august 11
today:
still keep on doin' what you been doin'.
grandma turned 89 today,
i asked her for any advice:"still keep on doin' what you been doin'."
so i'm trying here, and i'm doin' something new that i been doin' on bud.com. you can too!
zdtv postponed my show again, this time until 1999. that's like whatever. it means i should stop telling people "i host a tv show" and now i can tell them "i'm an occasional guest on tv shows" where i show people how to publish their resumes online. not the most exciting career path at this point, but the pay is the same either way, and i should be meeting with some folks there sooner or later to devise ways to participate regularly and spark the web consciousness revolution through the boobtoob.
the postponement is attributed to a shift in focus - the money they have they feel is now better spent on drawing in new cable systems for more potential viewers; developing or supporting new content is not such a priority. more viewers is more ads is more money. if i ran a cable tv station i'd give half hour blocks to my netcam ready friends and have a million living room plays.
but would your ware<tm> advertise then? would anybody watch? i'd do some more guerilla type tv - i mean the net is all DIY, right? the reason i can't get a high-8 camera and tape my segments in the street and edit quickly and publish is because they have a look of polished quality to maintain. for all of their dozen shows. that they repeat over and over. they should at least play wargames or something! late night computer-themed movies. heck i don't even get the channel yet. do i know what i'm talking about?
i do know that it does cost a lot to make a show - three camera people and some directors and editors and then preparation and production. paid by the hour, for many hours a week. and a set is built. and ads are sold. it's a committment. i'm just not used to this readiness and waitingness. and i'm utterly powerless, and the people that explain the delays to me qualify themselves, "i'm just a messenger here." the structure is so tall and dense that a decision emerges like steam wisdom from the crack underneath the oracle lady at delphi: "three chickens will raise your son" - somewhat baffling and definitely unattributable. "we've shifted our priorities." we who? what priorities?
but they still pay me. and they still think i'm useful - i guess they're paying for consultation and association or something? it's weird having someone give me money and not really ask so much of me. or even take me up on offers!
they've decided, it seems, that i'm best at the most basic level of instruction - showing people who can't understand what html is how to do web stuff. which is appropriate in a way, because i like explaining stuff, but they like me to teach products and editors and things of that nature - i'm not too high on that. i'd rather perform commentary; make acerbic remarks about internet culture and hold corporations to high standards of moral action, but they want "to see your character develop on Call For Help, before you appear on other shows.."
i am high on having time to work on other stuff. i'm moving into another place to live soon (still oakland, but now glenview/dimond district). i'll build myself a nice home office there and amy will go off to college and i'll get nice and restless because i'm not moving to new orleans with gk, or living at least in san francisco near seismic solution
egg and i standing in our house on eighth street
photo by eve or radek
so i'll buy an apple computer since i'll have to return this one to zdtv and then i'll think about buying something else. maybe i'll have my own car by then. bud.com will be rolling along, my wrists will hurt, and i'll finally set about finding someone to rub and fix my aching back and muscles. maybe i'll court advertisers. i'll wish more rich europeans decided i was an internet guru so they would pay me to take nice trips.
i'll think about professor kitao, and probably check her web site, and wish that she had written more, recently. and then i'll think of tim burke, and i probably won't even check his website, because i'll figure he hasn't updated it (but oh, he has! frames even!). and i'll look at doug block, thinking of the last entry of his i read, and the nice narrative flow it had
and then i'll have sex and i'll pass out in an afternoon sunshine, and i'll be happy. and then i'll wake up hungry
and i'll have forgotten to look at tongue's website. and amy won't have a computer yet and won't have worked on hers. i'll kiss her breast. i'll hope against tomorrows rain, and then when it comes i'll make a pleasant remark about the necessity of water.
eve made this offhand remark i wanted to preserve:
funk lost it's soul and became disco
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today's muzzik: after jose's and jim's recommendation, i picked up william orbit's strange cargo III. nice moody techno. danger of having a single CD stereo with a remote control, far away from the computer (nice gift - thank you uncle jim), i listened to it like three or four times in a row. it starts to sound like "i am a serious artist charting the deep inner psychescapes" so i broke that mood with some pizzicato five. upbeat, sanitary, perfect pop. it's so weird!
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justin hall | <justin at bud dot com>