling members of the backup band at each stop on the tour. I'm not a performing artist so I'm not sure if this is a good idea to begin with or not. The issue is that Palmer was asking for the musicians to play for her without monetary compensation after running a kickstarter campaign which raised over $1M.
The entire situation is explained in the article with links to relevant material so I won't go into it.
What's not an issue here is that Palmer had a wildly successful crowd funded project. That's fantastic and there's no question that she worked up an active and engaged fanbase which made it all possible. She made a choice to go out on her own as an entirely independent musician and produce her material without the backing of a label.
Nor is it about asking people to volunteer their time. I give my time and talent as a photographer for the theater community all the time and I'm glad to do it.
Which leads us into the issue... I donate my photography services to art events that don't make any money or are explicitly non-profits (mostly the latter, let's face it, anyone who thinks they're going to make a profit with dance or theater except on Broadway is insane).
Palmer is not running a non-profit. She made a considerable bundle of money through pre-orders and what people are objecting to do is her not paying the help when they feel there is plenty of money available for her to do so.
What's bothering me about this situation is that people aren't talking about the power dynamic in a successful indie musician who has worked her way up from literally working on the street to having a strong career asking unknown musicians to play for free. The opportunity to play for her is going to carry its own currency. Either due to fan devotion or a resume builder there are motivations for a musician to take up her offer. There's no reason they can't have both the opportunity and the income. Dangling the carrot of exposure in front of someone whose professional growth does depend on that exposure isn't fair if there's the stick of no pay.
She's running a business and has been very vocal about doing so as she writes below.
http://www.amandapalmer.net/blog/why-i-am-not-afraid-to-take-your-money-by-amanda/
I fully support her trying to find new ways for musicians to earn a living. But she needs to run a business and be up front about it. Calling your fans comrades and putting up a front of collaborative DIY love sounds like marketing if you're also writing about the need to be a capitalist. Either your run a business or you run a non-profit in the arts. If you're going to run a business you need pay for your labor. She's not the only one who's earned the right to make a living. Its the inconsistency in her messaging that's bothering me.
First the background:
http://pitchfork.com/news/47852-steve-albini-amanda-palmer-the-fight-continues/
I had started posting about the flak that Amanda Palmer had received after asking for backup musicians to play for her tour without monetary compensation on facebook. Palmer is going on tour and as a cost management decision wanted to limit the number of musicians she traveled with by pulling members of the backup band at each stop on the tour. I'm not a performing artist so I'm not sure if this is a good idea to begin with or not. The issue is that Palmer was asking for the musicians to play for her without monetary compensation after running a kickstarter campaign which raised over $1M.
The entire situation is explained in the article with links to relevant material so I won't go into it.
What's not an issue here is that Palmer had a wildly successful crowd funded project. That's fantastic and there's no question that she worked up an active and engaged fanbase which made it all possible. She made a choice to go out on her own as an entirely independent musician and produce her material without the backing of a label.
Nor is it about asking people to volunteer their time. I give my time and talent as a photographer for the theater community all the time and I'm glad to do it.
Which leads us into the issue... I donate my photography services to art events that don't make any money or are explicitly non-profits (mostly the latter, let's face it, anyone who thinks they're going to make a profit with dance or theater except on Broadway is insane).
Palmer is not running a non-profit. She made a considerable bundle of money through pre-orders and what people are objecting to do is her not paying the help when they feel there is plenty of money available for her to do so.
What's bothering me about this situation is that people aren't talking about the power dynamic in a successful indie musician who has worked her way up from literally working on the street to having a strong career asking unknown musicians to play for free. The opportunity to play for her is going to carry its own currency. Either due to fan devotion or a resume builder there are motivations for a musician to take up her offer. There's no reason they can't have both the opportunity and the income. Dangling the carrot of exposure in front of someone whose professional growth does depend on that exposure isn't fair if there's the stick of no pay.
She's running a business and has been very vocal about doing so as she writes below.
http://www.amandapalmer.net/blog/why-i-am-not-afraid-to-take-your-money-by-amanda/
I fully support her trying to find new ways for musicians to earn a living. But she needs to run a business and be up front about it. Calling your fans comrades and putting up a front of collaborative DIY love sounds like marketing if you're also writing about the need to be a capitalist. Either your run a business or you run a non-profit in the arts. If you're going to run a business you need pay for your labor. She's not the only one who's earned the right to make a living. Its the inconsistency in her messaging that's bothering me.
Puget Sound from Fay Bainbridge Park
...
Despite waxing nostalgic about the many virtues of livejournal with Lorien and AJ I'm still neglectful about writing long form. I used to spend hours on and off during work throwing together a paragraph at a time before hitting the submit button on semagic. Now sometimes I even neglect to throw in a paragraph or a link on facebook.
Facebook killed blogging. It killed it by taking the intimacy out of it. Now your words are being shared with friends, family (immediate, extended, and people you actually might not be related to but insist you are), people from high school, people from your childhood, coworkers, former coworkers, and if you're unfortunate enough to have an uncommon name, potential employers.
And of course there's George Takei who has proven that even a 75 year old man is capable of obtaining cultural critical mass and has now found purpose in his golden years as a memestar, constantly radiating out an endless stream of reposted lolcats, twelve word political statements, and undiluted snark. Even people who used to largely post quizzes on LJ can now avoid the burden of typing entirely and communicate entirely through image posts.
The mouse has triumphed over the keyboard.
...
The question of course is if we're going to do anything about it. And by we I mean me.
Yeah, I've been neglecting the LJ. Just haven't felt much like writing long form after splitting my time between photography and learning to draw. Trying to get back into the habit by finding things that annoy the piss out of me and actually writing something of substance.
In other words, kicking it old school as the kids used to say. Maybe they still say it. I have no idea, children annoy the piss out of me.
...
Anyway, this came out of a discussion on facebook regarding an article in The Atlantic about women balancing work and family. Various lies that employers tell their employees were brought up and one of them was "we want to create a culture of innovation" (along with "work/life balance", "respecting our employees' needs" and "when I look at you I don't think of you as a bunch of rag clad galley slaves dripping with chains and resentment, what gave you that idea?"). This is neck and neck with "work/life balance" for the lie I've been fed most often. So I think its worth addressing why its a pants on fire magnitude lie.
I've worked in advertising in one for or another for most of my career either in the music industry or more recently in an actual ad agency. For an industry that likes to think its creative it does very little to foster actual creativity when it comes to technology. I don't think that the art/creative departments feel they're really being that creative either.
Management is told that creativity is vital to their enterprise, tell their employees that they want to create a culture of creativity and then fail to take any actual concerete steps to implement it. This is partially a fault of management thinking that telling their employees to do something means it will get done and partially a fault of the business model of ad agencies. Agencies are paid based on billable hours. This means that employees are (literally... trust me on this one) screamed at if they can't justify all of their time in the office against activities which can be billed to the client. All of the employees time must be focused on tasks for a client.
This isn't bad by itself, its how the business works. What its not going to do is foster any innovation because clients don't want innovation, they want their needs met. Until management is willing to make changes to that business model what they actually encourage is a enterprise full of very efficient problem solvers. Efficient problem solving means you apply solutions which you know are going to work. There's not any room for risk.
Anyway, here's an article I plucked off google as I searched for "creating a culture of innovation".
http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2010/08/six-secrets-to-creating-a-cult.html
And my response is below. Its not nice, but neither is being made to stand in a room for two hours every quarter while upper management makes grand pronouncements that they have no will to implement.
( my responseCollapse )
In other words, kicking it old school as the kids used to say. Maybe they still say it. I have no idea, children annoy the piss out of me.
...
Anyway, this came out of a discussion on facebook regarding an article in The Atlantic about women balancing work and family. Various lies that employers tell their employees were brought up and one of them was "we want to create a culture of innovation" (along with "work/life balance", "respecting our employees' needs" and "when I look at you I don't think of you as a bunch of rag clad galley slaves dripping with chains and resentment, what gave you that idea?"). This is neck and neck with "work/life balance" for the lie I've been fed most often. So I think its worth addressing why its a pants on fire magnitude lie.
I've worked in advertising in one for or another for most of my career either in the music industry or more recently in an actual ad agency. For an industry that likes to think its creative it does very little to foster actual creativity when it comes to technology. I don't think that the art/creative departments feel they're really being that creative either.
Management is told that creativity is vital to their enterprise, tell their employees that they want to create a culture of creativity and then fail to take any actual concerete steps to implement it. This is partially a fault of management thinking that telling their employees to do something means it will get done and partially a fault of the business model of ad agencies. Agencies are paid based on billable hours. This means that employees are (literally... trust me on this one) screamed at if they can't justify all of their time in the office against activities which can be billed to the client. All of the employees time must be focused on tasks for a client.
This isn't bad by itself, its how the business works. What its not going to do is foster any innovation because clients don't want innovation, they want their needs met. Until management is willing to make changes to that business model what they actually encourage is a enterprise full of very efficient problem solvers. Efficient problem solving means you apply solutions which you know are going to work. There's not any room for risk.
Anyway, here's an article I plucked off google as I searched for "creating a culture of innovation".
http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2010/08/six-secrets-to-creating-a-cult.html
And my response is below. Its not nice, but neither is being made to stand in a room for two hours every quarter while upper management makes grand pronouncements that they have no will to implement.
( my responseCollapse )
Eagle Harbor, Bainbridge Island.
...
So... yeah...
The past few weeks have been busy as I moved from Capitol Hill to Bainbridge Island some 10 miles across the dark waters of Puget Sound from Seattle. I'm currently residing in a 2br/2bath apartment by myself for less money than I was spending on a small studio apartment. Even with the $90/month ferry ticket is a little cheaper.
Bainbridge reminds me of Beacon a great deal. There's a dense center around the point of mass transit (the ferry terminal as opposed to the train station) which quickly transitions to a semi-rural state once you leave the built up corner of the island. Today I took my bike out on a 5 mile ride to visit Arrow Point on the Northwest corner of the island. Within 5 minutes of leaving my apartment it felt like I was back in upstate new york. Its former farmland which has been subdivided into private homes for people who want a few acres and like to keep their home away from the road. This is in sharp contrast to the area around the ferry where its standard issue suburban living. There's a line of (very expensive) custom homes along the shoreline with a number of apartment buildings, condo complexes, and tract homes (manicured lawns and all) boasting easy access to downtown shopping and the ferry to Seattle.
It has the same downside as Beacon as well. Namely that its a city that likes to think itself artsy and slightly folksy but is actually populated by a bunch of fucking yuppies who are trying to edge out the artists, blue collar landowners, and former farmers. I was told that Bainbridge and Mercer Island have the best schools in the Seattle area so there's even more of a draw.
This may be a bit of projection on my part due to my experiences in Brooklyn and Beacon but I don't think I'm that far off base.
So... how do I feel about this? Somewhat conflicted, just like I was in Beacon.
To be honest I could ignore the yuppies if they ignored me. Getting the stinkeye from the locals gets under my skin. If I cut my hair, shaved off my beard, and ironed my shirt they'd be hard pressed to distinguish me from the rest of the square bastards without inspecting the song list on my iphone. Ok, being reserved stands out too. As well as my habit of reading something other than Sports Illustrated and People Magazine. And the being serious about art. And not having a clue what sport season we're in. Not owning a TV is kinda a big giveaway too.
Yeah, I'm doomed.
But anyway.
In less than 5 minutes of easy pedaling from my front door I can be in the middle of pine trees and revolutionary squirrel clans. Today I had all of the shoreline along Arrow Point to myself. Sure, its not a white sand beach. In fact is pretty swampy, smells like decaying seaweed and the clams contain a paralyzing biotoxin (no, seriously). Still, I have a lot of open space at hand and that's been increasingly important to my mental health as I get older.
I'm half-asleep after biking and then helping a friend pull weeds for two hours. What I'm trying to get at is that I'm happy with my decision to move out here so far. Yes, its not perfect. Relying on a ferry that runs every 50 minutes does mean that I have to plan things out ahead of time. Some of the people here are annoying. But I didn't move out here for the people or the ferry, I moved out here to feel I had space. And that looks like its going to work out.
Hudson River. Winter, 2010
...
I've barely taken any photos this winter.
One thing I didn't count on in moving to Seattle was the short daylight hours and the frequent rain giving me much less opportunity to take my camera out. Not that I don't take photos with my iphone all the time, but I only went on one serious photo expedition so far this month. None of my cameras are waterproof which makes the constant rain an issue. This will be taken into serious consideration for my next camera purchase.
Instead I started a drawing course in January and I'm about halfway through it. If I can't be outside shooting (and I don't do portraits... yet) I need some sort of outlet. When one outlet is shut off, you turn to another and after years of talking about wanting to learn how to draw I'm finally getting off my ass and doing it. Its been good as I would have been sitting on my ass with no creative outlet otherwise.
While its been good for my mental well being its also extremely frustrating. Knowing more than few people with one to three decades of experience ahead of me is somewhat intimidating. At least with doing photography for 10 years I'm used to the frustration of learning and constantly feeling that your work is complete shit. Having lowered expectations is a blessing sometimes.
I'll probably follow up with another class in April either with the Gage Academy where I'm currently taking classes or on Bainbridge Island when I move out there in May. If I'm only going to be able to reliably shoot outside for half the year I'll need something to keep me occupied the other half.
Sometime in April my older cat, Pooka, will turn 14. For a cat this is Really Fucking Old but we shouldn't quite suspect the feline of being a lich quite yet. That's next year.
She's already stiff, diabetic, and overweight. She lays down in front of the food or water bowl before eating or drinking. Sometimes she's misses the litter box and there's a puddle of cat piss in the bathroom. I suspect she may have arthritis in her spine as well. There's also a fatty lump on her spine right above her tail which I'm watching (it hasn't grown, moved, or changed shape in a month which is... hopeful). She can still jump up onto the couch and bed but she's getting increasingly vocal about things and I don't know if this is because I've started talking to my cats over the past several years (previously I really didn't) or if she's in pain.
My cats have always gotten eaten by coyotes, poisoned themselves with gopher bait, ran away and never came back, or contracted cancer. I've never had a cat make it this long. Diabetes is only fatal in cats if you don't treat it and Pooka has been responding well to the twice daily insulin shots. After watching my last cat go comatose from the cancer invading her body before we put her down, I swore I wouldn't let it go that far ever again for my cats. The problem is that I don't know how to judge how the cat is feeling. At what point is the cat suffering too much from just being alive?
Its been on my mind since she came down with diabetes about two years ago. Before I got her on the insulin she couldn't even jump up two feet onto my bed. This is a cat who's always insisted on stomping all over me before letting me go to sleep. Until I get 15 pounds of cat slamming her tiny little paw into my gut I just can't sleep. Then once she was on the insulin and had her dose adjusted twice it was back to her old self.
Except there's no real cure for old age. She's just going to get stiffer and older and slower. I just don't know where to draw the line. Is she fussing and yowling because she wants more attention or because she feels poorly? Its a not a cheerful train of thought but I think its best to take into account how the cat is feeling above my attachment to her. I just don't know where to draw the line.
For now the cat looks pretty content curled up next to the baseboard heater. I just want to cat to stay old and fat and contented but that's not going to last forever.
She's already stiff, diabetic, and overweight. She lays down in front of the food or water bowl before eating or drinking. Sometimes she's misses the litter box and there's a puddle of cat piss in the bathroom. I suspect she may have arthritis in her spine as well. There's also a fatty lump on her spine right above her tail which I'm watching (it hasn't grown, moved, or changed shape in a month which is... hopeful). She can still jump up onto the couch and bed but she's getting increasingly vocal about things and I don't know if this is because I've started talking to my cats over the past several years (previously I really didn't) or if she's in pain.
My cats have always gotten eaten by coyotes, poisoned themselves with gopher bait, ran away and never came back, or contracted cancer. I've never had a cat make it this long. Diabetes is only fatal in cats if you don't treat it and Pooka has been responding well to the twice daily insulin shots. After watching my last cat go comatose from the cancer invading her body before we put her down, I swore I wouldn't let it go that far ever again for my cats. The problem is that I don't know how to judge how the cat is feeling. At what point is the cat suffering too much from just being alive?
Its been on my mind since she came down with diabetes about two years ago. Before I got her on the insulin she couldn't even jump up two feet onto my bed. This is a cat who's always insisted on stomping all over me before letting me go to sleep. Until I get 15 pounds of cat slamming her tiny little paw into my gut I just can't sleep. Then once she was on the insulin and had her dose adjusted twice it was back to her old self.
Except there's no real cure for old age. She's just going to get stiffer and older and slower. I just don't know where to draw the line. Is she fussing and yowling because she wants more attention or because she feels poorly? Its a not a cheerful train of thought but I think its best to take into account how the cat is feeling above my attachment to her. I just don't know where to draw the line.
For now the cat looks pretty content curled up next to the baseboard heater. I just want to cat to stay old and fat and contented but that's not going to last forever.
One of the things I was planning on for this year was moving back to Bainbridge Island after my lease expires at the end of April in Capitol Hill. Its not that I dislike Capitol Hill, its just that while there's a lot of good places to shop, eat, and drink, its also chock full of crack smoking (literally) homeless, has one of the highest rates of theft and break-ins in the city, and most alarmingly, has NYC style trust fund hipster looking 20 somethings. While its given me the 10 minute commute by bicycle to work I think my time there is done.
The initial plan was to move in with friends into a 2 bedroom house that they're renting on a quiet street on the east side of Bainbridge Island. By quiet I mean silent and dark as the grave. There are no street lights and the only sound at night is the deer tripping over the raccoons in the backyard as they raid the crabapple and plum trees.
Last night I had a chat with one of the future residents and she expressed a few concerns which eventually led us to end the idea of cohabitation. They're very reasonable logistical concerns, mainly over housework and schedules which could have led to some serious friction later on. So the solution was that we mutually agreed to scuttle my moving in. While I was looking forward to saving some serious money on rent, I'd rather keep the friendship on a positive note.
I don't have a make a decision until April on where to live. I would actually like to move out to Bainbridge and there are a number of apartments, condos, and rental homes available. They're slightly more expensive than my current apartment but I'm living in an overpriced studio and the places I'd be looking at on Bainbridge are 2 bedrooms or freestanding mother in law houses. So I'd be getting a fuck of a lot more for about $100 more a month.
I could always stay where I am. Its not bad, its just not what I want.
The downsides to moving to Bainbridge are logistical and something I do need to keep in mind. There are a lot of jobs in Bellevue and Redmond which would be an unacceptable commute when you throw in the ferry. Not that I really want to work there but they're fall-back positions. My current job is right off the ferry terminal on the Seattle side so no problems there. Many of the apartments on Bainbridge are within spitting distance of the ferry so I could walk to the ferry in most cases. Being insistent on finding work in Seattle itself has proven to be quiet possible so I'm not too concerned.
Otherwise I'm quite looking forward to living outside the city. While there were some serious problems with living in Beacon, or rather one, the commute, I really enjoyed it. Bainbridge feels more like Beacon so I think I'll be quite happy living there even with having the 35 minute ferry ride between me and the city.
If I decide to go back to school I'd have to take on a serious reworking of my lifestyle so moving again would be the least of my concerns. I need to find a program I like, apply, and figure out how I'm going to explain my crappy grades from college.
The initial plan was to move in with friends into a 2 bedroom house that they're renting on a quiet street on the east side of Bainbridge Island. By quiet I mean silent and dark as the grave. There are no street lights and the only sound at night is the deer tripping over the raccoons in the backyard as they raid the crabapple and plum trees.
Last night I had a chat with one of the future residents and she expressed a few concerns which eventually led us to end the idea of cohabitation. They're very reasonable logistical concerns, mainly over housework and schedules which could have led to some serious friction later on. So the solution was that we mutually agreed to scuttle my moving in. While I was looking forward to saving some serious money on rent, I'd rather keep the friendship on a positive note.
I don't have a make a decision until April on where to live. I would actually like to move out to Bainbridge and there are a number of apartments, condos, and rental homes available. They're slightly more expensive than my current apartment but I'm living in an overpriced studio and the places I'd be looking at on Bainbridge are 2 bedrooms or freestanding mother in law houses. So I'd be getting a fuck of a lot more for about $100 more a month.
I could always stay where I am. Its not bad, its just not what I want.
The downsides to moving to Bainbridge are logistical and something I do need to keep in mind. There are a lot of jobs in Bellevue and Redmond which would be an unacceptable commute when you throw in the ferry. Not that I really want to work there but they're fall-back positions. My current job is right off the ferry terminal on the Seattle side so no problems there. Many of the apartments on Bainbridge are within spitting distance of the ferry so I could walk to the ferry in most cases. Being insistent on finding work in Seattle itself has proven to be quiet possible so I'm not too concerned.
Otherwise I'm quite looking forward to living outside the city. While there were some serious problems with living in Beacon, or rather one, the commute, I really enjoyed it. Bainbridge feels more like Beacon so I think I'll be quite happy living there even with having the 35 minute ferry ride between me and the city.
If I decide to go back to school I'd have to take on a serious reworking of my lifestyle so moving again would be the least of my concerns. I need to find a program I like, apply, and figure out how I'm going to explain my crappy grades from college.
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