like a start-up

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Skip this one if you’re here for the dirty stuff. This is one in which I bitch about work and stress. How did another fucking week get by me like this? It seems like yesterday I was saying, i’m off for sake bombs and then two blinks I’m back, and the list of things I […]

Skip this one if you’re here for the dirty stuff. This is one in which I bitch about work and stress.

How did another fucking week get by me like this? It seems like yesterday I was saying, i’m off for sake bombs and then two blinks I’m back, and the list of things I need to get done is no shorter, in fact it’s longer.

I need a vacation, so very fucking badly. Hell, I needed to take a couple sick days this week (doctor’s orders – i got me a wicked sinus infection) but fuck it, I’ve no time to be sick.

I’m counting days til I get a break; 18. I head to anaheim for an all-too-short family trip to see The Mouse. But while that’s good for the soul, it’s not rest; four days of mad rush and then back at work.

My real vacation isn’t til august, and even that is still in a state of flux due to some scheduling difficulties. If I’m lucky though, I’ll be under water in about a hundred and twenty days.

Ignore me while I grumble. This shit ain’t as easy as when I was 25. This is why i didn’t move to a startup company six, almost seven years ago when I left Cisco. I had offers; I had several offers. But I had a moment of clarity, and though, sure the big money, maybe, if the dice land right, but what else? And I thought about my first run in a start-up where home was a memory, a place I showed up at to sleep and shower, where life was what I did at work, not the other way around. And I turned down an offer or two and took a job in a big corporation.

This last month it’s like I’m on one of those shops, where we are in push mode all the time, short handed and long-houred; and we don’t even see when the light at the end of the tunnel is, we don’t know when the ramp stops going up. It’s that kind of push, we’re in uncharted waters here. The schedule tells us nothing, because for my team, the work is setup, support, methodology. And we don’t know what is going to explode around which corner yet.

We’re makin’ this up as we fuckin’ go, y’know?

I had a conversation with a co-worker the other day; one of those relaxed, happy, eternally competent people who almost never gets riled, who never complains even when he has to work long house (ie, nothing like me), and he remarked, this is getting really tense, you know? Stress is getting to everyone. And I said yes, and dude, it’s going to get worse.

To be sure, I’m actually into what I’m working on, which hasn’t always been true the last two years. My days are winging by and I’m doing work I’m good at (i’m at my best at the bleeding edge). This isn’t misery I’m talkin’ about. But damn, I’m tired.

Happy D-day

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I just wanted to say happy birthday to my dear friend Doxy. I don’t think she even dwells in the blogosphere anymore so I doubt she’s reading, but still, she’s one of those people who should be celebrated. Here’s to ya, Girl.

I just wanted to say happy birthday to my dear friend Doxy. I don’t think she even dwells in the blogosphere anymore so I doubt she’s reading, but still, she’s one of those people who should be celebrated.

Here’s to ya, Girl.

Kurt Vonnegut, RIP

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One of my literary heros, Kurt Vonnegut, has shuffled off this mortal coil, as they say. Cory says it better than I can. Vonnegut’s short story collection, Welcome to the Monkey House, was one of those books that opened my world. My first significant sci-fi, my first read by someone who’d be considered a major, […]

One of my literary heros, Kurt Vonnegut, has shuffled off this mortal coil, as they say.

Cory says it better than I can.

Vonnegut’s short story collection, Welcome to the Monkey House, was one of those books that opened my world. My first significant sci-fi, my first read by someone who’d be considered a major, modern literary figure, my first encounter with short stories. Pieces like Harrison Bergeron, Monkey House, and Tom Edison’s Shaggy Dog made huge impressions on my young mind; possibly the still influence my thinking to this day (certainly I still refer to Bergeron often.)

One more hero gone off into the sunset. Hey, Kurt? Say hey to Hunter for me, k?

dreaming little dreams

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For some reason of late I’ve been having weird – and weirdly vivid – dreams. Odd, since I’ve been sleeping little (or maybe not so odd, maybe that’s why I’m dreaming this way). In no particular order, since I can’t recall when I dreamed these: There was a woman I knew named Laurel, from my […]

For some reason of late I’ve been having weird – and weirdly vivid – dreams. Odd, since I’ve been sleeping little (or maybe not so odd, maybe that’s why I’m dreaming this way).

In no particular order, since I can’t recall when I dreamed these:

There was a woman I knew named Laurel, from my tower days. Laurel was the sexy older lady at the time; she knew Lindsay Buckingham, she sun-bathed naked, she danced like a stripper. I realize now that she was in her early thirties, a woman I’d think of as a sexy young thing now; but I was 22 and she was tan, exotic, and incredibly sexy.

I never did fuck her, for all the times I thought I might; all the times we played grab and tickle, all the times it seemed like I’d have wound up in bed with her, it never did happen.

In my dream, we are riding on a bus, or some sort of large, slow-moving vehicle, and talking about how we never did, and how we should have, but now it’s too late since the people who should have aren’t here anymore.

I am having a conversation over drinks with Buck. But for some strange reason, Buck has hair. In real life he has none, of course, but in the dreamy unreal reality, it is known to be him.

When I say hair, I don’t just mean a few days without shaving. His head is crowned with some elaborately tall, almost sculptural thing, a pompadour, a golden whipped topping of hair, high and blond and framed with mighty side-burns.

I’ve no idea what we talk about. It is important, though.

I wake with her beside me – some girl from memory or sub-conscious. Her sweat on me. I can smell myself on her.

I kiss her bare shoulder, stroke from hip to belly, fingers parting her thighs and feeling the wetness of her bald pussy.

I roll her over, kiss her, and straddle her, kneeling between her things. She’s still slick and wet; we’ve already fucked once. Her pussy smells like her come and mine.

I wrap my hand around the base of my cock, working it fully hard. I rub the head against her slit, working her open.

I push into her, wet and welcoming. She whispers my name. I can feel the inside of her; she moans softly, and I begin to growl.

I’m at a planetarium, or a museum. I don’t know what, or where. Maybe los angeles. Maybe not.

Travis Barker is, first figuratively, and then literally, crying on my shoulder.

He weeps, laments; how could she do this to him, when he loves her.

She’s a bitch, he says, how can she do it? He’ll never love anyone else.

He’s drunk, slurring his words. I attempt to comfort him, but he seems on the edge of crazy drunk, like he’ll turn violent of I say the wrong thing. So I speak softly to him, agree with what he says.

The setting gradually morphs to someplace with a bed, and he’s passing out, still fully clothed, including boots, which are filthy.

I tuck him in and leave.

When I wake, I have the name ‘Shanna Moakler’ in my head, and for a moment can’t figure out why.

love you must have

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I ran across a bit of dialog in a book I was reading last night – a CJ Cherryh novel, one of Fantasy/Sci-fi’s perennial greats, and in my opinion, one of the greatest writers working today (even if her recent books have been someone off her usual mark). She’s a brilliant, insightful, lyrical writer, someone […]

I ran across a bit of dialog in a book I was reading last night – a CJ Cherryh novel, one of Fantasy/Sci-fi’s perennial greats, and in my opinion, one of the greatest writers working today (even if her recent books have been someone off her usual mark). She’s a brilliant, insightful, lyrical writer, someone who seems to understand human beings on a more deep and fundamental level that most, and someone who can take that understanding and build characters with the full, conflicted, confused richness that comes with being human.

Strangely, some of her best observations on the human heart and mind come from the point of view of non-human intelligence; as if humanity’s real nature is best seen from outside.

This quote then is from such a character, Tristan, from Cherryh’s Fortress series.

“This too: love you must have, love that come to you from outside, un-bought and unasked for. Do you understand? You cannot hold it. You cannot compel it. But you must keep it when it comes.”

“How do I keep it, then?”

“Deserve it”.

This captures something that is central to the way I try to live and what I expect in others. Love isn’t a thing to be expected, assumed, compelled, or demanded. Love is something that is earned; one gains it by being deserving of it. One keeps it my striving to remain deserving.

I tried to express this the other day, and failed, and then found this quote; That, I said to myself, is exactly what I was striving for.

sake bombs away

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some weeks just make your head wanna explode. You know how it is when things that should be simple wind up growing up to be problems, and then children of problems, and then problem-clans? They start as a spark and end a conflagration, start as a single point of data and fan out into a […]

some weeks just make your head wanna explode.

You know how it is when things that should be simple wind up growing up to be problems, and then children of problems, and then problem-clans? They start as a spark and end a conflagration, start as a single point of data and fan out into a cone of ill-logic?

No?

Maybe it’s just me.

In any case, that is the week I’ve had, on the heels of the month I’ve had, and there’s the year, 1/3 gone and a foul, swampy road it’s been.

I think I had an entry here but as usual, my thoughts scatter like roaches when a light’s turned on; fuck it, I think it’s time for sake bombs.

Gurus and Beer

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The Hoodoo Gurus are back. And it’s about fucking time. They haven’t toured in more than ten years. This is snipped from a mini-review I posted on the band’s mailing list; the photo is from a gig in Los Angels at the El Rey on 3/28 (photo courtesy of qsysue on Poison Pen. I saw […]


6E4C

The Hoodoo Gurus are back.

And it’s about fucking time. They haven’t toured in more than ten years.

This is snipped from a mini-review I posted on the band’s mailing list; the photo is from a gig in Los Angels at the El Rey on 3/28 (photo courtesy of qsysue on Poison Pen.

I saw the Gurus Saturday night 3/31 In SF, at the Cafe Du Nord; it was the last night of the tour but Dave [Faulkner, the Gurus frontman] pretty emphatically stated they’d be back in September or October.

Cafe du Nord is a small place in San Francisco’s Castro district; it looks like it’d be a great place to see jazz or acoustic but it’s a bit small for a band like the Gurus. Dave described it as looking ‘Like a punch n’ judy show, with a little punch n’ judy PA’. This resulted in a show where the volume wasn’t quite as earth-shattering as when I’ve seen ’em before (i lost a good chunk of the hearing in my left ear last time I saw ’em, in San Jose CA ten or so years ago). But the sound was good, so you know, *shrug*.

I swear, it’s like they never went away. The same energy, the same evident joy in playing live.

I wish I’d noted down a set list; I was too much in the groove just diggin’ it to recall (well, that, and the sake and beer wreck havoc with memory). But as always, Cyril Jordan from the Flamin’ Groovies joined the Gurus for a few songs, playing a rippin’ version of the Groovies hit ‘Shake Some Action’, as well as a couple other songs. Cyril’s lookin’ really old, but his playing just keeps getting better.

I don’t have any audio from the show but here’s Miss Freelove from a live album they released a while back. They played it saturday and like every other damned thing they played, it smoked. They were and are one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen I I suggest you do whatever you have to to see ’em on the fall tour.

I’m payin’ for saturday’s rockin’ good time today, though. The cold I was fighting off friday won on sunday. But the Gurus are worth it.

Update: I found YouTube videos of this gig. The first two are with Cyril Jordan.

Bittersweet
Teenage Head
Come Anytime

…and a hocky game broke out

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This right here is why i love hockey. What other sport would let this go on? We get a bunch of testosterone-laden, over-muscles goons get out on a playing field, work into a competitive frenzy, they we act like they’re suppose to just walk like it’s nothing when some joker makes a cheap shot. The […]

This right here is why i love hockey. What other sport would let this go on? We get a bunch of testosterone-laden, over-muscles goons get out on a playing field, work into a competitive frenzy, they we act like they’re suppose to just walk like it’s nothing when some joker makes a cheap shot.

The modern NFL won’t even let players celebrate great plays anymore.

Not so the NHL. They let ’em work it out the old-fashioned way.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1-25s4uwFQ]

The thing that’s cool about this isn’t just that they’re all fighting. What’s cool is that the refs only stop the fights when it looks like the guy on th e bottom is beaten. If the combatants work it out and break up, the refs just let ’em go.

Here come the playoffs.

not even angry

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Christ, I wish I could marshall my thoughts enough to post something coherent. I just keep wanting to post songs that have the feel of the moment. I’ve started to post Richard Thompson songs, Be Bop Deluxe songs, Miles Davis songs, Graham Parker songs, and several more I can’t quite recall. What I really want […]

Christ, I wish I could marshall my thoughts enough to post something coherent. I just keep wanting to post songs that have the feel of the moment. I’ve started to post Richard Thompson songs, Be Bop Deluxe songs, Miles Davis songs, Graham Parker songs, and several more I can’t quite recall.

What I really want though is to post my own words, and they’re just not… coming… together…

It’s just been a bitch of a time since the new year; so many little or not so little things have gone wrong or needed attention or consumed my time and energy. I have a list of shit that needs doing that just gets loner and longer, and the things I want, like writing, like taking off from work here and there to appreciate the beautiful things, like just catching my breath, are off the fucking table completely right now. I’m having to steal minutes for myself, not hours.

Work is a fucking pressure cooker. we’re working on some new product or other (and as usual, no, I don’t know what it is, and if I knew, I couldn’t say, and if I told you, I’d just have to kill you), and it’s one of those projects where we need eighteen months to do it, so are asked to do it in three. My team, being the support-and-infrastructure people, have to deliver everything from new internal web sites and wikis to CAD tools and licenses to new machines, to new development methodolgies, and we have to do it yesterday. We’re all spinning and the work, the real design and engineering work, hasn’t even started yet.

I feel like I ain’t had a day off in three months, and I’m not seeing the end of this when I look forward. My team went into this short handed by three people and have effectively had our workload doubled.

I am, how you say, a bit stressed.

But what bothers me is that I can’t tap into the creative center to even express it. I’m just bitching here, and I don’t want to bitch. Bitching-blogs are a royal bore (almost as bad as how-great-is-my-sex-life blogs). In the past I’ve been able to get angry and I can’t even work that up for any prolonged rant. I wind up with low-grade irritated rather than that big seething angry that I can channel into sex and violence. THAT makes me feel better, this, I just wind up fed up with myself.

Feh.