Uncle Fishbits

Frankly…. as the speed of culture reaches a fevered pitch, the concept of celebrity and what it means to be “famous” will deluge our world with endless droves of gaggling voyeurs trying to identify with someone who had been on TV for a season or two…. and a tipping point of what it means to be gawked by onlookers will inundate us. There will be, at some point, more famous people than those able to celebrate them. It will be at that point our news will be littered with hours a day of reporting of deaths… comedians, soothsayers, Nobel winners, evil madmen…. as all these types of people and more are amalgamated into a bin that includes the sterling of our community that we respect to those with Warhol’s 15 minutes decades behind them….

…. a daily faucet of death will drip, drip, drip into our eyes, and ears, and minds…. making us fearful of the reaper because he visited someone we ought thought worthier. But they were nothing more than famous…. no less.

But they will litter the airwaves, and if you think 2 or 3 at a time is bad now, just wait until the one hit wonder news makers that were a 24 hour media darling, or reality TV show participants start to age…..

and there goes the faucet from a drip drip to bloop blip…

and we will wonder if their deaths are nothing more than a reminder of our mortality.

So turn off the fear, and go out and play. Possibly kiss someone because I am sure it will help some.

Just realizing a couple uses for Twitter:
(I am @unclefishbits)

The OR national guard may or may not use it to contact their guard (among other ways, of course)

basketball teams are able to communicate about where practice will be held. Or the friend with a view of the courts can say when the courts look free.

Chess in the park to let the group know where and when to meet.

It really depends on your interests, and then it becomes useful. In SF there are people that organize or tweet about food… specials, treats, free stuff. Or others about farmer’s markets and what is REALLY good. I follow a whole bunch of hotel people… we talk about the biz, ask each other questions, etc.

There is a great wine contingent on there… you can compare tasting notes, talk about GREAT specials at different places, find out about hidden gems, etc.

or it can help a revolution in Iran.

So I am locked into a google cloud. I have their mail, their maps and GPS enabled Latitude. I use their docs for note taking and word stuff, I use VOICE completely, their calendar and tasks are the best! So I am locked in, and I see raised eyebrows, or furrowed in other…. in regards to the nature of being that controlled or owned or locked in… and the joke of “SkyNet” seems to come up.

Do you pick your battles? Do you battle? Is the weapon you choose words?

Do you battle something that hasn’t happened? Even if I am not paranoid, does it mean they aren’t watching me?

Well… everyone worries about privacy, everyone taunts about the loss of civil liberties. This is going to sound incredibly glib, and possibly naive (my unwavering battle cry as a fence sitter), but I haven’t actually decided to live my life that paranoid, so for now it just seems like their tech has made my life ultimately simpler. Yay. Maybe I am a patsy, or manipulated, or mindless. After years of worrying about being just that, I say YAY!

It’s like an Orwellian moment of foreshadowing… google is super communist with all the open source, cloud based “for the people” concepts. In the end we get so locked into their stuff, blindly, happily, under the premise that this is all for the people. Frankly I am incapable of walking away. It isn’t a brain washing, nor addiction, and possibly not even branding….. it’s just common sense. Maybe not as humourless as Big Brother. Maybe it is more like I echo poor Sam Lowry, boggled and defeated by the bureaucracy he has little else but his dreams.

Well my dreams are a day of not worrying about the complexity of all my technology.

The stuff works, and it is finally doing what technology was supposed to do… make everything simpler.

It’s doing that, so should I be concerned, while others posture, about the eponymous **them** listening to me, or following me, waiting, watching, plotting…..

Do I simply ignore other people’s panicked musings on the future of technology this big?

It’s like a Brave New World with the technological achievements so coldly regarded as tools with no moral impact, or the creation of a “clock work” world view based off all that Descartes mechanistic thinking. Something to toy with and take apart. I urge everyone to read Fritjof Capra’s “The Turning Point”. An incredibly interesting read. If you prefer an intellectual excursion in film… it was made into a film with Liv Ullman, Sam Watterson, & John Heard. It’s called Mindwalk, it’s free… and it’s incredible.

Oh yeah… surely… we are totally screwed. A “crisis of perception”, as it were.

But I decide to live totally openly and with a gaping maw, where you can view me all the time… latitude, voice… they watch, they listen.

I don’t care.

Remember the Sun Microsystems CEO McNealy? He said:

“Privacy? Get over it. You have zero privacy anyway.”

That was in 1998.

Now these facebook gen kids want to live totally openly… “I AM FAMOUS ME ME ME”

Skynet isn’t taking over, we are hugging it, cuddling it, squeezing it, and calling it George.

And we are the ones who are squozen.

So I am migrating most of my esoteric stuff onto this blog.  If the journals burn at least it’s here.

I am not sure… to say…. that I apologize that I can’t give you a more explicit entry into what is happening here.  Here is what I know:  I will date these entries as accurately as possibly.  I will also be as deliberate, obvious, non-invasive, and faithful as possible.  That being said, I speak only to those meandering these entries… confused about timing and more.  When I know the date, I will attribute it so… if I need to guess, it will be an obvious arbitrary date unless otherwise noted.  In the end just know that I found some lovely old journals, and I was not totally despondent or unimpressed with my musings.  That being said I hope they are edifying and worthwhile to you…. These are all my words and thoughts and panic stricken realities as well as dreams or hopes.  It is all about finding a moment in time… and you have your own.  Take that…. and let it move you.

A friendly group of what else? FRIENDS!… we have sat around chatting about a dangerous concept.. being considered hipster for pointing out douchebaggery.  I don’t even like those two words, but I do note a lack of discourse about those whom might be considered near the level of DB.  Well… the following might help!

THE WINNER! This guy.. is a creep.  Like Dimitri, below.  Like… put them in jail please.

bill bob thornton tantrum

Look at that fucking hipster

Your business card is crap. – this is my favourite thing ever.

Dimitri.. a VM from the biggest DB ever.  Bigger than that Biggest guy.

Mike Tyson… wants to stomp on your children’s testicles.

biggest db ever, apparently.  I disagree… but you know… it’s funny and stuff.

this cop is not not a DB

all hail technodouche (I am scared of being beaten)

a) I have the right to change my mind at any point. Frankly, I can’t remember them. Like.. I would need to start talking deeply with friends and other live show nuts to jog my memory. I have seen 10K bands easy, as for amount of shows, it isn’t something I could count. There were 4 week spans I would see a show every night for a long time. College averaged 3 times a week easy, 2005-2008 averaged 4 at times….  and I was known for seeing two or three shows a day (a live band ends at 1:30am-ish, the Dj starts at 1:45a, and the after party starts at 6am.  I have done this countless times… Devotchka to Amon Tobin to Anon Salon, or Tea Leaf Green to Bassnectar to Breakfast of Champions, etc)

b) There are too many personal, intimate shows to count.. most I can’t remember, and some wouldn’t be accessible by you… gentle readers. I don’t sell you short, but from impromptu Surprise Me Mr. Davis/Slip 6am sunrise camp shows, to Everyone Orchestra including every single SF musician in a 5 hour jam session that lasted until 10am, or the infamous Tea Leaf Green RV set at High Sierra that just might not count to some people (“I’m a balloon!!”)

c) I doubt I could categorize. Watching bands get huge from seeing them at shows with 3 people… Alice Russell (played at Yoshi’s recently), Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings (that Warfield show is definitely one of the best I have ever seen), 3rd wave ska revival with Op Ivy, Skankin’ Pickle, Let’s Go Bowlilng, etc, Primus at Berkley Square, Ween at a smoky bar I snuck into….

d) Or shows of real friends and watching that… Like Bobby Milk, The Fixtures, Alison Smells Like Bagels, and other friend’s bands that you will never have heard of.

e) Bands that I have seen countless times that are always ALWAYS a solid show (plus anything I mentioned above): NIN, Galactic, Daft Punk, Antibalas, Devotchka, Mofro, Federico Aubele, Devil Makes Three, Emiliani Torrini, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, Robert Walter, Greyboy Allstars, Anything Les Claypool does ever (almost), Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, the Slip, ModeSelektor, Tea Leaf Green, MSTRKRFT (until recently), the Suicide Girls Burlesque Tour, New Mastersounds, Disco Biscuits, Flaming Lips, Dirty Dozen or Rebirth Brass Bands, Soulive, Stanton Moore’s sides, I doubt I will need to go on…. Without Further ADIEU!!!!!

The Top Ten Concerts for a one Uncle Fishbits aka MJH aka Fishy

1) David Bowie – 1990 Sound + Vision Tour. Sort of popped my *real* concert cherry (ie less bad horns or lousy guitars over screeching political vocals) It was like a slap to the WHOAH.. the energy… the funky smell and really nice red eyed people munching treats. I hadn’t known that music could *feel* like that.  Thanks sis!  Albeit an insurance policy for my folks that my sis would be safe, they had no idea this would lead me down the path of live music addiction.

2) 1993 with my first big festival. Laguna Seca daze in Monterey/Carmel, CA. It wasn’t that big of a deal for me with any individual band (less the Boulder bands).. but it was really the experience of my first festival, and that incredible vibe that you get when sharing a lot of love for a lot of people in a lot of ways. It was eye opening, no chemicals needed. We went for one day, but that entire weekend included Allman Brothers, Blues Travel, Shawn Colvin, 10,000 Maniacs, Phish, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, The Samples, Sam Phillips, Acoustic Juntion, Burning Spear, and more.  My sis was back from her first year of college and I was already well versed in the grungy prog-indie alt.country scene (or *WHAT*ever you call it all)… so once again she allows me into this world that I only knew from stories.  Frankly… the stories didn’t do it justice.  THANKS AGAIN SIS!

3) The many times I saw the Skatalites with Tommy McCook, Roland Alphonso, Lester Sterling, Johnny Moore, Jackie Mittoo, Lloyd Brevett, Lloyd Knibb – Saw them so many times ‘tween 1989 and 1998, but only once before Jackie Mittoo died. But that was, musically, one of the most incredible honours to be part of. The one at Bimbo’s 365 I saw in 1995…. Just mind blowing musicianship that rarely exists nowadays.

4) They Might Be Giants in 1994 was fairly special. Mackey Auditorium at CU. They started off with kids instruments… playing like that was the whole show. Hilarious. I am not sure why this sticks out, but the theatre was filled with those swing seats you get at the symphony or ballet. Too small, uncomfortable. They opened with these teeny instruments and started to beat them to death…. Eventually that sort of rising energy engulfed the audience and the entire 2000 person theatre was out of their seat and had a spontaneous conga line formed. Bizarrre…. I wouldn’t even rank them as too important a band to me. But the energy, the spirit… it was undeniable.

5) Tom Waits – 2 nights at the Denver Paramount Theatre Oct 1999 – one of the most special experiences of my life. Then again, the Black Rider in 2004 was insane as well.

6) Charlie Hunter and Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in West LA. 8th December 2001. Second Show. JFJO opened with a 45 minute set, and Charlie played one of the most incredible shows I have ever seen him play. Folding chairs in the back room of a hot guitar shop on Pico Blvd. Unbelievable. And because of this exercise, I just found the live show: http://www.archive.org/details/CH2001-12-08.

7) The Flaming Lips on Xingolati Groove Cruise Oct 2005, specifically compared to all the other times I have seen them. There was this blur of staff & crew, musicians, performers (of which I was a zombie bear and that is a long story), and attendees. Frankly… that ship had 5000 people on it and we were all one in the same. That show that night was just mind blowing…. And it was likely one of the most interactive and totally bat shit insane experiences I have ever had.

NIN at Shoreline in 2006, July. Without a doubt the most interesting and intriguing light show I have ever seen, and an impressive wake up call that Trent is doing more than industrial music. I used to love them (saw in Denver in 1994), then didn’t care at all for over a decade…. Then realized again, at *that* show, that Trent will be remembered for what he has done and what he is doing for a long time.

9) July 2007 – I doubt people will fault the cliché. Daft Punk at the Greek. Face melting insanity. That was….. well I think it will go down as one of the most incredible shows ever. It’s totally played out to rave about ‘em, but boy do they deserve it.

10) Soulwax last year… Oct 2008. I simply had absolutely no idea what those guys had been doing. Without a doubt one of the most interesting, innovative, and diverse tech bands out there.

I am not going to limit myself here, because Cirque De Soleil’s “O” in Vegas is one of the most incredible stage spectacles that has ever been taken on in human history. Go now.. pay for the up close seats… and go now.  I will also say the flood of afrobeat, soul, jazz, and other shows flooding back is making it hard to “post” this.  Jimmy Smith, I am so sorry!

ID, and much more, is pretty dumd.

So… a brilliant article, The Decline and Fall of Christian America by Jon Meacham, about the state of Christianity that was printed in Newsweek has roused my Easter non believing from slumber… and it is time to chit chat about religion a bit.

You know… like the idea of the main tenant of this holiday surrounding a zombie.  They don’t call it that in service do they?  But anything brought back to life by supernatural forces is a zombie… so there you go!

Other religions are not exempt from scrutiny.

If you Christians are having some difficulty reconciling that, well.. wow.  How did you miss the other stuff?  Whatever the case, you can pray all you want about this… it just doesn’t work.  Hover over that work of fictional literature that has been promoting hatred and intolerance for the last 1800 years.  I would say 2000, but it was written by scholars from shoddy oral history well after the fact and attributed to people they assumed would have wrote it.  Brilliant!

What’s more, I don’t really want to waste my time on something that isn’t human-centric.  Hell.. if there is a God it isn’t going to be concerned about our day to day operations, and it certainly isn’t intervening.  Egads… using God as an excuse might actually be an intellectually lazy way of avoiding accountability or responsibility for your actions in this life.  “God made me do it”, “it’s God’s plan”, “kill ‘em all and let God sort it out”. Maybe it is just a badge to wear that justifies your insecurity, your hatred, your intolerance, and youor bigotry?  Well.. maybe not you.  Just most of them.  What’s more, it might not be religion making people intolerant…. it might just be we invented religion to condone it.  What’s more, all this belief may be no more than a psychological condition.

I do note, as Dawkins said, “There are no religious children…. there are only children of religious parents”.  Atheism is the default… an absolutely lack of belief, in that there is no reason to believe in the first place.  Sorry to say…

My gosh… if there really is no God, as Teller states in his brilliant NPR piece, “This I believe”…. are we really, *gulp*, responsible for one another, and our welfare, and our future, and our ability to continue as a human race?  Sort of makes you want to pray!  Which is what those who prefer to ignore reality and see magical space pixies intoned on a grilled cheese.  I, however, see the Big Bang in a piece of toast.  It is the way of my world view.  Sort of like Penn…. I just think it is better to live, love, and cope rather than delude myself and waste the little precious time I have.

A Primer

Of course, the religious know that atheist’s are deluded.  In fact, they are irreparably deluded… so much so they have to make fun of themselves.

If you really need to belong to a church… try these!

Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
and their Open Letter to Kansas School Board

Church of Naked Truth
(optimum number of churches and faiths is the same as the number of real gods… zero)

Church of Virus!

Church of the Sub Genius (hi Bob!)

Or… just realize if enough people believe in something ridiculous, it justifies it and grounds the belief in reality… just look at the church of the jedi!

Of course, with a new administration you have a new belief system… and it may be that we geeks are lucky enough to inherit the earth.

We could just listen to Christopher Hitchins, but not be so angry about it.  I advocate less hatred, personally.  Hugs for Christians and Hitchins!

Of course… all this is overwhelming.  Just remember… reality exists.  It’s just that it’s simplicity may be way too complex for us to cope with.  And it may be a hell of a lot weirder than we might be able to understand.

Just remember….

When you feel yourself dying… kiss somebody. Anybody.

You’ll need something pleasant to focus on.

Until then, remember this…..
The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look Death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.
– Carl Sagan, Billions and Billions p. 215

Occam's Razour gives such a fine shave

I am not sure I think this is socialism at all, but I do understand where the furor comes from, and why these bailouts and attack of the rich creates serious problems that will undermine capitalism in the long term.   Frankly, bailouts… socialism.. etc attacks *everything* that my dad is.  An entrepreneur, an innovator… a person who took intellectual capital and built something that makes the United States stronger, better… bolstering other businesses and creating a life for his family and more….

… and he is being punished for that.  Not punished, necessarily…. but I get it.

In this country’s furor to vilify AIG and more…. We are also taking down and attacking the innovators and those that make this country great. 

One cannot attack the rich that are bad, while leaving the good rich alone…. So they all get punished and it is a powerful message to possible innovators or entrprenuers of the future….

“If you get rich from brilliance, you aren’t allowed to have it”

The most optimistic of socialists would even admit, “the world needs ditch diggers to”…. There is no such thing as total parity unless everyone had an identical job.  And that isn’t how the world works.

Whatever the case, blaming Obama for this mess is like blaming the last gin and tonic for your liver failure, you dig?

(just rambling… )