Motorola Q

Okay, I know, this journal is proceeding by fits and starts these days; I’ll save up some random notes, then blow them all off in order to rant about a specific subject again, then disappear for a coOkay, I know, this journal is proceeding by fits and starts these days; I’ll save up some random notes, then blow them all off in order to rant about a specific subject again, then disappear for a couple of weeks again, etc. And I’m sorry for that, I really am, for all of you who enjoy reading these entries, but as I’ve said many times this fall: 1) I’m in the midst these days of finally finishing up a bunch of old outstanding projects, which cuts into my time for journal writing severely; 2) that work, plus the stuff I’m doing in Second Life, is keeping me at home most days and nights, which leads to me not having much to say in my personal journal in the first place; and 3) don’t forget, I’m still in the long-term process of something I started this summer, which is to try to downshift anymore the amount of attention my personal website gets, because it’s starting to interfere with the higher-profile professional work I’m trying to get done these days. And the best way to do that, for better or for worse, is to simply cut back on the amount of updates that get posted here, so that only dedicated fans will remember to keep coming back and not the hotheads trolling around just looking for something to get pissed off by. That said, though, I do have a number of random notes now piled up in my Moleskine, so I thought I’d spend some time this afternoon and get them down. Enjoy!

***

iPod! iPod iPod iPod iPod fuckin’ iPod motherfucker!!! Yes, it’s true; one of my Christmas presents this year was a second-generation iPod Shuffle, which unbelievably enough is the first iPod I’ve ever owned. Yeah, welcome to the modern world, right? The truth, sadly enough, is that I haven’t particularly wanted to own an iPod until now, because of something concerning myself and consumer electronics that I know for a fact; that I have a long and proud tradition of losing, breaking, stepping on, and dropping into beer pints my various electronic toys, and I thought it’d be a shame to spend all that money on a full iPod just to see it await the same fate merely a few months later. Ah, but the new Shuffle, see, that’s different — not only because it’s only an inch by an inch and a half, and only weighs half an ounce, but because the entire back half of it is a giant clip, meaning that the chances of dropping or forgetting or stepping on it are decreased dramatically. Anyway, much like with the Mac Mini I got last April, I decided to snap a bunch of photos while opening up my iPod pacakaging and setting the whole thing up; they can all be seen at my Flickr account, for hopeless nerds who are into such a thing.

I have a feeling that my friends are going to like the fact that I got an iPod as much as I do; and that’s because a bunch of my friends are podcasters, and they’ve always been pissed because I never listen to their podcasts. And let’s face facts — when you don’t own a specific iPod brand MP3 player, podcasts can a lot of times be a real pain in the ass! That’s the wonderful thing about iPods, after all, and a big part of why they caught on in such a world-shaking way; that the ease between the device, the iTunes software, the online store and the online podcast directory is just so flawless and automatic, it makes the entire process feel like you’re in such some groovy early-’60s science-fiction movie (you know, back when everyone was optimistic about the future and wore Mylar jumpsuits). Now that I’m finally using a combination of iTunes and an iPod myself, I’m constantly amazed by the effortless process involved of having them all communicate; how plugging in my iPod will make it simply show up as a drive in iTunes, and how I can simply drag podcasts over from the Apple Store with my mouse to have them automatically delivered to my device. This is the thing that Microsoft still unbelievably doesn’t seem to get, as their recent fiasco with the Zune has proven; that all the cool looks in the world, all the savvy marketing, all the money, all the sweaty Asian labor, doesn’t make a hell of a difference in the world, if the thing is hard to use and tries to rip you off at every opportunity.

I’m discovering something interesting about my music library, by the way, now that I own this iPod; that when you boil down all the music I currently own to songs I really, truly want to listen to on a regular basis, I don’t even own the 240 songs needed to fill up my tiny little bottom-of-the-line 1-gig Shuffle. Weird, isn’t it? I mean, this is something else that’s always bothered me about the iPod, to tell you the truth, is this obsession with being able carry around 5,000 songs or 10,000 songs or whatever. Do I really need to be able to carry around 10,000 fucking songs with me anywhere I go? I do not; in fact, as I’m learning, I don’t even own 10,000 songs, much less 10,000 that I want to listen to on a regular basis. It’s always bothered me somewhat that I was being asked to fork over several hundred dollars, just to have a hard drive that I could never in my life possibly be able to fill; my nice little $75 Shuffle is a great compromise, I think, something particularly suited to someone like me who simply doesn’t go out and listen to a lot of new music anymore.

Oh, and another thing became official because of the new iPod; my old CD Walkman officially went into the Magic Shoebox of Outdated Consumer Technology™ that I have here in my Chicago apartment. Ah, the much-loved MSOCT! See, I’m a bit of a tech-toy whore, as long-time readers know (thank God I’m not rich, or I’d own them all) — and anytime I switch to a new technology, I can’t stand the idea of throwing the outdated device away, since it still works and you never know when you might have use for it again. So, into the black shoebox it goes, and back on a shelf in my closet — along with a cassette player, a micro-cassette recorder, a Palm III, a Treo 600, and various other sundry devices, all of which still work just fine. Salut and a sad farewell to my portable CD player, which joins them in the closet this week; it was a true workhorse, and will be missed.

Anyway, you know what all this means — I’m looking for podcast recommendations. Just drop me a line at ilikejason [at] gmail.com if you have any for me.

***

So speaking of old projects that I’ve decided to finally complete — yes, it’s true, it’s finally time for the long-promised Complete Performance Work 1996-2004. For those who don’t know, see, it was actually the poetry-slam community of the 1990s where I first gained a big audience for my literary work, not the internet — in fact, in the six years I was an active performer (1996 to 2001), I ended up penning over 400 poems, monologues and dialogues, each of which were performed in public at least once. This is the main reason I started the website in the first place, back at the end of 1997; because of the growing interest in my slam work and novels, and the desire to cheaply publicize this work.

So it’s ironic, I guess, that as important as the slam format’s been to my life and career, I’ve never once taken it entirely seriously, and also have never sat down and actually tried to comprehensively publish all 400 of these pieces. Because let’s face it, and I’ve had this attitude since I first got involved with the slam in the first place; many things associated with poetry slams are pretty damn silly, and much of the work performed in such environments are not really worth republishing in a static format, including a big chunk of my own work. The reasons I used to perform so much back then had little to do with literary aspersions; it was more about being the center of attention, having drinks bought for me, bringing tremendous publicity to my paper-based projects like full novels, and also getting laid on a regular basis. And as long as all these things were still actively going on, like they were up to 2004, my slam work simply took the bottom rung of the priority ladder when it came to the 50 or so books I’ve now written and published over the decades. That’s just how it is, you know? Most of my slam work was blathering bullshit designed expressly to get me attention from cute drunk girls in the middle of the night, and I’m the first to admit that, and as long as I was also writing fiction and travelogues that I took more seriously, it was that work that always took a higher priority.

But of course the situation changed in 2004, when I first decided to hang up the professional pursuit of creative writing, in order to open the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography instead; that became the first point where my body of work could be considered finite, and a “finished” date assigned to when it might all be re-edited and re-published. To be frank, I’ve spent two years now doing nothing, nothing, but actually editing the manuscripts themselves; after all, I’ve published over two million words in book form now (and that doesn’t even count this journal, which would easily add another million), most of which over the years has been published in first-draft format and with very little editing. It’s taken me two years, frankly, just to expunge the manuscripts of the endless typos and grammar errors they had been riddled with this entire time.

With CCLaP getting reactivated later this month, though (see below for more on that), and with a strong desire in my life to finally put that part of my career behind me, I’ve decided that this is finally the year that I get all 50 of the books republished, in a format that I’m not embarrassed by and that can safely stay up at the site for years to come, without need of updating. And fuck it, since I had to start somewhere, I thought I’d go ahead and tackle the six years of slam poems first, which for publishing purposes I’m referring to as a series called “Complete Performance Work 1996-2004.” 18 books! Fuck! How could so much bullshit dribble out of my mouth in such a short time?! I kid myself, of course, for self-deprecating humorous effect; but seriously, yeah, of the 400 pieces I wrote back then, most decidedly do not stand the test of time, and in fact the world has not been worser-off at all for this work not existing on the internet.

It’s a funny moral dilemma I’ve been having to face, as I gear up for the final phase of this massive 50-book project that’s already taken up two years of my life; that when all is said and done, a lot of my early literary work is just an endless load of crap, worthwhile only to illuminate the kernels of ideas I would later deal with more successfully. So given the massive amount of work still ahead for me, just to publish the work I’m actually proud of, why go to the trouble of publishing it all? Believe me, I’ve been seriously asking myself this question lately, and have also been asking it contemplatively regarding other literary estates and “complete libraries of work.” Ultimately, my justification for publishing it all is a simple one; that I’ve decided to merely document what I actually did in those years, to release it all to the public because I can, and let others debate on the merits of the work itself. And let’s not forget, as people like Samuel Pepys have taught us, sometimes in the future such work is not best used for literary purposes anyway; that they are much more impressive as large chunks of personal and social history, to be best used to illuminate the spirit of a certain age. That’s ultimately the rationalization that gives me the energy to complete the entire 50-book republishing project.

Anyway, so newly edited books will be going up at the GAD website on a weekly basis, all throughout the year; if a particular page has the new black-and-white design scheme, it’s the newest republished version, with the color pages held over from a previous version and not updated yet. So enjoy, I guess, although I can’t in good conscience recommend that anyone sit down and actually read all 400 pieces, or all 50 books; it’s just too painful an experience, and I don’t want people out there resenting me for going through it. Oh, and since I was on a roll, I also published a book version of the 100 or so best cellphone photographs I took last year, which I have unsurprisingly enough entitled Cellphone Photographs 2006. I did take over 900 cellphone photos last year, after all, and I know a lot of you don’t want to fucking wade through 900 cellphone photos a year; so here are the best ones, laid out in a way for easily sending to a color laserprinter when your boss isn’t looking. Yes, I will be putting books like this together for 2004 and ‘05 as well, at the same time that I’m republishing my old college photography books from the 1990s, most likely later this summer.

One day this whole fucking thing will finally be over, I keep reminding myself. It’s hard to see that day right now, granted — it’s been two years of regular work now, after all, and me not even halfway through the tunnel yet. One day, though. I have belief in that.

***

One of my readers confessed the other day via email that he was anxiously awaiting my thoughts on the Jason Fortuny Affair (aka “The Craigslist Experiment”), given that I had publicly used Craigslist so much in the past to find casual sex partners, and wanted to prod me into writing my thoughts if I wasn’t already in the process of doing so. And to be truthful, I hadn’t planned on writing about Jason Fortuny, because it’s a messy and stupid thing that has no clear conclusion; but, in the spirit of commenting on this subject that this friend of mine wants to see me write about, here are my fractured and sometimes morally-conflicting thoughts on the subject…

–I definitely think that all kinds of strange and subtle things about the “swinging lifestyle” have gotten infiltrated, because of it moving to an online forum and a much larger participant base. One of these things for sure was a certain shared etiquette that took place between these people, when first contacting each other about a possible get-together. Back when it was difficult to find and contact such people, the only people who did so were those who were serious about actually swinging; and since all of these people had a certain amount of humiliation in store for them by a public outing, the community tended to respect the privacy of everyone else involved for the same reason. When you make the process of finding a swinging partner as easy as posting a stolen photo from a home computer, on a site that’s been featured in the New York Times, of course you’re suddenly going to have a rash of Jason Fortunys; that’s what easy access and an easy interface do, is open up that world for all the lazy, mentally-challenged scumbags of the world.

–As great as it is to have an online project suddenly get popular and invade the mainstream, there’s definitely a lot to be said about those that remain relatively obscure and underground as well. Craigslist was an amazing place to find sincere, nerdily hot casual-sex partners, as long as Craigslist remained a destination known by only a unique group of sincere, nerdily hot people; its growing failure in this area can be directly and proportionally linked to how much the service has expanded into the mainstream culture. And you know, even as we speak, there’s another website out there where a bunch of people are finding a bunch of other people for hot casual sex, that neither you nor I know about which is why it works; and that too will slowly get known more and more, as the success stories permeate in the blogosphere, until it too is so bloated with Jason Fortunys that it’s no longer worth even visiting. And thus the big wheel of fate keeps turning, I suppose.

–I think it’s pointless to talk about the Jason Fortunys of the world, because they’ve done nothing worth me spending the time and energy talking about; they are the bottom-feeders of the universe, the people who survive off the puke and diarrhea that dribble out of the rest of us, and I don’t think there’s any reason to waste time and inch-space talking about such soul-leeches, even if it’s to complain about them. That said — yes, of course a person is a fucking moron if they send a dirty photo and real information to a stranger, under circumstances by which that information could harm them if made public, and ultimately those people deserve any evil that comes their way as a result, even under extremely unfair circumstances like what happened in the Jason Fortuny affair. And I admit it, I too send off personal information with my dirty photos, whenever I respond to an ad for casual sex; but in my case it’s while being single and not ashamed, and with there nothing at stake for me if the information was ever publicized. If, on the other hand, you’re married and shopping for a mistress, or closeted and looking for someone to stick their dick in you, then yes, you’re a fucking moron for sending your personal information to a stranger, no matter how damn horny you might be.

–And on a related note, I think the Jason Fortuny Affair again proves a conclusion I made at the end of my own swinging book, Slut Summer — that there are a lot of people running around swinging for a whole lot of different reasons, and that those reasons can and will directly lead to you having either a good or bad experience. As my archives will show, not once have I ever just put out a blanket recommendation for all humans to go out and start swinging; I think there are a lot of people, a whole lot of people, for whom swinging would actually be a disaster, not a blessing. I think that there are right reasons for wanting to get into casual and group sex, and a right attitude to take when getting into those things, that almost 100 percent of the time will lead to great and positive experiences; but I also think there are lots of wrong reasons for getting into these subjects as well, the most common being the desire to mentally escape a more troubling issue in one’s life. Yes, as long as they were posted, I read through many of the responses to the fake ad Fortuny originally ran, that caused all the controversy in the first place; and if you did so yourself, you can see all the people who responded for the wrong reasons, and how many people out there are actually using swinging for self-destructive reasons. As with everything concerning sexuality, I think there is no inherent right or wrong answer when it comes to casual or group sex; I think the “right” answer fluctuates wildly depending on the individual person.

And that’s what I thought of the Jason Fortuny Affair.

***

I was looking over my personal timeline the other day, and realized that some of the dates are starting to match up in strange ways…

1994: Decide to pursue creative writing professionally.

1995: Spend the year in seclusion, writing my first novel.

1996: First tastes of success in literary community, although nothing that pans out permanently, and with a fair share of frustrations.

1997: First big successes in literary community: first novel published, made the Chicago slam team, took second place nationally, appeared on NPR, etc etc.

- x -

2004: Decide to pursue small business professionally.

2005: Spend the year in seclusion, studying business management.

2006: First tastes of success in small-business community, although nothing that pans out permanently, and with a fair share of frustrations.

2007: ?

Could 2007 finally be the year for me, as far as my arts center and my freelance work and all the other business-related endeavors I first took on three years ago? It’s no secret that the pace of all this stuff frustrates me pretty regularly; that 2006 was in general a discouraging year for me concerning it all, even though I had lots of good experiences peppering those twelve months as well. That’s always been both the blessing and the curse in my life, I suppose, is that I’ve always yearned to accomplish a lot of things, and get easily frustrated over what I see as delays in getting those things done. I was just hanging out with my friend Kate the other day, actually, and laughing about this; about how right now, for example, I’m actually getting a new book published every five days, if you can believe that, yet am unbelievably frustrated that I’m not getting two books published every five days. It’s difficult for me to stop and appreciate the things that are getting accomplished at any given moment in my life; but then again, that’s mostly what gets the new things accomplished in the first place.

As I was going through 2006, I saw it mostly as a step backwards in my life: where in a period of twelve months I not only finally opened my arts center, but also secured my first-ever senior-management corporate position, just to end up shutting both down again by the time the year was over. Looking back, though, at the start of the literary phase of my career (which has been unavoidable these days, since those are the books I’m republishing right now), I’m starting to realize that maybe things are actually just fine. As I’m remembering now, re-editing my 1996 work, that year held a lot of ups and downs for me too; my first big breaks, yes, but also a lot of opportunities that fizzled out at the last second, or that turned out to be nightmares I regretted ever getting involved with in the first place, something I’m definitely feeling as well these days about a couple of my business experiences in 2006. I’m reminded that these were a necessary part of the process back then; that without the humiliating failures, the wasted time and energy, I would’ve never learned what people and projects to immediately avoid at all costs, and would’ve never grown both artistically and professionally.

The same can be said of my business experiences last year, I suppose, although a heavier price was paid than in 1996; but then again, about a million dollars more was at stake (literally), so I suppose it’s natural that a heavier price was paid when it all fell apart. Like those 1996 experiences, though, I definitely came out on the other end with a much better appreciation for who I need to be getting involved with in the future, and who at all costs I need to be avoiding, and how to detect these people long before you have anything invested in their projects. If history is any indication, this should be the year that everything finally starts going right; that long-term successes are achieved, that a profit finally starts getting produced. Hmm. We’ll see, I guess. In any case, wish me luck…unless you hate me, that is, in which case I guess go to hell.

Okay, more to talk about, but I’m tired, so I’m ending it here for today. See you perverts later.

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Posted on April 2nd, 2008 by Green Guy
Filed under: Uncategorized