The Garage Sale Blog Network

Podium to campfire talks

I must admit I've had times where blogging was more of a task than a fun hobby or refreshing outlet.  I think part of that has to do with me starting with typepad.  I mean if you're gonna pay to have a blog it seems to foment a give me the microphone and a podium sort of feel.  I'm trying to convert that to "hey we're all sitting around the campfire and there's no conch" sort of deal. 

I realize that I seem to get the most comments on the posts that are easiest for me to write, the ones that seem to show the most about me.  But I also feel like I'm one of those middleground tech guys that are considered "techy" in a normal crowd but not techy at all in a techy crowd.   So I write blog entries here and there about tech stuff I'm interested in and I don't know (besides some of my loyal friends and family that read this) if there is an audience that is capturing it. 

To blog-o-personify this take a look at someone who has mastered the middleground.

Hermetic Tendencies

Every once in a while I get these strange desires just to chill out by myself.  Sometimes it conveniently comes on a Tuesday, but this last Friday it happened and when it calls it calls.  So I burrowed myself in my room and loved the fact that my biggest problem was deciding between the "Motorcycle Diaries" and "The Notebook". 

All guts and instincts were pointing me towards "Motorcycle Diaries" but something made me watch Notebook. 

The Notebook was the most fascinating love story I think I have ever watched.  I think I'm devoting a blog post to it because I'm wondering how much of my fascination can be ascribed to these hermetic tendencies.  But it was crazy I fell in love with the woman (played by Rachel McAdams who I subsequently had to devote an hour of google research on), the man, the couple, everything seemed to coalesce with my needs in this reclusive state. 

Touching on a broader issue I think I allow myself to get way more into a movie if I watch it by myself.  I don't mind this but when my roomate looks at the new movie that came in the mail and wants to watch it I have to sort of break the news, "sorry man...I'm kinda going through the hermetic thing again."

*Just so my buddies know, I realize I risk losing some masculine street credibility points by posting this. 

Tribe TV Underpinnings

With two major press hits from the San Jose Mercury News and SF Chronicle, Tribe TV awareness ballooned in December.  The Tribe.net community response has been overwhelming and now having 3/4 of the season in the pipe, our crew is currently on cruise control as we focus more on editing, distribution and promotion than shooting. 

A lot of tribe.net community members inquired about the underpinnings of the crew's organizational structure.  Four months ago we had 6 crew members that needed to be communicating, sharing, critiquing and collaborating in real time.  With our inboxes overloaded I set up a Socialtext workspace for the team and literally by the end of the day we were all on the same page (In the interest of transparency I was pretty familiar with the product as I had previously interned with Socialtext but none of our crew had ever used it before).

Intuitive, lightweight tools that required no explanation from me how to use got us sharing video and audio samples that enabled us to collaborate in the editing and design process. In the small time we had to prepare and supply our first episode, I really don’t think we could have coordinated everything with such polish without Socialtext’s flexibility and ease of use.

It’s been a really fun project and I’m excited to see how the SF Bay Area community feedback evolves. 

 

The Wal-Martification Of The Infoedutainment

Chewing the fat one day with the host of Tribe TV and discovered he doesn't spend his nights deciding what shoes to wear at the next shoot:

""The Wal-Martification Of The Infoedutainment
Industry" is a popular media critique chapbook soon to
be published by The Famous' lead vocalist Laurence
Scott.

"Wal-Martification" explores modern pop cultural
hegemony brought upon by new international corporate
pricing demands.

It opens with a brief look at the oft-demonized, yet
perhaps misunderstood, brick-and-mortar monolith
Wal-Mart:

The most powerful retailer in the history of time,
Wal-Mart, a global trade pipeline originating in
Bentonville, Arkansas, proudly boasts 'rolling back'
everyday low prices.  What Wal-Mart has actually
rolled back is the advancements of the American worker
-- about 85 years -- while perpetuating a bread and
circus culture of the $3 gallon pickle jar.  Suppliers
to the mega retail chain have increasingly begun to
shift factory production overseas to survive
Wal-Mart's pricing demands.  Let it not be lost that
the jovial, roll back smiley face on the Wal-Mart
commercials is fluttering about to the tune of
'Working In The Coal Mine.'

The Wal-Martification Of The Infoedutainment
Industry" is slated to available as a stocking stuffer
for the 2005 holiday season."

New arsenal for army recruiters

An article in the Chron sheds new light on where the government would like to see these kids go if they aren't "left behind". 

According to C.W. Nevius of the San Francisco Chronicle:

"An obscure section of the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act requires that all schools receiving federal funds (virtually all public schools) provide the phone numbers and addresses of high school students to military recruiters." Full Story

The Dark Side of Public Access

In the beginning it was all fun and games.  The idea seemed completely innocuous; produce a show that will be distributed on public access channels.  Sure I had heard the rumors and heeded the advice of family, "don't lose yourself. . .remember where you came from. . .look at the destruction public access has caused so many lives". 

I have to admit it's tough though.  I mean once you start producing PA (public access) you enter a world starkly different from the one you are used to.  People start offering you drugs at random locations, I suddenly felt it absolutely necessary to wear a long trenchcoat with a raccoon fur hat to demonstrate my distinguishable creativity, and I completely lost touch with the world I knew before I started producing shows that attracted viewers by the dozens. 

Things really got bad after the public access grammy awards.  After that my friends complained that I hung around solely with other public access actors and producers.  I got into the habit of incorportating a quote from public access shows into all my conversations and got mad if people didn't nod in awe. 

Lucky for me I have a family who cares about me and got me into a public access producing rehab center which aims to bring you back to the reality you once knew.  So the moral of the story here folks is public access can be fun but just try to stay grounded and remember what's important. 

Why do you wake up?

I suppose I've sort of had blogger's block lately.  I ascribe blame to the fact that I have a job now that is specific to an industry.  Before I was working here I went through my days with no checks or balances on my internal musings and now a 9-5 directs those introspective trajectories.   So I'm making an effort to bring in totally non job related topics into my entries here and there. 

One piece of ammo for this new idea is the sitting around the coffee table with wine/beer at the end of the night with friends talking about general philosophy scenario.  It basically goes from "why wake up and motivate yourself when everything is relative?"  To maybe "Well then why not pretend the trophy at the end of the endeavor is what it's all about?  To "Well the beauty of it all is that life is devoid of meaning and winners and losers and the ocean of subjectivity and possibilites for creating your own personal sense of meaning is reason to set your alarm clock".   

By this time we start talking about "Napoleon Dynamite" or "Waking Life".