Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
General ramblings connected to my personal life and activities.
Trying to read 700+ weblog posts from the last few days, import CDs, and delete upwards of 100 spam comments one by one all at the same time results in getting less done, not more.
Funny, that.
iTunes: “Come On In Out of the Rain” by 12 Rounds from the album My Big Hero (1998, 4:25).
Even after having seen it almost every year since I’ve been down here, it always amazes me just how many people can fit into Gas Works Park for the annual July 4th fireworks show over Lake Union.
While in past years I’ve headed down to the park just a few hours before the show was scheduled to begin, this year Prairie and I decided to make a day of it. We packed up books, munchies, and lots of sunscreen, and headed out to Gas Works Park just about the time they opened the gates at noon. We managed to find a parking spot relatively close, only about six blocks away from the entrance, wandered our way in, and started the process of staking out a spot for the day.
Initially we set ourselves up on the side of the hill overlooking the lake, but I took a moment to go explore, remembering where I’d been the year before. Sure enough, the lawn on the other side of the old gas works looked far more inviting — less people, quieter, and still with a perfect view of the barge that the fireworks are launched from — and we soon moved over there.
The rest of the day was very pleasant. Reading, napping, enjoying the sun, and a lot of people watching. I’d occasionally wander around the park with my camera, snapping random pictures of the families out enjoying the day, then find my way back to our spot to flop back down again. We’d hit Twice Sold Tales on Broadway the day before, so we were both set with reading material for the day — Prairie with a few Stephen King novels and Roald Dahl books, and myself with The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles, a fantasy series I’d enjoyed as a kid and have wanted to re-read for a while.
Prairie had also brought along a couple bottles of bubble fluid, which soon caught the attention of a couple little boys seated near us on the lawn. Initially happy to run along and pop all the bubbles they could, soon they decided that they wanted to blow bubbles too, and I suddenly had the younger of the two standing next to me, declaring that it was his turn to blow. I let him blow some bubbles while his brother popped them, then they switched…but it wasn’t long before each of them had appropriated one of our bottles of bubbles and were quite happily wandering around, sending bubbles floating across the sky.
Kites, of course, are always a popular summertime activity, and Gas Works Park generally has the perfect amount of wind for perfect kite flying. While most people lined up on the side of the hill to fly their kites, you could easily find them popping up from among the crowds throughout the park, and we had one little girl just in front of us who spent a good portion of the day flying her kite — or running back and forth trying to get it back up into the air when the breeze died down for a few moments.
Eventually the sun started to set, and the open spots on the ground started to fill as all the people wandering around the park grounds filtered in to find seats to watch the fireworks. The one slight down side to the day was that now that I’m using a fancier camera than my old point-and-shoot, I had to guess at the correct settings to use for catching pictures of the fireworks…and as I found out when I got home, I didn’t guess quite correctly. A slight disappointment, as it was a good display, and I’ve gotten some rather surprisingly good fireworks shots in the past, but not a terribly big deal all told.
Once the show was over, Prairie and I just stuck around in our spot for as long as we could to let the first major crush of people leave. Getting home took a while, of course, with post-show traffic backed up all over the place, but it didn’t seem to be nearly as bad as we’d feared (I’d never driven to and from the show before, always either taking the bus or walking with friends), and we made it home right about midnight, almost twelve hours to the dot after we’d left that morning.
(Interestingly enough, Prairie and I both noticed that while there were Kerry supporters out in full force, there were no Bush/Cheney signs, campaigners, or anything of the like at all that we could see. Not that I’m complaining in the least, I was just somewhat pleasantly surprised by that.)
All in all, a very good day. Hopefully all of you had an equally enjoyable Fourth (for those of you that celebrate it — otherwise, I hope you at least had a good day). And for those of you who get today off of work — I’m jealous!
iTunes: “Magnificat” by Industrial Monk from the album Magnificat (1998, 8:55).
Have a happy and safe 4th of July, everyone.
iTunes: “Battle Hymn of the Republic” by Mormon Tabernacle Choir from the album Sony Classical: Great Performances 1903-1998 (1958, 4:44).
A few months ago, I was contacted by a writer for a national magazine who wanted to interview me regarding my fallout with Microsoft. Turns out that the magazine he writes for was planning a story on some of the things that can suddenly and unexpectedly go wrong when weblogging (such as blogging yourself right out of a job). I was one of a few different webloggers interviewed for the story, and we spent about two days doing the interview in two phone sessions. It seemed to go pretty well, though at times I wondered if my story was a little on the boring side — no book offers, movie deals, incredible job offers or anything along those lines, just the incident itself and then life proceeded more or less as it normally does.
In any case, the interview was fun to do, and I was looking forward to eventually having my story (and possibly my photo) pop up on newsstands across America. Unfortunately, at the time the Powers That Be eventually decided that there wasn’t quite enough material (not just with me, but with all the other webloggers that were interviewed) for a full feature, and the story was shelved.
However, it appears that it’s possible that not all is lost. I got an e-mail yesterday from the reporter who interviewed me letting me know that there is an attempt being made to resurrect the story! To do so, though, they’re looking for more material — and here’s where you all come in, if you’re able and willing.
They’d like to expand the scope of the story to go beyond just employment difficulties, and include stories from people who have suddenly found their relationships affected by their weblogs. Here’s the note I got from the reporter:
Hey! The editors…are trying to ressurect our blogging story. So I just wanted to let you know that all hope has not been lost.
BUT, we’re desperately trying to find other “My Blog Ruined My Life” stories, esp. ones that have more to do with relationships than employment.
Can you please recommend any major blogging sites where I should look, or to contact their administrators, or, if you can tap into your readers and ask them if they’ve ever had a romantic/dating blowout w/ someone because of their blog — that’d be helpful.
Now, as I put this post together, I realize that this may strike some people as being rather sordid and muckraking — and, to be honest, for all I know it may be. However, at the time I was interviewed, that was not at all the impression I got from the gentleman who interviewed me. Yes, we were talking about some very unfortunate events in my life for a story about weblogging which focused on the problems that weblogs could cause, but at the time, I didn’t get the feeling that it was going to be overly sensationalistic in nature. It’s entirely possible that with the change of focus of the article, the tone may change as well — which, admittedly, would be something of a shame.
I’d hate to eventually find out that the final story focused solely on the “dark side” of weblogging, painting a picture of webloggers as a legion of sad, jobless and loveless souls pouring their hopes, dreams and inspirations out through their keyboards and onto the web in a desperate attempt to find justification and company in the few kindred souls that might end up poring over their writings in the wee hours of the morning, the wan light of the monitor washing over their skin as they avoid the troubling dreams that they know await them when they fall asleep.
(Whee — I like that. But anyway…)
Of course, I’m merely an interviewee, and as such, won’t really know what the final article will be like until it finally sees the light of day and hits the newsstands. But, really, I’d like to see the story come out, and so I turn to you, my loyal readers. If you know of any good resources or any potential interview subjects that may be willing to tell their stories, I’d love to hear about them so that I could pass them on to the reporter.
I’m sure that the venerable LiveJournal is a veritable fount of such stories, but I’m not active enough with LJ to know where too look or which communities to poke into. There’s also the web at large and the multitude of TypePad, Movable Type, WordPress, Blogger, and other assorted weblogging/journaling tools, but I don’t know of any stories that fit the bill off the top of my head.
So — anyone have some good pointers?
Update: I just sent the following to the reporter, expressing some of my concerns with the apparent new direction the article may be taking. Hopefully I’m not shooting myself in the foot and editing myself right out of the article with this, but the more I thought about it, the more it started to concern me.
I do have one concern, though, which I touch upon in my post (and which, admittedly, could be entirely unfounded…or even if it’s not, it may not be something you have any control over). At the time you interviewed me, I never got the impression that this was going to be an overly sensationalistic story, though it was dealing with some unfortunate circumstances. However, expanding the scope to include relationship issues, coupled with the “my blog ruined my life” concept — well, I now worry a bit that the story may end up painting a rather unflattering portrait of weblogs and webloggers in general.
While weblogs are becoming more known and more popular, there is still a large segment of the general population that sees them as nothing more than online journals for angst-ridden teenagers to whine to the world (often doing so with absolutely atrocious and nearly unreadable grammar, slang, and ”leet-speak’). One of the reasons your story interested me when you first contacted me (at a time when, to be honest, I was getting rather tired of rehashing the events around my dismissal) was that I got the impression that it was going to look at both the bad and the good of the situation and the aftermath, both for myself and for the other webloggers being contacted for the article. Now, though, I’m a little less sure of the tack that the final article will be taking.
Of course, I’m quite aware that I may be reading too much into what you sent me (and even if I’m not, it may be out of your hands). All in all, I’m just hoping for a good article, and wanted to let you know of some of my concerns. However it turns out, good luck with the current round of searching, and should I get any worthwhile pointers from the post on my site, I’ll pass them your way.
Ow. Ow ow ow.
Even with sunscreen, I think six hours in the sun for yesterday’s Pride events was a bit much.
I am so red.
Ah, well — it’ll fade and heal within a week or so, so I’m not really that worried about it. I just feel a little stupid when I see myself in the mirror right now. I figure that I get one “stupid” day each summer where I quite handily roast myself, and yesterday was most definitely that day.
iTunes: “Blowpop Generation” by DJ H. Geek from the album Heaven Says Move (1999, 6:48).
All the recent attention on gay rights, marriage, proposed constitutional amendments and the like have directed enough attention on the gay community to allow the Seattle Pride festivities to expand to two days, and I spent some of yesterday and much of today wandering around and enjoying the show.
As always, I took a ton of pictures — 364, in fact, most of which are from today’s Pride Parade. I’ve uploaded the entire kit and kaboodle to my photo gallery — you can start at the beginning, or just click on Miss Broadway to jump straight to the beginning of the parade. Kick back and enjoy!
Update: Nose to Signal also has a Pride gallery up.
Update: Another gallery, from Nina Forsyth.
iTunes: “Tripnotized Vol. 3 (Part 2) (full mix)” by Various Artists from the album Tripnotized Vol. 3 (full mix) (1996, 1:03:43).
Just got back from tonight’s KMFDM show. Very good, and very loud (but then, this is KMFDM we’re talking about).
I skipped out on the two opening acts — I’d been given a free CD from the first act, Charlie Drown, a while ago at a Pigface show and wasn’t terribly impressed; and whoever the middle act was simply made a lot of noise. I poked my head in from time to time, but decided to just stay downstairs.
When I headed upstairs to find a spot to watch the show, I ran into Ron again, along with Angel, a friend of his, and spent the rest of the evening hanging out with them. We worked our way into a spot underneath a staircase that had a fairly good view of the stage, and chatted while waiting for the show to start.
WWIII (off the album of the same name) and Blackball opened the show, and Sascha and company were in fine form. Unfortunately, as I was afraid of last week, I’m no great fan of the Fenix for a show like this. While it worked decently enough for a smaller show, there were just too many people this time, and it quickly got far too crowded and hot, and the three of us bailed to stand outside the bar about halfway through the show. We could still hear everything fairly well, though, so we didn’t feel like we were really missing much of anything.
We did wander in to catch the encores, though, and the night closed out with Godlike — very, very nice.
All in all a good night, though I’m no great fan of the Fenix as a concert venue. I still wouldn’t mind going again at some point on just a standard club night to see how it fares, so I’m not entirely writing it off — I’m just going to reserve concerts there for shows that I really don’t want to miss out on.
iTunes: “Dogma” by K.M.F.D.M. from the album XTORT (1996, 4:06).
Happy Father’s Day, dad! I’ll see you in a couple months for your birthday!
Would you look at that — I actually remembered to post this on Father’s Day! Miracles never cease, eh? Of course, it was probably good that not only did I get an e-mail reminder from Prairie, but there was also this Seattle P-I blurb:
The national day honoring fathers got its start in Washington state in 1910. After hearing a sermon honoring Mother’s Day, Sonora Dodd of Spokane decided to create one for men.
Her father, William Jackson Smart, was a Civil War veteran and farmer who raised six children alone after his wife died in childbirth. She wanted the day to coincide with Smart’s birthday on June 5, but ministers needed more time to prepare their messages, so it became the third Sunday in June.
The day was nationally recognized by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, but it was President Lyndon Johnson who made it official in 1966.
iTunes: “You’re So Vain” by Faster Pussycat from the album Rubáiyát: Elektra’s 40th Anniversary (1990, 4:11).
Have I ever mentioned how much I love living in Seattle? One of the major reasons (aside from naked people on bikes, of course), is the simple fact that many of the bands that I’ve been listening to (and playing during my DJ career) for years actually come through town every so often, so I can actually see them.
Admittedly, time and budget prevent me from seeing every band that comes through that I’d like to, but so far since I’ve moved down here I’ve seen Concrete Blonde, Pigface, and KMFDM twice each, Peter Murphy — and now, Sister Machine Gun.
(Random SMG trivia: Chris Randall provided vocals for one remix of early 90’s techno hit “James Brown is Dead” by LA Style, making the ‘Rock Radio’ remix the only version of JBiD with actual sung lyrics — and, incidentally, also making it my favorite version of the song.)
The ticket I had said that things were going to get started at 8pm. Since I needed to rest after playing in the sun all morning long I didn’t actually make it to the Fenix until around 8:45, but as it turns out, that didn’t matter at all, as the show didn’t actually get started until around 10. There were three opening bands, and unfortunately, I’ve got to say that none of them impressed me all that much, and I ended up spending most of my time until SMG came on stage wandering around the club.
This was my first time at the Fenix. It’s an interesting place, though I don’t think one that I’d hit on a regular basis. It looks wonderful — all dark woods and brickwork, with the main floor holding one bar and the performance area, an upper mezzanine level with two more bars and a balcony overlooking the stage, and a lower level with another bar and a second dance floor. However, the downsides (as I see them) are that the drinks are overpriced (my usual drink, a Malibu rum and coke, was fifty cents more expensive than it is at the Vogue, came in a plastic cup about a third smaller than the glasses the Vogue uses, had more ice taking up volume, and was mixed weaker than I’m used to) and the clientele is something of an odd mix between the black leather, vinyl, and PVC clad goth/industrial people and the college frat boys and sorority girls brought in due to the Fenix’s Pioneer Square location. Overall, it’s not a bad place for shows (though the floor in front of the stage is pretty small — it seemed to work decently tonight, but I’m not sure how well it will work for next week’s KMFDM show), but definitely not going to be a regular haunt.
While I was killing time during the opening bands, I ended up running into Ron, an old roommate of mine from back at the Pit (my old apartment in Anchorage). We hung out off and on for the rest of the night, making snarky comments about the opening bands, being amused at the odd mix of customers, and swapping stories about old friends from Anchorage.
I also ended up spending some time talking to Kevin and Amanda, a couple from Canada who were in Seattle specifically for the SMG show. We got started talking when Amanda pulled me aside to ask me about my kilt, then just sat back and chatted for a good half hour or so, comparing the various scenes in Seattle, Anchorage, and Vancouver. I may end up running into them again next Friday — when I mentioned that KMFDM were going to be there, Kevin immediately started scheming to try to find ways to arrange his schedule to come back down.
Eventually all the opening acts wound to a close, and I found my way to the floor in front of the stage. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from SMG, as I haven’t heard any of their recent albums since they left Wax Trax records. I had nothing to worry about, though. Once they took the stage — Chris Randall at the forefront, Charles Levi on bass (who I’d seen play bass for Pigface the last time they came through), plus a guitarist and drummer whose names I didn’t catch — while I didn’t know the first few songs of the set, they were definitely right what I was hoping for. Halfway through their set they moved into their older catalog of songs, but not before Chris took a few moments to tell us a story. I won’t be able to relate the exact words — this is not a transcription, merely the best that my fuzzy memory can recall — but it should be fairly close…
Okay, we’re right about halfway through the set now. I tell this story at this point in every show, and I try to make it specific for where we are, but this is something like the fiftieth show on this tour, and I’m running out of witty shit to say.
See, a couple nights ago we were playing at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco when I told this story. Now the guy who runs the DNA is pretty big on the Internet, and they stream live webcasts of all their shows. When I told this story, he thought it was pretty funny, so he put it up on the club’s website. Well, it got around, and word got out, people started telling other people, and now our server is dead. We got slammed — our site, our record label, and every other site that was on that server is gone right now. I dunno, they may have gotten it back up again by now, I could be talking out of my ass here, but a few hours ago, it was dead.
Anyway. Here’s the story.
Everything we’ve played up until now, up until this point in the set, it’s on our own record label, Positron Records. You can buy any of the new albums right over at the kissing booth — two bucks for a kiss, ten bucks for a CD. Everything after this, all our old stuff, that was released on Wax Trax Records. Which is cool…or was cool, back then. See, now Wax Trax is owned by TVT Records [boos and hisses from the audience here], who are a bunch of ignorant fucks that can’t manage their books. So now all our old catalog is owned by TVT…actually, it’s not even owned by TVT anymore, it’s owned by Credit Suisse. Which I guess is kind of cool — my first four records were put out by a bank.
The point is, I don’t get shit for any of it — not one dime, not one red cent, not one wooden nickel. So you can go home, get on your computers, find any of our old Wax Trax shit, and download it for free. We’re not getting paid for it, you don’t have to pay for it.
Okay. Here we go.
Incidentally, all of SMG’s Positron Records albums are available for purchase from the iTunes Music Store. Too cool. And, hey — it sounds like a good idea to me.
Anyway, from here on out we were in familiar waters for me, and the band kicked much ass (not that they weren’t before, I just didn’t know the songs). They bounced around with a few from each of their first four albums, finishing off with two killer tunes — Addiction (probably my personal favorite SMG track) and Sins of the Flesh.
As an added bonus, today was Chris’s birthday! The owner of the Fenix (that was who that was, right?) grabbed the microphone from Chris, announced it was his birthday, and Chris immediately went running offstage in mock embarassment. He got dragged back on fairly quickly, got some birthday cheers from the audience, and then went on with the show. Later on, after the show finished and the band went offstage, the crowd sang Chris “Happy Birthday” before filing out. Quite fun.
Anyway, awesome show. Much fun was had by all.
iTunes: “Addiction” by Sister Machine Gun from the album Sins of the Flesh (1992, 4:16).
2005 Update: In case you’ve come here from a Google search looking for more recent pics, all my shots from the 2005 Solstice Parade can be found right here.
Read on for my original post about the 2004 Solstice Parade…
I got back a while ago from spending the day at the Fremont Solstice Parade and Festival. I had a wonderful time — the weather was incredible, and the parade was a blast. I’m hot, tired, and a bit sunburnt (next time I head out I’ll need to remember to bring the sunblock with me, rather than just putting some on before I leave), but it was very worth it.
The Fremont parade has quite a few things going for it that put it a step above most other parades I’ve been to. Specifically, three things: no corporate sponsorship, no motorized vehicles (human powered contraptions only), and lastly, apparently all it takes to be part of the parade is deciding you want to and showing up with whatever costume, show, or gimmick you want. It’s wonderful.
Of course, one of the most notorious aspects of the Fremont Solstice parade is the annual kickoff group of naked cyclists. They were certainly out in full force this year, most wearing nothing more than body paint, and a few eschewing even that minimal level of coloring. The bodypaint work was often incredibly well done, to the point where some of the cyclists looked far more like they were wearing full-body skintight bodysuits than actually naked. Bold splashes of color, racing stripes, flowers, animal prints, or just full-body solid colors abounded.
Of course, the most amusing side effect of wearing naught but body paint was obvious anytime one of the cyclists stood on the pedals. They’d raise up off their seat, and suddenly you’d get a quick flash of bare skin as the bodypaint stuck to the seat of the bike and left their suddenly unpainted rump standing out in the midst of the rest of the paint.
Members of the Utiliklan were part of the parade, too. A group of seven men in kilts strode down the parade route to the whistles and admiring cheers of the crowds lining the road. Every so often they’d pause for a moment to work the crowd, egging on the cheers and yells, until finally, when they deemed the time was right, they’d line up facing one side of the road or the other, bend down…
…and with a quick flip of the wrist, they quite handily answered the age-old question of just what a real man wears underneath his kilt.
Of course, when I got up this morning and saw the weather, I’d donned my kilt for the day’s festivities. Not long after I’d arrived in Fremont I’d shucked off my shirt as well, just wearing a light vest and my kilt. When the Utiliklan made it down to where I was standing, it didn’t take long at all for them to notice me standing there — and the next thing I knew, I had all of them plus a few of the people around me on the sidelines declaring that I was to join them in the street.
I had to do it. Obviously, I couldn’t get any pictures of my impromptu foray into mooning a few hundred total strangers — probably a good thing, too — but given the number of cameras around that day, I may have some ‘splaining to do should any pictures surface during my eventual presidential candidacy! ;)
As the parade went on, the revelry, music, and general weirdness continued unabated. A troupe of bellydancers came by, with four dancers preceding them dancing with some long red scarves. Suddenly I realized that one of the first dancers I’d seen before — she’s friends with Don and Chad, and had done a private interpretive dance at last Halloween’s party at Don and Chad’s house. I don’t believe she saw me, and she may not have remembered me even if she did notice me in the crowd, but it was fun to realize that I actually recognized her.
I’m not sure at all what the deal with the dancing bananas was, but there they were, complete with gorilla bounding around from one side of the street to the other. Does there really need to be a coherent reason?
Some of the floats that appear in the parade are just incredible to see. As there are no motorized vehicles allowed in the parade, everything has to be either foot- or pedal-powered, and more than a few contraptions used a combination of the two.
And eventually, after about an hour or so, the parade came to an end. Or, really, the official parade came to an end, as it ended up picking up a huge crowd of former parade watchers tacking themselves on to the end of the line as it proceeded down the street and into Gas Works park. I spent the next couple hours wandering around a good five square blocks (I think, I didn’t explore the entire area) of Fremont had been closed off and turned into a street festival area, then proceeded back down the parade route down to Gas Works Park.
Eventually I decided that I’d had enough sun, and found my way back to a bus route and came back home. Now that I’m showered, slathered down with Aloe lotion, and have tossed this post up, I’m off to grab a nap for a couple hours, as I’ve got a concert to go to tonight: Sister Machine Gun at the Fenix!
The rest of the parade photos are right here (some are NSFW).
iTunes: “Destillat (VNV Nation)” by Das Ich from the album Re_Laborat (2001, 6:08).