Good morning. Hello. How are you? #692
Strange memories on this nervous morning in Las Chatham.
Good morning. Hello. How are you today? Doing all right? I am okay. I had a dream last night that blogging made a come back but we all did it using a thing called a “Blogging Bucket,” which was a large, 5-gallon blue plastic bucket with a white plastic handle and smartphone features built into the bucket. We found carrying this around much more convenient than an iPhone, because, you know, you cold hold things in it, I guess. But the best part of the dream were all the old school bloggers who provided testimonials for the Blogging Bucket in their video: Anil Dash, Waxy, Kos. Rex was very excited about the Blogging Bucket.
Been watching the Light and Magic documentary on Disney Plus, a six-part documentary about Industrial Light and Magic. Before I started, I thought a six-hour documentary about ILM might be overdoing it, but by the end of the first three episodes, where we were only up through The Empire Strikes Back, I started to worry that the documentary would be too short. Then I noticed that in the episode browser screen on Disney+ it said “Season one.” And now I am very excited. Maybe there will be more seasons. I think three or four seasons could be really good.
Watching those early days of ILM, down in Van Nuys, rushing to invent the cameras, set up the departments, try and make Star Wars in an impossible time frame, a small band of passionate, dedicated artisans, closely-knit, them against the world. Really took me back to early Barbarian days, made me miss it.
But more than that, it really just brought back a feeling I’ve been feeling a lot lately, that the Internet let me down, that I wasted decades of my life working on this thing that didn’t live up to its potential. I think this is, broadly speaking, my default feeling about my career these days. All that promise, all that hope. And it did do a lot of good. The good is so ubiquitous that we take it for granted: online banking, being able to stay in touch with friends, writing things like Good Morning, Hello, How Are You? But the bad, man, the bad. The bad. It is… a lot. And it’s not like “oh our time frame was off, the good is still coming.” Nah. It’s more like, oh I don’t know, Purdue Pharma? Inventing CFCs? Maybe the green revolution. A lot of good that seemed to be desperately needed, but at the expense of, oh, I don’t know, the planet?
I was looking at all these old ILM film guys and women, getting interviewed (by Lawrence Kasdan! He directs the entire series) and I was really struck by the nostalgia, the love in their eyes, how much they still loved the art of filmmaking. No one, no one from the internet, when they are interviewed by documentarians, has that look in their eyes. Even if you interview the really old school engineers: Vint Cerf, Bob Metcalfe, Tim Berners Lee — and I’ve been doing this long enough to have met a ton of these guys — they do not have that look of joy in their eye. And if you interview anyone whose internet accomplishments are, oh, say, 1997 and on, well, the look in their eye is perhaps best described as… haunted. Provided, you know, they’re not in pitch mode, not pretending to be super pumped about whatever it is they’re doing now.
There was a moment when my friends Jes and Jay made an indie film called Nickel and Dime. This was, oh, 1998 or so. I was a PA on the film, and then I helped them do the sound mix and edit on my rickety old PowerMac. Well, it was high-end at the time. And I still remember working on the set of that film, learning what an apple box was, seeing someone build the dolly. And I remember thinking at the time “this is the funnest job I have ever had.” It definitely sucked getting up at 5AM, and that gave me pause, but other than that, I thought, “This is the best. I want to do this more. I can’t believe people get paid for this.” And I as just a PA. Just a grunt, moving shit around. And I loved it.
Around the same time I was gonna move to LA and rent a room in Jack’s house.
Real Sliding Doors moment there. And I’m thankful for much of what my career on the internet gave me — my wife, my child, my house, my savings account — but damn. What a faustian bargian. What a crappy career its been.
It’s not just the death threats and Qanon and memes and shit (and I am deeply thankful that Timehop has provided a nice haven from all of that shit. People don’t (generally speaking) troll themselves, make death threats against themselves, so Timehop is naturally insulated against a lot of that.) There’s no historicity on the internet. People make documentaries about the internet, but it is mostly the bad things. People forget the good companies, the good people. Barbarian was such a magical place, in a lot of ways a parallel to ILM on the eary internet.I mean, that is hyperbole, or seems it now. Part of ILM’s magic is its longevity and we only lasted a decade. But still. But it’s absurd to think of anyone making a documentary about it, that’ll never happen. Which is fine, but… also, like… weird? I don’t just mean Barbarian but the whole kit and kaboodle. People just forget how the internet got to where it is. Why is there no documentary about Livejournal? Flickr? Shit, even early Instagram? So weird. So weird.
Speaking of getting old (was I?) I have an eye appointment today. I am looking forward to it, because my eyes have gotten so much worse during the pandemic. I am moving my glasses forward and backward constantly, and I have reading glasses. It is bad. I can’t read anything close up, I have to just take them off. Everything is slowly getting blurry. I mean, my eyes are bad to begin with — negative 11 and negative 13, with an astygmatism, and now with pretty pronounced presbyopia at this point. But I swear these last two years have been the worst single period of decline in my eyesight in my life. Through my 40’s, they were definitely stabilizing, and the galloping decline in vision I experienced from age 10 to about age 30 definitively slowed. But now I feel it accellerating again. It is… somewhat terrifying and alarming. I’m hoping I go in, and the doctor just sort of goes “oh wow yeah time for a new prescription but everything else looks good,” but I’m convinced he’s going to tell me I’m gloing blind or something. So, you know, best to just get it over with.
While I’m on the subject of ailments, the top of my head hurts. It feels like I got sunburn. But I did not. Because I always wear a hat outside. And Emma double checked. But for, like, five days now, the top of my head has hurt. It is weird and I don’t like it one bit no siree.
Complaining about things. This is what I do when I don’t have enough topic notes prepped for GMHHAY. Sorry about that. The only note I had for today’s entry said “A major motivation when people get old is finding someone to take care of their stupid shit and make life magical.” I don’t remember exactly what prompted this note. Oh I think it came from when I was watching Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project and how most of the people they interviewed about her life were her assistants: her chauffeur, her nurse, her cook. Taking care of the old. Very haphazard in America. But also, like, old curmudgeonly authors who need someone to, you know, feed them and shit so they can still produce. I just feel like old people really organize their lives around help, they might prey on each other for help, get trapped in bad habits in order to have help. Imagine what they could achieve if they lived in a nation who actually helped the elderly. I don’t know. It was ill-formed. Not a good note. I am ditching it here.
We should try and think of some good things.
I guess it’s good that Joe Manchin seems to have come round and made a deal with the rest of the Democrats. Of course it’s not a done deal, believe it when I see it, etc., and I just woke up and haven’t looked at the details. I’m sure they’re… fine. Maybe half of what we really need to do at best. I suppose he thinks we’re all supposed to thank him or something but nope, fuck that guy. I will settle in and read the deal later this morning. Fingers crossed. And this stupid third party that was formed today. Nope, no thanks, Andrew Yang, please exit stage left.
Oh right, good things.
Emma asked me to make a butterfly bed, which is fun. Lots of flower seeds coming. Of course, she asked this because the Monarch Butterfly is endangered now (bad) but it will be nice to have a wildflower bed (good).
Jane wiped her butt for the first time all by herself yesterday: good!
The Eurythmics 1984 soundtrack is not on Spotify: bad! But it was only $3 on Discogs. Good!
My dehydrator and spice grinder came and I can make some chili powder for the garden: good!
Only one brief squirrel incursion in the last two days: good!
Finished The Snakehead by Patrick Radden Keefe: very good!
More Peach Iced Tea Ice Breakers on the way: good! They’re probably the last ones I’ll ever get: sad!
I just took (another) covid test and my burning head is not covid which is good I guess!
Well that helped a smidge.
Mix of covers for you. Pretty all over the place, but a good time. Some weird ones, some known ones. Covers mixes are hard, their theme doesn’t, like, lend itself to any sort of mix flow. Forgive me for that.
Listened to the new Alan Parsons, which I loved, but did NOT expect Be My Baby to be so faithful to the original!