Recognize!

You Betta Recognize

I used to rock a Kermit the Frogg icon that had some iron-on 80′s T-shirt lettering at the top that simply said “you betta recognize”. No exclamation point or nothing. Kermit has some sort of Muppet hand-gesture going on, and it’s just delightful. Recognition: think about it. I’d like to recognize this phenomenon called Dubstep. It is–apparently–a relatively new and popular type of electronic music that has made its way into commercials and Hot Topic and youth culture in a way that I have not witnessed in a while. Little does the average Dubstep fanatic (or Skrillex-only brostep lover) know that this style of music has been around since the mid-1990′s. Vanity Fair is bemoaning that culture has been stuck in a rut for the last two decades, but I think that they are just not looking hard enough for novelty in this sea of multimedia we all swim in.

Those of you who have been to the Man-Cave known as Mordenkainen’s Parlour in person know that I have a lot of loudspeakers. And I have full control over the effects and equalization that eminates from these units. Kleptus, as I write this, is sanding the Saltillo tiles he laid upstairs at Edgemont as I write. Without playing music, the grinding sounds coming from through my roof sounded way too much like these 60 BPM Hybrid-esque breaks that have rocketed to public consciousness.

I am going to embed the video that I think was the springboard to Dubstep for me. I am a music fanatic; a DJ, even. I still marvel at these Video Disc Jockeys that can real-time juggle slices of video as they are mixing good tracks together–it is beyond me. However, I subscribe to the four elements of hip hop so fundamentally that I apply that litmus test to things I listen to when I detect an entire subculture developing in front of my ears. When I saw the dedication of Marquise Smith to a performance of a single track that he loved so much he believed in it, then you can understand why Dubstep is here to stay. Witness this. Recognize.

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This reminds me of Mr Fantastic,  Robert Muraine out of LA who auditioned for So You Think You Can Dance? and was subsequently featured on an Ikea commercial. I really think that the expression of dance actually adds the appropriate video element to an audio element that I already am entranced with. As a DJ, I always ask myself this question: how would I dance to this? It’s a fundamental concept if you are running a dance floor. It’s actually where all good DJ decisions come from. I remember in the phenomenal documentary SCRATCH, Africa Bambaatta would just hand unknown records to his DJ and say “the break is about two thirds from the start”. Boom. Play it. Trust. Recognize.

That is musical teamwork. Think Run DMC or Beastie Boys and how fast they can trade rhymes back and forth. Have you ever witnessed freestyling rappers beyond, say, Eminem in 8 Mile? Switch gears to DJs. Now shift again to (break) dancing. If I can extend you one more time, here is the least represented of the four elements of hip hop: (graffiti) artists. Speak, Mix, Dance, Art. This is how I judge musical culture.

Tyler Rae--PEACE!

I am getting older–I turned 40 in 2011–and I am trying not to become calcified as an “old guy”. I shamelessly use my godchildren–Tyler, Taylor, and Bélen–as Soundwave’s “little friends” to get a real idea of what is going on in their lives as a present tense report of what they are facing in this minute in America, and like all the brilliant young minds I have seen lately, are NOT CONCERNED about the future. Because they have not lost faith in their elders yet.

Tyler Rae has a buddy who makes Dubstep music, and frankly, he is pretty damn good; I am encouraging her to use her formidable skills to manage this artist.

Taylor has been crushing it in both his schoolwork and on the basketball court.

Taylor--LAKERS!

Bélen earned $10 from me by selling me a cat scratcher that she proved that my über-kitty Brother would actually use and love–after I stepped her through the process of selling product at outrageous prices and then applying a “family discount”. Kleptus and I then showed her the Marquise Smith video and gave her an impromptu (albeit poorly demonstrated) lesson in dancing to Dubstep in my living room.

My lovely niece Michaela just brought my first “blood” nephew into the world: Breslin Franklin Geddes, who is by all pictures and reports a bundle of joy. I asked when I could start sending video games and Lego kits.

I actually receive quite a bit of passive-aggressive shit that I don’t have kids of my own; hey, I don’t need them–I have plenty of responsibilities to insure these life forms generated by my friends and family grow up happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Belen at Sheep's Canyon

What does this have to do with knighting Dubstep a relevant musical phenomenon that is worth paying attention to? There are a couple of reasons, but the most important is that Dubstep is the product of young people. Music is its own language, like math–although I have always been better at music than algebra or speaking Spanish–and as a language, it has dialects, is a creative endeavor, and is constantly morphing. Dance is a physical interpretation of a piece or pieces of music. Playing music, whether a live instrument (and that includes turntables, people), singing, or pre-recorded–hell, even clapping or whistling along–is an act of creation. I grew up doing yardwork with my dad, and when engrossed in a task, he would idly whistle. This is his equivalent of Michael Jordan hanging his tongue out of the side of his mouth when he was contemplating just how to dunk on an outmatched opponent. It made the chores go by faster, and fostered my personal philosophy that everyone has a soundtrack going on in their head-space. Some of us also have a laugh track and a sound effects track as well. I’m so in love with media that this is the best way that I can describe what ADHD is like. All of this is going on in my head, all of the time. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

Dubstep accurately represents how gritty, slow motion, and ridiculous the present tense is. DJ Lurk firmly believes that the BPM meter has flipped: we have had enough of trying to communicate music at ever-faster beats-per-minute. 165+ BPM craziness has been around since the drum machine was distributed to the masses in a programmable and affordable unit. For crying out loud, Google “Happy Hardcore” and try to dance to that. It was a mid-1990s staple. But now we have rolled over to the bottom of the BPM spectrum. This is a stroke of genius.

Dubstep is fundamentally SLOW. As in slow down. Look at Marquise Smith: he is interpreting everyday–nay, every MOMENT–life. He ties his shoes. He’s just waiting for a friend or public transport. All the while amusing himself–and us–with an incredible display of interpretive dance. You can WORK to Dubstep. Folding laundry–a task I loathe for some reason–becomes fun when listening to Dubstep. I mentioned (and linked) Robert Muraine before; he’s a street performer from LA. Check out his audition for “So You Think You Can Dance”; spoiler: you betchya!

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Muraine is not quite using Dubstep per se, but a parallel style that can sometimes be labelled as “Glitch”. Again, this is not exactly the type of club banger that you regularly hear on your normal 128-136 BPM dance circuit, yet talented dancers thrive when translating strange beat signatures, weird synthetic noises, and general wubwubwub. This stuff is not old people music; it is a blend of new, ever evolving technology with the oldest communication in the world: beats. And I find that there is almost no better way to understand the mindset of today’s youth than to figure out what they are listening to and how they dance to it.

It is possible that technology like samplers and drum machines makes our music lazy; a great 20 minute example of this is the Amen Break, which is the most popularly over-used sample in the history of music. On the other hand, I think that all of this tech allows for more freedom, more creativity, and the awesomeness of remixing and repurposing music. There is a whole movement of people who use loop pedals and effect units to do incredible things with just their voices as the only instrument they are playing, whether it is just straight beatboxing talent like Eklips or the jaw-dropping stylings of Hyperpotamus. Here’s a fan-made video set to Benny Benassi’s track Cinema remixed by the king of brostep, Skrillex, that was brought to my attention by the mighty Woodweaver.

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For me, it is really all about dropping heavy-lidded into a sort of trance and almost seeing the composition; your body will then attempt to express this feeling through dance, through singing, through art, and through making your own music. Trust me, I still love the 80′s stuff I grew up on that was new and fresh and edgy, but there is no purpose in becoming trapped in your own set of oldies but goodies just because that is where you are most comfortable–and possibly nostalgic. Today’s youth culture is more vibrant than ever, and it is less frequently older generations that push the boundaries of sound. They used to say that teenagers built the original World Wide Web because they were the only ones with enough disposable time and passion to actually figure out HTML. The same thing goes with music. And art. And dance, and song. Pay attention! Recognize!

The OTHER Virtual Lilypad

…is on Tumblr. http://www.tumblr.com/blog/froggacuda

Where Is My Mind?

There has been no song I have listened to more consistently in 2011 than the cover of the Pixies’ “Where is my Mind?” from the Sucker Punch original soundtrack by Yoav featuring Emily Browning. For those of you who have seen Sucker Punch that haven’t made this connection, Emily is Baby Doll in the movie, thus she is in the video–this Australian siren has a pretty set of pipes and is featured all over the OST. I saw Yoav live in San Diego about eight years ago–opening up for Tori Amos of all people–and he is abominably talented as well. This phenomenal version of a spectacular song is just hauntingly beautiful. There really are not words. Check out this (apparently) German fan-made, wonderfully reconstructed version below; turn it up and full-screen this shit.

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If you are just reading past the video and have not yet seen it, STOP. Go back and watch it. Context is very important in this world of too much information, and you will not get a true understanding of the rest of this blog post without watching the above. I don’t care if you have seen Sucker Punch or not; if you saw it and hated it: fine–I am talking to you Beth Accomando (and trust me, I love Zombie Beth). The availability of soundtracks and footage across the Internet allows for the basement creation of a six minute version of Sucker Punch that does a great job of substituting for the whole movie. The real question that I have for myself is this: why do I keep coming back to this song over and over again all year long? It is because the title is really, really thought-provoking: WHERE IS MY MIND?

This is how my parents still see me.

This question seriously resonates with me because I am 40 years old now. I used to be smart–really smart, as proven by years of crushing K-12 curriculum and standardized tests at the top of my classes without any effort. Then I realized that I was more black sheep than white and got into the bad habits that I continue until this day: drinking like a fish, smoking like a chimney, eating as an afterthought maybe once a day, never seeing medical professionals, prescribing myself my own medicine, depriving myself of sleep to the point of just passing out on my couch each night, working until my fingers bleed, giving everything I have to the world right now. It is being present tense rather than living in the past or praying for the future, and it’s the only way that I know how to conduct myself to maximize my value to humankind. The problem is that this head-down approach causes me to lose my mind, and as I get older, sometimes I just stop what I am doing and I ask myself…

Where is my mind? It is–and always has been–fascinated with death. I “flunked” my first IQ test in my early years because I was grappling with the fact that I would never talk to my great-grandmother Massie ever again. When the score came back that I was a moron, my Mom–bless her heart–stormed into the school and demanded a do-over. IQ: 143 as opposed to 80-something. My teenage years of writing depressing poetry document this preoccupation well; I still believe that that the close presence of death smells like Pez candy. Over the years, I lost the rest of my grandparents as they moved on to the next level; these deaths are expected, but they are still sad and thought-provoking. Yet you see and hear about death all of the time: from horror movies to the nightly news; from video games where you can earn “extra lives” or “resurrect” or “respawn” to Steve Jobs‘ apparent sainthood, the Seal Team raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, and the execution of Troy Davis. Death and taxes: we are all just inured to it. As you get older and live more years, gaining more experience, you encounter instances of death that are more shocking than the normal background noise of life happening until it doesn’t anymore. Then it’s all you can do to not think about what dying means to you.

Ansel Adams: Moon and Half-Dome

For me, personally, the untimely but beautiful death of my close friend Bela Chris Feher is strikingly haunting because he died doing what he loved to do: that is his legacy. That is setting the bar pretty damn high, and I don’t forgive him for leaving me behind. Bela was my friend, and I miss him every day; I would have loved to see what he would have thought of Occupy Wall Street. Remember, BC Feher is the guy who would send long diatribe e-mails to the Federal Government calling them out on complex conspiracy theories. I still find myself thinking “oh shit–you know who would love this? Bela!” and then I have to chiggity-check myself. I refuse to take his contact info out of my phone. I can’t watch Aliens or listen to The The or mention D&D without reminiscing about Chris. Because he is dead. And he left behind some truly epic stories, and that is precisely what I aim to do.

Let me be clear: I am not depressed, nor do I consider keeping an eye on He Who Rides a Pale Horse unhealthy in the least. Death is the second bookend, and our entire existence is spent putting this fact off until tomorrow. This inescapable event supersedes other important life measures and milestones: your spouse, your career, your family, your children, your accomplishments. Terence McKenna informed me that my responsibility as a Shaman are to view the “wiring under the boards” and return with critical information for the rest of my tribe; that is why I am exploring “Where is My Mind” in writing. Carlos Castaneda taught me that if you look fast enough with an empty mind over your left shoulder that you will see Death waiting. That is an incentive, my fellow human beings. I guess I’ve been at a Mexican standoff with the Grim Reaper long enough now that I just shrug. 40 years and you still can’t kill me! Come at me, bro.

Come At Me Bro

I blog because my mind (aha! there it is!) wanders through the drudgery of everyday existence, past the wasteland of mortality, and suddenly stumbles on to a garden of legacy: what can I say I have truly accomplished so far in my life? What am I leaving behind when I level up? Can I die today–hoka hey–and be content that I was net-positive to the bank balance of humanity? I am certain that everyone at one time or another has had the distinct feeling that they are being watched, or on hidden camera: did I just hear laughter, an audience, a echo of soundtrack? There is a distinct deja-vu-esque prickle of awareness like some sort of prehistoric monster surfacing from your subconscious and thrilling up your spine: a frisson of “da fuq?” Maybe it’s a twitch of your Kundalini. A repeating black cat in The Matrix. Perhaps it is God watching your particular sitcom on His omniscient media center. Too many thoughts like this will drive a person insane; as A-Pope said:

Great wits are to madness near allied / And thin partitions do their bounds divide.

Seriously, ask yourself this question: where is your mind? What has that powerful, agile, sexy beast been doing the last five minutes? Do you remember what it feels like when you learn something earth-shakingly new and a big lightbulb goes on? Admire, acknowledge, and respect yourself for a minute; your body is a temple; verily, an Oracle of Delphi, where your brain, and your heart, and your soul, supposedly reside. Admit it to yourself: you are unique and totally, 100% perfect as is. You exist; that fact is relevant enough to take a deep breath and continue on and forward: there is only one You. Until you die. Then the bookends–and everything in between–go to the thrift store, and you have your legacy. Speaking of legacy; TIL from Reddit that The Pixies – Where Is My Mind? was transmitted to team behind the Mars Rover in order to “wake it up”. Wake up!

"Da Fuq is this?"

I write things down because I have always wanted to leave an important and cohesive body of work behind me for someone else to discover, enjoy, and maybe get lost in. Shit–my Dad even wrote a book; talk about setting the bar high, /grumble. Perhaps the Virtual Lilypad is an easily-accessible site for anthropology studies of privileged white males in San Diego from 1971 to 2011 and beyond. Maybe someone else will stumble across my original work and it will move them in a positive direction. At least I have generated a record that I existed once upon a time, and I have provided poems and DJ mixes and art to the international community. The world–especially the online, electronic world that we all increasingly participate in–suffers drastically from a lack of original content that can endure the test of time. For every single person that presses record and captures something, I guarantee that there are at least 1000 other people currently on this rock we agree to call Earth that will point to your effort and express “that is how I feel!” You just need to be brave enough to give yourself full credit. For me it is surviving 40 years of being on this damn planet. It’s a fucking accomplishment. And I am not dead yet.

2 INSPIRE

QUICK: It is autumn, and it’s time to start organizing the fresh tracks of 2011. This year–number 16–I thought I’d be a little more agile in product and delivery. Here’s to your 2011 Halloween: originally called “2 INSPIRE”, after three tries–and I have never before “retried” an entire mix–it morphed into “The Greatest Trick” in August. Let me know what you think. 375mb direct download from my iDisk.

“the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled…was convincing the world he didn’t exist. And like that…he’s gone!” ~The Usual Suspects

Communication is Broken

Communication is Leadership: everyone row in the same direction

INTRODUCTION

Communication is the bedrock of the human condition: there is perhaps no greater accomplishment of homo sapiens than being able to share an idea, a concept, or an opinion with a fellow ape. In the 21st century, there are more ways to share your own unique perspective on the world to the world than ever before in the blink-of-a-galactic-eye that we upjumped animals call human history than ever before, yet I keep running into the same old problem: people don’t know how to communicate. I am not talking about using the right emoticons in a text message, or being unable to get their video running on their GoToMeeting videoteleconference, or attaching a file or photo to an e-mail message. I am talking about the raw ability of people to actually communicate: that is, to exchange information effectively. I have recently run into two situations where this lack of what I consider to be a fundamental skill–like walking upright and breathing regularly–has driven me to take definitive, tie-cutting, self-preservationist action.

SITUATION ONE: Read My Mind

As a self-proclaimed King of the Nerds, a hard-working employee, a small business owner, and a 15 year IT veteran, I have a constant stream of requests coming in to assist people with an alphabet soup of apps, platforms, strategies, tech help, troubleshooting, and plain old good advice from a geek. Most of these pleas for assistance I handle with my inimitable blend of slightly-pedantic schoolteacher and humorous, patient, step 1-2-3 teach-a-man-to-fish wizardry; I like to see people do great things with their ideas, and I understand how frustrating a simple tech impediment can be for someone who just wants it to work. Occasionally I will run into a situation where communication breaks down because someone is making the assumption that you can read their mind. And they will get very frustrated because you cannot read their mind. This also breeds the Catch-22 situation of either requesting additional clarification–thus angering them further–or making your best guess–and then running afoul of not having delivered what was in their mind. This is maddening, and I am certain that most everyone has run into this situation before.

Spock IS able to read minds; however he has to lay his hands on you to do so

Case in point: while assisting a small company with the creation of their corporate website, I was bluntly accused of not following the proper policies and procedures. Since I had never seen these policies and procedures, I asked for a copy of said P&P, and none were produced. Instead, a stream of angry invective about “common sense” and a slew of unrelated issues were produced with how unhappy this company was with my performance. Seeking to understand where the communication had broken down, I continued to probe the issue by pointing out the obvious disconnect: I cannot follow P&P if I don’t know what the P&P are. And lo! the client was enraged further. For the first time in my life, I was sincerely agog at the wrath of the client. There was only one option: I calmly handed off all of my projects and responsibilities to other team members and quit working with that company.

From my training and experience with teaching both high school and college classes, I am fond of reminding people that “the only dumb question is the one that goes unasked”. Without bending the thrust of this idea through ridiculous situation-based specifics, I strongly believe that anyone who is asking a question is trying to communicate effectively. You have to extend this basic credit to a person who wants clarification. It should also cause you to listen to the question, both the content and the context; and this simple act of communication–between a someone asking a question and someone responding with information–is literally how the world works. No amount of technology, power, or skill is going to change this most basic of things on a fundamental level. It just boggles my mind that some people are so caught up in themselves that they make no attempt to listen. Willingly or unwillingly, they are breaking the time-honored chain of communication from one individual to another. The only recourse is to join them in the obstruction: stop attempting to communicate and effectively, give up.

"He said 'this one's for Becky', as he watched the last one fall..."

Choosing to walk away–or as Kenny Rogers puts it in “Coward of the County”, turn the other cheek–is incredibly difficult for me to do. It is like choosing to fail, and I avoid making that choice at all costs; there HAS to be a way to compromise, remove this impediment, or find a win-win situation. On the other hand, I really don’t like to choose to fight, but in the most reductionist, simple terms: communication comes down to fight-or-flight, and you gain more information by fighting to communicate than by fleeing and guessing.

And, if you really want to talk about policies and procedures, it is now my policy to not do any more pro bono IT work or consulting. It is very much why lawyers are so careful not to hand out advice willy-nilly; it can be construed as an attorney-client relationship, and now you are on the hook to see the issue through in one way or another. This is colloquially called the Cocktail Party Client phenomenon [PDF, 123kb]. There was also a phenomenal Reddit thread (that of course I can’t find) from a lawyer walking all the way through how much work one “free” piece of advice from a lawyer could cause–and this was via experience, not theory–including the fact that the lawyer had to prove in court that there was no attorney-client relationship (thus NOT representing the “client’s” best interests) and a running total of dollars lost versus a paying client who would benefit from all the skill and knowledge of the attorney in a proper relationship. Doctors also can’t–or shouldn’t–give free information for approximately the same reasons. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but IT people: you must protect yourself in the same way by getting an agreement in place or by resisting the urge to fix things for free. Although this goes against every fiber of my being to help, teach, assist, educate, and un-frustrate people, the same technologies that enable people to communicate often fail to do so effectively.

My final thought on example #1: Read My Mind: if I had a do-over with this same client, I am pretty damn certain that I would handle it exactly the same way as I did the first time. NOBODY reads minds, and when you explain to someone that “I cannot read your mind” if their response is “everyone else does; why can’t you?” then it is time to end that relationship post-haste. It is unreasonable to expect someone to be a Jedi mind-reader (presumably like everyone else), and unconscionable to excoriate someone who “can’t”.

SITUATION TWO: Occupy San Diego and the Threat of Legal Action

A sympathetic OWS protester in Munich (AP Photo/Joerg Koch)

It is no secret that I am fascinated by the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon that is sweeping the globe. Although a lot of assumptions can be made about my politics, civics, and sympathies by this fact, I have carefully considered where I stand on the #OWS issue, and I can assure you that you don’t have any concept what my actual position is. The corollary to “I can’t read your mind” is, conveniently, “you can’t read mine”. In a nutshell, I am enthralled with the real-time adventures of the American people voicing their discontent by exercising their Constitutional rights to be n

oticed, seen, and heard. Some people describe this as “democracy in action” — I think that it is certainly “communication in action”, and as such, deserves paying attention to and forming your own opinion about so that you can participate in the melee in one way, shape, or form, whether it is on the ground at an #OccupyEverything event, around the watercooler at your job (if you have one), or heated and valuable Facebook wall discussions. Trust me: I have actively participated in all three in the last 168 hours.

I have been following the OWS movement since early September, when I first got wind of it. I am very interested in what sort of reactions and results happen because of regular people deciding to come together and test the exercise of their rights in America, especially in this economic depression, this political landscape, and this unprecedented age of information. The Internet has transformed communication at its core: it really can only be compared to the invention of movable type and the printing press; perhaps even the written word and language itself; i.e., communication. Much has been said about the role of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other new media in communicating real-time information, as evidenced by the “Arab Spring” and the riots in the UK, but now we see this come to the American heartland. What are we Americans–who invented a lot of this tech–going to do with it?

OccupySD protesters being arrested for refusing to take down tents at the San Diego Civic Center (AP Photo/ Gregory Bull)

So when the OWS movement came to San Diego, I figured “think globally; act locally” and started trawling the websites, Facebook pages, Twitter and Tumblr accounts, LiveStreams, and other Internet-based intel that were available to get some local boots-on-the-ground information as to how this event was happening in real-time. The experience was eye-opening, to say the least: not only did it take an inordinate amount of browser windows to keep track of all of the latest breaking rumor, news, announcements, and innuendo, everyone participating had the best of intentions, yet were engaged in an organic exercise of “telephone”. Because all of this chaos was happening within 30 blocks of where I live in San Diego, I was enthralled with the way that my sleuthing and juggling of two different browsers packed with 20+ tabs of information would see the same event ripple out with dozens of voices and opinions, none of which quite aligned. It was an awesome firehose of information, and yet I couldn’t get over the fact that if this communication was coordinated just a little bit better it would make all the difference in the world between having a geek like me able to piece together all of the relevent info from a dozen technologies and a regular person being up to speed on the latest by checking a Facebook page.

Violating my pro bonorule from the previous example, I decided to jump in as a volunteer on the LiveStream chats and lend my skills to squash rumors and promote advantageous information sharing across these social networks, calling out my sources with links and pleading for representation on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Meanwhile, let the opinionated move the chat room along with discussion and conversation. It was a powerful, organic solution that included either loops of relevant video production and occasional live events brought to you by a number of dedicated personnel including video producers, tech people, anonymous donations of equipment, and most importantly, several dedicated LiveStream anchor personalities. It was the height of professionalism when I could depend on the LiveStream coming up and someone like Kym or Kali was dependably giving us on the receiving end of the latest on-the-ground information backed up with a full audio-video stream.

Protesters marching on October 7, 2011 at the start of the Occupy San Diego movement (Nelson C. Cepeda)

I was so impressed, I decided to get directly involved. I have been to #OccupySD locations dozens of times. I have been invited to moderate committee meetings due to my percieved neutrality, focus on coordination, and leadership via discussion and compromise. I have personally driven to multiple locations to provide boots-on-the-ground reporting to the members of the live chat so that they could get accurate information out. I have donated a significant amount of time, money, and effort just to insure that people can get factual, relevant, real-time information out of the Occupy San Diego movement so that we don’t come across like a bag of dicks. This is an inside joke from the Occupy SD “Media Team” worth explaining. One person trying to figure out if the LiveStream was actually live said “if you can hear me, say ‘bag of dicks’”… I said “bag of dicks” in chat. That went out to roughly 150 people on the LiveStream, including international news media. Oops. Now search YouTube for “Live TV News Bloopers”. Shit happens. Let’s get back to getting accurate information out, right? I will just get back on the phone and try to continue to negotiate win-win situations, and having everyone associated with OccupySD row in the same direction.

Last Wednesday, I went down to the Civic Center (CC) for the first time to attend the PR/Media Committee meeting before General Assembly (GA). I came in my Boy Scout uniform and ridiculous camo hat with a whiteboard of suggestions, requests, and feedback from the chatroom. I had told my friends on the Live Stream chat that I would go represent their interests; after all, I should have some weight representing 150 people or so, right? I was effectively ignored, besides contributing some “let’s move along” Certifed ScrumMaster advice. I figured I had more value going back to the Live Chat and reporting that the Committee had heard me…sortof…and continuing to quash rumors and link to verified information.

It became pretty easy to recognize kindred spirits in the chat room; they were the ones who really wanted to insure factual information dissemination and quash rumors. I am pleased to report that I made quite a few good acquaintances via the OSD chat infrastructure. That is why I took another crack at organizing the online presence of Occupy SD: I stood up the “SMC” or “Social Media Committee” Friday night.

Full regalia for the BSA uniform; although I have all this stuff, I just wore the shirt

On Saturday, I went to the Civic Center and moderated a small group of dedicated people in a discussion of Social Media. I think we started out with 10 people, most of whom had come down to have this discussion because I had deigned to appear in person to help moderate the discussion, and ended up with an unruly crowd of 40+. I was there to promote healing. I believe my catch-phrase was to “rise from the ashes like a Phoenix!”. I have never in my life drawn on that many hidden reserves of calm and patience as I did for that meeting. If you did not understand that there were a lot of egos and misplaced anger and flat-out territorialism concerning the flow of information out of Occupy SD after that gathering, well, then you weren’t there. We accomplished having most people leave with a sense of purpose, unity, and urgency: the Occupy SD social media had to do a better job of coordinating accurate information. Let’s get to work; I will help coordinate and broker win-win situations.

It was later Saturday evening that one person, understandably frustrated, uttered the words “file criminal charges”. It was not in any way directed at me, nor my efforts for Occupy SD; however, them’s fighting words, and my self-preservation kicked in.  This is why I quit answering my phone, responding to e-mails, and otherwise participating in the movement for the time being. I have witnessed more nefarious bullshit–circulating chat room logs, threatening legal actions, locking people out of accounts, redirecting websites, hijacking donation sites and their funds, bitching on live-to-the-world broadcasts, accusing people of being “infiltrators”–than I have ever seen in my life. You all should be ashamed of yourselves, and you know who you are. In fact, this clash of egos is the Achilles heel of the entire OSD movement.

Occupy Wall Street, and “We Are the 99%” has to understand what including 99% means. A constituency of 99% it is a movement of inclusion, not exclusion–we all have to get along and agree on basic principles to be able to communicate.  In order to communicate effectively, you have to broadcast at a 6th grade comprehension level in the US. A lot of my friends would insert a Fox News joke here; I have learned to insert a MainStream Media (MSM) joke here because they are the same thing: profit-driven talking heads with fancy graphics and reliably suspect information. When you see an organic movement such as Occupy SD actually get a live broadcast of a semblance of a news report that glues you to the screen because it is actually happening in real-time, this is nothing less than a triumph of communication and technology.

No amount of technology replaces simple, time-honored communication skills

My final thoughts on Example #2: Occupy Wall Street and the Threat of Legal Action: Communication is broken within the OccupySD Media Team from the perspective of the Internet; this audience is measurably 100+ people strong and can occasionally multiply by a factor of 10, and they are figuratively dying to help out, participate, and communicate. They are doing the best that they can with the tools that they are given, and they want their voices to be heard. I don’t see the difference in this 21st century of me speaking in person or through Skype / Facebook / Twitter / Chat Room. I don’t believe my voice is diminished because I am rendered on a computer screen versus standing there in front of you saying the same thing, and OccupySD should pay equal attention to the awesome volunteers that are participating virtually as well as the physically present ones.

CONCLUSION

Communication is broken: we just don’t know how to get our point across effectively any more, from the hundreds of communication technologies to the strangeness of having to talk to another human being in person–like during the SD Blackout of 2011–without your iPhone, tablet, or computer signaling you and demanding your attention with a never ending stream of update messages, SMS messages, e-mails, phone calls, Skype conferences, Facebook posts, Twitter retweets, Dropbox syncs, Growl pings, FourSquare check-ins, Yelp! reviews, YouTube video suggestions, LiveStreams, GoodReads notes, software updates, and the rest of the cornucopia of ADHD business that occurs through your tech. Redouble your efforts–regardless of the platform–to understand whether or not you are listening, and in return, if you are being heard.

None of this technology can read your mind.

None of these gadgets removes the fact that you are responsible for your own actions.

10 Years After 9/11 These Tracks Still Chill My Bones

I was driving to work at Fortis Family on September 11th, 2001, just pulling into the parking garage around 8:45 am while listening to Neil Boortz on talk radio when he stammered and went quiet for a long couple of seconds. He stammered unintelligibly, and then stated in an incredulous tone that he had just been handed a note: an airplane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. I pulled into a parking space and turned off my truck, leaving the radio running. After verifying what I thought I had just heard, I sprinted inside the building and up four flights of stairs to the breakroom and turned on the television to CNN.

CNN video in progress

The network was scrambling to get any sort of information on what had just happened; news teams were mobilizing to get shots of the skyline of NYC where an appalling cloud of smoke was erupting from the side of the famous twin towers. The shock and horror was evident on the faces of the anchors that were struggling mightily to absorb and report the chaotic eyewitness reports that were pouring in across all sorts of media. Other Fortis employees were passing the break room, and on inquiring why the TV was up so loud I solemnly turned and said “something terrible is happening”. Nobody left the small hallway-sized kitchen; my co-workers reacted in one of two ways: they either crowded in and stared dumbfounded as the shaky handheld videos started being rolled out onscreen, or they turned stark white and ran to get their mobile phones to call their family and friends in New York. I distinctly remember someone asking desperately “which tower? WHICH TOWER!” because they knew a number of people at one of the insurance firms at the intersection of Liberty and Church Streets.

Fortis Family occupied half of the fourth floor of the building, probably 35 or 40 total employees, and most everyone was packed into the break room. Since I was the first person in, and closest to the TV, I was repeating the most concrete information that I had heard over every two or three minutes to keep new arrivals informed as more people packed into the small space. Just after 9 am, we all witnessed the live reports that a second plane had flown into the South Tower. In the stunned silence, broken only by the horrified stammering of the news broadcast, I turned to my fellow IT Project Leader Ben Leslie and said “this is not an accident; this is deliberate…”

Front license plate on the old Nissan since 9/11

After verifying that the second plane wasn’t some sort of sick joke or acid flashback, I hurried outside to smoke and I called my parents in San Diego. It was quarter after 6 am on the West Coast and I shouted into the phone to get out of bed and turn on the television. My mom, struggling to wake up, said she’d have my father turn on the TV. I called my brother Kyle, who travels to NYC often — he was in Las Vegas, luckily, and left him an urgent message; later I found out he had several friends from Stanford that perished in the destruction. After sucking down several coffin nails in a row, I went back upstairs to the break room, shouldering my way back into a space where I could see and hear the unbelievable efforts of CNN anchors who were barely keeping it together while trying to report this ghastly event in real time. I made it back up in time to hear the rumor, then confirmation, that a third plane had hit the Pentagon and that a fourth–and possibly a fifth and sixth–plane had been hijacked: targets, unknown. As news crews and amateur videos flooded in, there were gasps and cries as we witnessed people hanging out of twisted steel windows waving clothing and to try to get help, and eventually, bodies plummeting dozens of stories downward as people jumped from those windows. Some people fled to their offices and cubicles, tears streaming down their faces; others were desperately trying to get through to loved ones, only to receive “all circuits are busy”. Others shuffled away in stunned silence. A couple people were praying.

Best newspaper headline of them all

By 10 am, the break room had mostly cleared out. People were trying to figure out what to do in order to make sense of what they had seen. Some were trying to go back to work; others were huddled in little groups throughout the fourth floor talking in hushed tones, some comforting others. I have an unhealthy interest in catastrophic events, and I knew that there was no fucking way I was going back to work. In fact, I was planning to leave for home to be able to use my home computers and televisions to gather as much information as possible at once as this was happening. I can’t remember exactly who the four or five people were in the break room with me — I think Art Saul was there — when the South Tower collapsed in a slow motion rush of almost graceful destruction. The wall-hung 27″ TV could not adequately contain the shaky on-the-street footage of the most horrifying thing I have ever witnessed in my life. Every person in that room was transfixed in sheer awe; there are not words to describe the scant 10 seconds it took for the building to irrevocably change the NYC skyline by plunging millions of tons of concrete and steel downward “almost a quarter of a mile” into a choking, billowing cloud of debris that flooded the streets and overwhelmed the cameraman. Somebody screamed in the break room. Co-workers came running. We could only point at the screen with mouths agape. Someone said “it’s just gone!” Someone else sobbed; “oh my god there were people in there!“

The subsequent images on that TV were mind-numbingly awful: people covered in dust and detritus stumbling out of the surreal darkness; people on the street who were watching fleeing the scene. Reports of casualties kept flooding in; they were too much to absorb: firefighters, police, Port Authority…and regular people. Flight 93 went down in Pennsylvania; the Pentagon was on fire; rampant speculation on who was behind this monstrous — and now apparent — acts of gruesome terrorism. There were many more people in the break room when the North Tower collapsed at 10:30 am, and I am certain that some of them did not believe that the first tower had crumbled. I couldn’t take any more; I left work and went home.

President GWB delivering his infamous megaphone speech on 9-14-2001

I didn’t turn my television off for hours and days. I watched the Congress of the United States, helpless and trying to lead a country rocked with multiple simultaneous attacks spontaneously sing “God Bless America” on the steps of the capital live on national television. I remember the President stating through a bullhorn “I can hear you! I can hear YOU! The rest of the world hears you! And the people — and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!” American flags and related items cleared the shelves. The stories of bravery and heroism continued to pour out of the news channels; hundreds of emergency personnel rushing back into the fray to rescue complete strangers; the ultimate sacrifice documented by cellular phones from Flight 93 who apparently rushed the cockpit with a drink cart to force the hijackers to plunge the plane into the ground rather than the nation’s capital as is the speculated target; a dead and injured toll that kept ratcheting up and up until it was too much for anyone, anywhere, to bear. And America set aside all of these petty differences we endure today, 10 years later, and in the face of horrific tragedy, we were a unified nation. True patriotism by 100% of the American people had not been challenged — nor demonstrated — in that same way since Pearl Harbor, and these were not military personnel: these were regular people like you or I going to their regular jobs and going home to their regular families in their regular neighborhoods.

The original version of the cover of In Memoriam

10 years later the political rhetoric has ratcheted up to where the rest of the world believes that we are paralyzed and divided. Even the events of 9/11 are being politicized and leveraged in the never-ending pursuit of political power, monetary gain, and network ratings. This is the ever evolving “normal state” of the USA; our 24 hour news cycle and the advent of all of this real-time 21st century technology allows us to air our dirty laundry constantly in 160 characters or less all of the time. Do not make the simple mistake that America is divided or paralyzed. This is democracy across a federation of 50 states, and the most successful democracy the world has ever known. On the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, I would present to you this very hallowed advice: do not fuck with the United States of America. It may take ten years and thousands of our people’s lives and millions of dollars of spending, but as one of our Presidents stated:

“Make no mistake: the United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts.” ~George W. Bush

In the days and weeks following 9/11, I collected a huge number of nameless “basement” DJs and producers trying to express their feelings about this event, using songs that have deep meaning and laboriously, lovingly, and respectfully laying in samples of the newscasts that we witnessed that day. It is the innovation and leadership that I expect of my fellow Americans; all I have done is kept these archives for 10 years to share with you now. This is why my alter ego DJ Lurk will never produce any compilation that compares at all with this one: 09-11-01 In Memoriam. I hope this is my most-found blog post. I hope someone makes a lesson plan for high schoolers out of this. I hope Anderson Cooper calls me to interview me for my perspective. I hope that our political leadership downloads this entire album and it becomes required listening. I hope that the people who built these incredibly moving, inspiring, and truly important works of art find this and I can tell you that I love you for these tracks. I have blasted them out of my significant stereo system every September for a decade.

TL;DR: Listen to the first track, below: Faith Hill’s version of The Star Spangled Banner (WTC Mix) and see if you want to hear the rest.

DJ LURK — 09-11-01: In Memoriam

Faith Hill – The Star Spangled Banner

Blessid Union of Souls – I Believe

Live – Lightning Crashes

Collective Soul – The World I Know

Creed – Higher

Don Henley – New York Minute

Annie Lennox – Why

R.E.M. – Everybody Hurts

U2 – Stuck in a Moment

Live – Overcome

Sarah McLachlin – Angel

Higher Faith – Angels in Heaven

Splendor – God Can Explain

Jo Dee Messina and Tim McGraw – Bring on the Rain

Leeann Rymes – Please Remember Me

Jewel – Hands

James Horner – My Heart Will Go On

Lee Greenwood – God Bless the USA

Enya – Only Time

Here is an extra-special bonus clip: Depeche Mode did a little seen promo video for Enjoy the Silence on top of the World Trade Center in 1990.

Mordenkainen’s Parlour is Back

…now with video! Turntables are set up, and the CD mixers, when they feel like working. I’m going to try to get the Vestax VCI-100s attached to Traktor on the Dell tower I have running the broadcast to see if I can’t get some of that magic into the mix as well. This is alpha testing at the moment, but I am planning to try to get everything settled this weekend in time for a Sunday Sermon for the sub-genius faithful.

Same Bat Channel as always; bookmark it and watch the social streams for announcements that the Studios of Doom are live: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/Mordenkainen-s-Parlour

Messages to Yourself from the Future

I have ranted before about this strange drive I have to create things. Being digital has helped a lot, because I can perform magick tricks that were only in my head–or I didn’t think I had the chops to do–and send them out into the world as my little wind-up creatio

n and see where they ended up. Case-in-point: my buddy Miguel runs an awesome blog/podcast/site called The Monster Island Resort Podcast. It was his birthday. Through FB, he asked what his “monsters” were going to do for his b-day. I suggested in a comment a Photoshop-Miguel-into-vintage-movie-posters contest. I really thought the amateur PSers would come out of the woodwork. Apparently, it is not such a common skill

Miguel vs Monster Zero

; this means I am taking my own proficiency for granted. Far be it from me to suggest a contest without participating; I threw together a pic of Miguel laughing via screencap off of his FB and Google Image searched for some Godzilla movie posters. A few minutes in PS later, and I sent the composite up to Imgur and posted the link back to his FB wall. Lo and behold: I won the contest! He posted it up in his FB album. My artwork is now–briefly–his FB icon. I laugh every time I see it, and I brought a friend some birthday magick.

Because I PRESSED RECORD.

I am still sortof blown away that I have written poetry for something like 25 years (not so much lately), and I have 15 consecutive years of doing music compilations. I am listening to my record collection that Kleptus and Moonbow helped me move into my spare bedroom after 2 years of rotting in my garage, and every song I hear is a message I had left behind for me to discover later on. This funk phenomenon has happened to me many times over the year. It is why I am passionate about creating. “I’m not bragging; I’m confessing” ~King Fantastic

My last entry was So You Think You Can Blog. No matter how many people think that I was somehow commenting on their efforts (or lack thereof), this was nothing more than a message to myself that I will be able to discover again and again when I decide to do the painful process of reviewing shit that I have already created. I made a Nu Decade resolution to myself to blog once a week; I’m supposed to use Sundays–it’s on my personal Google Calendar. My phone blows up with SMS reminders. I’m trying to convince myself that uploading and tagging camping photos to Facebook with witty captions somehow absolves me of blogging that week. Because it is fuckin’ hard.

The legendary Studios of Doom be alive and kickin'!

The more you create original content–in whatever media you choose–the more you attract people who feel that it is a breath of fresh air because it is not recycled: it is actually new. This is the act of creation. Press record. Put it out there. What do you really have to lose? How big is your audience, really? If you’re scared that someone is going to dig up some Tweets or a blog you wrote weeks or months or years ago, then you need to reconsider what you stand for. Although there is an unsettling–creepy and threatening, really–trend to use interconnected networks on the Internet to squelch your individual voice, you HAVE one, and it is your human duty to exercise it across ALL media. It’s called integrity, and it leads to serenity in troubling times because it gives you confidence. And if you can capture–or bottle–some of that in a blog post, or a mix CD, or a painting; work on a vehicle or a piece of furniture; a biz plan outline, a stream of photographs, a poem, an essay, a sketch…comprehend that it is creation and you are creating it. The world ALWAYS needs more content!

I am old enough to remember when the drum machine and the synthesizer appeared in the music market. The critics opined that now you don’t have to hire a drummer, or a string quartet, or a horns section. Then digital recording came along; now you didn’t have to rent an entire studio; you could four-track in your folks’ basement. Then came the worst evil of all: the sampler. Just go ahead: rip-off and re-use any break you could load into the computer. Music has not suffered from these advances; it has grown and proliferated and been brought to the masses. Anyone with a mind of their own now can Garage Band themselves into the public’s eye. I have to applaud the effort–or luck–that it takes to leave a message that potent in the past for yourself: you get to live with it. Did you fuck your brand up? Probably not; in fact, I bet you built it–it’s like character.

Going back through old mixes and compilations and poems and stories, I am certain that I am continuing to be sincere and amazing. It is important that I recognize that these creations are love-letters I am leaving myself; it does not matter that sometimes I feel like I have an audience of one. Someday, I might have an audience of one more: some other creature that gains knowledge or strength or spirit from some message that I have left for myself. I certainly gain wisdom, knowledge, and opinions–experience points–from other people’s efforts on- and off-line. That’s icing on the cake.

So You Think You Can Blog

www.thekingfantastic.com

I get a lot of questions about how to start one’s own website because I am that sort of nerd. This is partially due to the fact that I have owned froggacuda.com for almost 20 years now, and have had a web presence at or around that domain / name / moniker / handle for just as long. As King Fantastic says, “I be go to hell before I fuck my brand up”. I have spent just as long trying to figure out not just what my brand represents, but what I stand for — it’s part of being a human being if you think about it. You have a brand; it is you. You’re unique in this world, and you’re the subject matter expert on you, so you’d better get to work figuring out what that brand is. Maybe you should write a manifesto. I’d just recommend that you do it privately so that you can see how goddamn hard it is to sit down and write a blog post with an audience of 001: you. Because nobody else is really going to care. Ever. Not like you care about it: you expressed yourself. Maybe even like Salt N Pepa.

Status messages, actually, are the new blog. Twitter defined the concept of value in 140 characters or less, and the platform totally suits the sound byte culture of ADHD that is the norm now. I seriously believe that having ADHD is actually an evolutionary advantage, not a “disorder” nor a “deficit”. The beauty of cheating at your blog or your website (they’re interchangeable terms now) is that you can plug your Twitter stream-of-consciousness in as a sidebar (there! module top left!) and it updates your site. That is, if you Twitter more than you blog.

Lady Gaga as Queen of Hearts

Here is the fundamental rule for the 21st century: whatever it is you have to say, I’ll be interested if you add value to my life. This is an important concept to catch, because of its corollary rule: Content is King. Certainly, appearance and functionality is Queen, but without valuable content, you can go fuck yourself and your fancy interactive 3D website or application. It does not add any value to my life besides a fleeting and forgotten sense of “that’s sortof cool”. That is Milli Vanilli value — the sort of thing that one-hit-wonders are made of. I’m too sexy for my shirt. I’m on a horse. Where’s the beef?

Poet Philip Larkin

Do you know why I write? Because I am fuckin’ good at it. My Mom tells me so. My friends tell me so. My stats, no matter how pathetic, tell me so, because random people are stumbling across my content and commenting on it, and “like” buttoning it, and retweeting it, because by definition, it is original content for free and these entities are finding value in it. One of the most consistently hit posts I have made is a poem imitating Philip Larkin’s “And The Wave Sings Because It Is Moving“. Don’t ask me why, because I have NO IDEA; it’s mediocre poetry for me and that’s ME commenting on my own work. Remember: you are your own subject matter expert. Isn’t that why you got an e-mail address, and a WordPress site, and paid for a domain name, and hosting for the website, and set up your Etsy or CafePress e-commerce, and got a PayPal account and an eBay storefront and a matching Twitter handle; your LinkedIn and Facebook custom URLs are configured to represent that same nickname or persona that you casually developed years ago?

Stats 2011-03-08 at 9.32.08 PM

So you think you can blog. Well, write something interesting. Post photos that are thoughtful. I want to giggle or WTF or click on your status message and go somewhere I wouldn’t have normally browsed to. Make me LOL, or say WTF, or go “dawww!” Contribute something to me that will make me appreciate you and your unique point of view. Otherwise, STFU; I have a cornucopia of other feeds and stimuli that are working harder to catch my attention. Which has a span of short. I can barely pay it.

Do you know who has a brand? Lady Gaga. I fucking adore her; she is unashamedly her own self-generated brand. She works really, really hard at maintaining that brand, and as a consequence, 40-year-old fans like me are wearing a glow-in-the-dark LGG rubber bracelet on our wrist. OK mine is special: it was given to me by my goddaughter Tyler Rae who commented that although she bought it for me, she didn’t think I’d wear it. I haven’t taken it off yet, not even to shower.  Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta acknowledges that she cannot leave the house without becoming Lady Gaga due to her role in the world at large; this construction is moving and inspiring my godchildren and literally millions of her fans – Little Monsters — worldwide and possibly throughout the galaxy if you’ve seen her latest video for “Born This Way“.  Hahaha! She presents her manifesto!

Lady Gaga + Kermit the Frogg

This is the best example I can make of that ridiculous Supreme Court ruling that a corporation is a person. LGG should incorporate as a single owner ASAP to take advantage of this idiocy that is destroying America as I knew it: she could then hire lobbyists and really get to changing the world. If Arnold can win two terms as ‘Governator” of the most productive state of the union, then Lady Gaga can win the first female presidency. Because she has a brand, knows how to flaunt it, and then leverage the results, both good and bad. She just smacked Target to the curb because of a couple of questionable donations.

Lady Gaga is an over-the-top example because she’s…well, over-the-top. But that does not mean that her example should be lost or dismissed: she is representing herself, her brand, her persona, and — as a matter of fact — I know quite a few people who are actually representing themselves well on the wild blue yonder that is the Interwebz. Here’s a few of them; for other examples, check out any of the Blogroll to your left.

• My Aunt Flo’s Etsy site, KnowYourFlo, a collections of totally awesome vintage sewing patterns that are one facet of an extraordinary woman
• Valancy Jane’s CafePress site, Vjanity Faire, which features her signature phrase “hello pigeons” — I’m one of those too; the merit badge is proudly displayed next to my LGG Little Monsters one
• Kristina Rose proves she’s more than just an “LA Face with an Oakland Booty” on her blog — not that we’re complaining about the latter two, but her street smarts and opinion are just as attractive
• J.A. Huffman’s venture Surface Furniture, where one man takes visions out of his skull and crafts them in wood and metal and sustainability and dreams
• J-Moon’s RX Earth consultation creation — he passionately believes we can heal this planet and shift the paradigms now rather than later by being smart about living
• I also have a couple of other naescent projects up my sleeves that are vaulting on to the stage soon

Table by Surface / photo: Jen Jansen Photography

You have no idea, unless you have done it yourself — or attempted to do what it takes to actually run, write, maintain, and promote a simple web address, much less run an entire brand by yourself. It is exhausting, and you can get lost in your perfection and never publish anything. I’ve been there, with a private folder full of ‘drafts’ and too scared that it wasn’t good enough to actually press record — in this case, go ‘live’ and throw some content out there. For an audience of, potentially, one. Everyone wants content, but I imagine that the average person struggles hard when actually trying to produce some. I am serious, this writing that you love takes a lot of love from me: let’s see you do it. I want to come back in a few weeks or months or years and read what I wrote just now and think that, like Eliza Dushku or another one of Josh Whedon’s Dolls, I was my best. What’s in your manifesto?

It is easy to set up a blog nowadays. It gets harder every day to find something worth reading, laughing at, or marveling over. But I think that part of playing things forward is the word-of-mouth status message to alert your peeps that this might be worth checking out. If anyone — even me — takes the extra time to turn it into a blog post, then we should consider this 21st century art. I salute anyone else who is actively participating in the stream of consciousness that is the tsunami of information that is online every second, constantly changing and continually being added to. I just have one request: don’t be afraid to throw some value into the maelstrom: become part of what is being created.

You can blog: now go do it!

The Silence Is Deafening

I found myself out of breath, halfway up the side of some godforsaken hill in a cave that had been carved out by a shit ton of recent water, and decided that it was not in the best interest of my feet and lungs to go any farther. So I sat down, lit a smoke, and dug into my Camelbak to see what sort of goodies I had left myself earlier when I was at home, sober, and preparing like an Eagle Scout for just this occasion. I found a clipboard with some blank paper, a good pen with excellent ink flow, and a can of Budweiser. I sipped some water from the bladder and thought I had found nirvana. I sat there quietly, in awe: the silence was deafening.

My Mud Cave

Brother Jamie had imported some buddies from Portland that wanted to go camping. They had never been to the desert. Huffman was determined to show them “the Mud Caves”. Anyone who has heard Jamie and Freer wax reminiscent about their last trip is familiar with the legend of “the Mud Monkeys” and all sorts of these two idiots just collapsing into laughter about an experience that you weren’t part of. Tall tales and bullshit.

This is how I found myself out beyond Octatillo Wells off of the 8 East freeway in the dark on a Friday night in my new yellow Nissan Xterra not five days after I signed the papers to take it home on a $125.00 down payment. This is the replacement for the venerable-but-dead Nissan Truck that I gimped around to the alley that is Edgemont Place right into the “do not disturb, I’ll be parked here for quite a while” spot in the neighborhood. I was driving a new-to-me-at-least 2007 4×4 out to the desert specifically to test out its personality. It passed; I’m in love.

We arrived where the pavement ends way after dark. After some coordination, Jamie in his packed-to-the-gills Tacoma and me and Moonbow in the Xterra set off into the desert on dirt roads. After about 30 minutes of bumping around in the pitch dark except for headlights, Jamie pulled over and pointed out a lonely brown BLM sign in the middle of nowhere. “The mud caves are this way” he intoned, and then sped off down one of the many winding roads into the darkness. Following, we arrived at a campsite off of the road and proceeded to set up camp by the glow of our headlights.

Michael, Jamie, Tommy, Ryan, and Matthew

Rachel, Gina, Jason

Moonbow, Surface, Froggacuda, and fire

Anyone who has been camping with me recently knows that I like to camp in style. My buddy Steve quips that we “eat like Vikings”; Moon says that my ridiculous rig is “P-I-M-P”; I just like to be prepared, and if I overpack for that reason, at least when we get to where we are going in the vehicles, I can set up my cooking area and start firing up the grill and the stove in order to produce magic out of the sometimes random and always overstocked food that people have brought to the occasion. Everyone thinks that whatever they brought would be good to eat; nobody — or few people — actually think all the way through and figure out exactly how they are going to cook it, serve it, eat it, prepare it, and then clean up afterward in accordance to the A-16 sticker I still live my outdoor life by: “take only memories, leave only footprints”. This philosophy is important, although I might change the last line to “leave only tire tracks”. Every time I go camping, I go for the experience, and that includes the illusion that I am the first person that has ever camped there. If you camp in style or bare bones, please, for everyone’s sakes, clean up your mess so that others can enjoy the same spot tomorrow or the next week.

Epic Camp Kitchen

After getting tents set up, the fire ring custom manufactured by Surface Furniture blazing, and the red checkered vinyl tablecloth across the thrift store aluminum folding table ready to get busy, I started prepping and cooking. Jamie and Moonbow went out in the Tacoma to find Gina and Rachel who were rolling in late. They returned to the boys from Portland (Tommy, Ryan, and Matthew) entertaining themselves by using my Eastwing camp axe and hatchet to split the abominably wet eucalyptus logs that we stole from the Edgemont compound and me cooking up a storm on the portable gourmet kitchen. Even my Mom, who has a Masters degree in Home Economics and is a bitchin’ chef would be at home with this much hardware. Fresh cut vegetable medley of peppers, onions, baby Portabella mushrooms, and other goodies was first off of the BBQ. And that’s when the drinking really began; there’s nothing like getting a full belly in the great outdoors  to think that repeated shots of scotch and tequila are a good idea.

Xterra Sound System

That’s when several people decided to go hiking. I think it is noteworthy that Jamie, Moon, and I all stayed behind, preferring to really desecrate the quiet of the desert by rejiggering the location of the Xterra, flinging all four doors open, and blasting Lady Gaga remixes at top volume on the new JVC KW-XR810 color changing stereo with the 10″ JL subwoofer. OK, we were all inebriated, but there’s a categorical wisdom delta between staying in camp and blasting King Fantastic and going out into the wilderness on a late night hike in treacherous territory with scrounged flashlights.

Bactine stings, but Gina laughs it off

One of the mentioned — and often ridiculed — things about the Nissan Xterra is that there is a recess in the rear hatch that is meant for a first aid kit. Mine didn’t come with one — and Pacific Nissan made every effort to find one for me before I left the lot — but one of the first things I did when I drove it home was to produce a spare kit from my camping gear and lash it into that space. It fit perfectly. So when the midnight hikers made it back safely, but having sustained several injuries, guess what: out came the first aid kit. One gouged eyelid, one monster shin-scrape, and one set of bruised ribs was the damage. For years I had overpacked gear for just such an occasion, and as Jason and I treated the walking wounded, I couldn’t help repeatedly pointing out that we were prepared. Including, apparently, having enough liquor to drown the pain of these injuries: we proceeded to get even more wasted, burning all of the wood that Jamie had lashed into the back of the truck next to Sioux the desert dawg, and draining two out of three of the tri-flasks that my great-aunt Peggy has bequeathed to me and that I had filled several years ago with Hornitos and Glenfiddich.

At some point, everyone passed out after stumbling to their tents, or in my case, to the Xterra. I curled up in the back seats in my North Face sleeping bag that I had inherited from Bela Chris, and slept like the dead. The next morning, after the legendary Murdoch breakfast burritos (next-day Unorthodox potatoes, eggs, cheese, maple sausages, next-day vegetables, Tapatillo from the kitchen kit in warmed flour tortillas), we packed up camp and set out in our three vehicles for the Mud Caves. There is something special about motoring through the canyons of Anza-Borrego with a frosty Budweiser in one hand and the steering wheel in the other.

The Badlands Camp

Arriving at one of the Mud Caves, the troops disembarked, took some pictures, and proceeded to try to wrangle up enough flashlights to explore this dark hole in the side of the hill. Although the cool, crisp air pouring out of it was inviting, I decided to stay back and supervise my cooler of Budweiser rather than venture into the cave without my headlamp, which I couldn’t find while intoxicated the night before. Side note: when I returned home, my trusty Inova was right where it should have been, in my action vest.

After the party emerged from the first cave, we all decided to head up into the main cavern system, which alternated between carved canyons and fully roofed tunnels, some of which you had to scramble through sideways. It was after 40 minutes or so of this adventure that I decided that I had seen enough of the Mud Caves and found the cool corner of the tunnel where I wrote the beginnings of this blog post. Shaking rocks out of the Steve Madden sneakers that I decided to hike in and letting the footfalls of my companions retreat higher into the gorge, I became aware of how powerful the quiet was. The strength of this lack of sound grew and grew as to become almost deafening; it was in this state that I realized that I was the farthest away from technology that I had been in a long while. No iPhone, no MacBook Pro, no constantly updating streams of information from Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc. No noises were emanating from my pockets or backpack noting newly received e-mails and push notifications, no hum of cars or sirens in the distance. Just an overwhelming quietude as I sat in a beautiful corner of a wide tunnel that had captured the frozen sweep of water, receding off into the distance like a series of pictures taken with different camera lenses. Very Marcel Duchamp.

The Crew at the Mud Caves

In the depths of the caverns

Da Boyz and Sioux

I had come out to the desert to get drunk, party with friends, and make a lot of noise: the best part of the whole trip was the hour or so that I spent in complete silence by myself. Like so many things in life, this was a lesson that I needed to re-learn. In my kitchen I have a well-worn wooden copy of Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata, the beginning of which has always struck me as extraordinarily powerful:

Desiderata in my kitchen

“Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, /and remember what peace there may be in silence.”

The next week my homeboy T-Boz came over and pointed out something so obvious I was stunned. Then I started laughing uncontrollably. “Yo Mike, why is it that every time I’m watching [the cable television series] ‘I Should Be Dead‘ it’s always stupid white boys going out to the boondocks to camp or something?” This is true. That’s why I had been telling him tales of this camping trip: people going on midnight hikes with questionable flashlights; the testosterin-fueled impromptu WWE wrestling matches in the talcum powder dust of the desert floor; drinking so much that you had trouble walking, never mind avoiding nocturnal desert flora and fauna. It’s true — I am not sure what comes over me to leave my comfortable home to go out into the back country and “rough it”. Part of it, for sure, was putting my new vehicle through its paces, but other than that, I think that food tastes better, the air is cleaner, the beauty of my surroundings more palpable, the highs higher, each step is more important somehow because it is hiking, not just walking from the couch to the refrigerator and back.

It is also the power of silence; this is similar to being in the pitch dark — another feature of being in the middle of nowhere — the richness of nothing is equal to, and sometimes more than, a world full of color and sound, or “noise and haste”. I am content with this being my answer to why I am driven (or drive myself) to adventure into the seemingly uncomfortable, inconvenient, and sometimes dangerous areas outside of civilization: you cannot get the same experience in the city, no matter how hard you try. But if you make the effort to occasionally soak up some true silence and some true darkness, then you have a recent memory as a touchstone to remind you of the beauty and peace that was here long before us, and will remain long after we human beings are gone.