Its logic, as long as its somebody that’s in my clique
Sunday, March 6th, 2005
Welcome.
Here are some reasons.
One, a blog seems like a great passive aggressive way to keep in touch with family, friends, acquaintances, and enemies. The passive part is writing for no one in particular. The aggressive part is assualting friends with questions about whether they read my blog. Actually, its demanding they visit the blog but giving no particular reason, then when they do, they find I am talking shit about them. Just kidding. I think.
Truthfully, the audience I see for this is myself six months later and people I know in real life.
Here’s the part where I quote hip hop lyrics.
Back to part two of the segment, the Red bend
Mics of all types, pour beer out for my dead friends
And if I didn’t know ya, to hell witcha punk
And tell the devil I’ll be in time for lunch”Redman, “Rated R” (1992)
Two, egomania. I like to read the sound of my own voice. I do not do it on purpose, but I am the type who, while in conversion with you, finds it mind-bogglingly hard to actually listen to what you are saying, except insofar as it provides input in planning how I can turn the conversation to my agenda once it appears that sound will soon cease to emanate from your mouth cavity.
C, I have this concept that my sarcastic, dry side is a big part of the real me, but not getting enough shine. Why I insist a sarcastic asshole is the real me, rather than an identity like caring father or hard-working employee or something is the real question. But I did not get a therapist for that one, I got a blog.
Four, to publish my archive. I am driven to collect and organize. I envision posting various things I have written over the years. My major writing accomplishment was a popular and infamous humor column that ran for three years in my college paper. But, who knows, I have articles, essays, letters, emails, multimedia, you know, all manner of crap, readily available in digital format. Somehow it strikes me as a good idea to put this stuff on the Internet. Perhaps this blog could provide psychological cover for my digital packrattedness, which is only exacerbated by the plummeting cost of data storage. Right, I was saving this stuff for the blog!
My friend Dave shared his idea for a “life recorder” two years ago while we chatted at his brother’s wedding reception. Whenever I see Dave I inevitably bring up that conversation (cue Dave’s thought balloon: “not that freakin’ life recorder again!”). This is a device that is attached to your person in some way. It records all raw audio and video you encounter, plus whatever other data it can capture like your vital signs and RSS feeds from nearby people’s life recorders or traffic lights or whatever. Most people are horrified upon hearing this concept, but I think it sounds stupid fresh.
Here’s the part where I quote an old-ass poem.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias” (recently released on Roc-A-Fella Records)
I was picturing, when the aliens arrive to find human life eradicated by nuclear war, super airborne AIDS, or Dick Cheney, all the skeletons laying in the desert with their life recorders continuously recording centuries of sand blowing back and forth until their hard drive platters bust.
My hunch is that the inclusion of that poem, or perhaps this whole manifesto, may cause you, dear reader, a Lord Of The Rings moment. That is, when you get to those hobbit songs, you try to read them but upon flipping ahead and seeing endless pages of italicized song lyrics, you are just like, “Fuck you, J. R. R. Tolkien!”
Back to grill again.
Five, do more writing and attempt to write some truth.
Six, post from my mobile phone while commuting. Geekalicious.