No, seriously…freaking lighting is a nightmare. Table lamps, chandeliers, recessed, track, indirect, spot, flood…
Lights are, to all intents and purposes, flat out evil.
Have you ever tried to find the perfect pendant lights for a brewery in a 100-year-old train station? Good lord, I feel like a 14 year old trying to find just the right outfit for his first date…
*sigh*
See, this is how places end up with basic fluorescent lighting that doesn’t only look like shit, it also pisses off the customers: it’s just easier that way. There are companies out there whose entire business model is based on our society’s subservience to FOMO.* But not these lighting folks, nosireebob. They’re just the opposite; they build their model off our willingness to surrender and simply settle. They know someone shopping for new commercial fixtures is likely starting a new business. They know that particular someone is going to be stressed and overwhelmed. They know timelines and costs are probably already out the window by the time the buyer gets to lighting, so they base their marketing and product selection on that other little nugget of societal gold: “Stop dithering and just buy something, ferfuckssake!”
*Fear Of Missing Out, if you’re wondering.
It’s insidious. It’s evil. And, of course, it works.
Crap, I wish I had known more about sales and marketing when I was in high school and college — I wouldn’t have left “those” parties and bars alone quite so often.
Ahem. Never mind.
The good news out of all this is that I am at the point where lights are a concern. Freakin’ lights! That right there is progress, if I do say so myself! Remember way back when I told you about how I really am able to write — really write — only in taprooms? And when I hinted about becoming my own best friend in that regard? Yeah, that “really far down the road” ain’t lookin’ so far away now…
Of course, then I just have to find (or manufacture) the time to actually step away from everything else and just write. Ah well, it’ll come…it’ll come…
Ray Bradbury was really good at titles. Yeah, the man could write, too…but he truly ruled at creating titles. My favorite title of his? Something Wicked This Way Comes. Change your perception of the second word to our modern slang interpretation, and…oh my, does that title work even better for me right now!
{Musical Note — Let’s go with a band I haven’t posted on here before…
Edit: the writer created this song while backpacking alone through a strange country. It was a song about alienation, and missing home — and also about hope. It is also, of course, a song about the cost of being away from home. This is, when you get down to it, a song all of us wanderers and hobos can identify with.}
Okay, if you’re not a fan of American football, this post’s title very likely means nothing to you. Even if you are a fan, if you don’t take part in the time-honored fan traditions of snark and sarcasm towards other teams — not to mention the internet slang/jokes the title is pulled from — it still likely means nothing. Bear with me, all will (hopefully) make sense as I try to work a whole bunch of random, unrelated thoughts into a coherent post.
Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday here in the US. Now, the Super Bowl is one of the biggest events in the American media universe. Whether you love or hate it, the Super Bowl dominates the landscape in a way almost nothing else can touch. Hell, we’ve had twenty years of the freaking Puppy Bowl solely as an anti-Super Bowl for those who hate football…and if that ain’t impact on culture and life, I don’t know what is!
Okay, but…
Yes, there’s always a but! But the media landscape is changing. It is changing as surely as is the socio-cultural landscape. That is no bad thing, by the way. Nor is it a new thing. Things change. Things have to change. Life and love and progress are built on dynamism, on imbalances in the system and the alterations those imbalances drive. Think of it as a physics problem, if you will; unchanging stasis is an utter impossibility.
At present, the change to the landscape is a splintering, and a devolution. Oh, not devolution in a bad way, but devolution in the sense of de-centralization. No longer do we all watch the same TV. No longer do we all experience the same programs and thoughts and cultures. We, for the most part, are far more active in our viewing today; we pick through Netflix and Prime for the best movies and TV. We follow Youtube and Twitch and TikTok creators who are the definition of niche — our niche. We actively choose our viewing, rather than the simple passivity of absorbing what someone else chooses for us.
Individuality is the order of the day, and that is a change very much for the better. For the most part. It has its negatives, too. The splintering of the media landscape also reflects a splintering in the socio-cultural fabric of our lives.* This is why I mentioned the Super Bowl above; its power is on the wane. It still is a media behemoth, and an arguably over-powered presence in the American media landscape, but no longer is it an absolute, automatic dominator.
*Or is it a cause? You can argue that one from both sides and make a good case either way.
I don’t do “regular” TV in any way, I only stream. Over the last couple of years the Super Bowl has been far more of an afterthought than it a must-watch. For anyone with similar viewing circumstances — a large and growing percentage of us — to watch and get overwhelmed by the Super Bowl requires actively seeking it out, rather than having it thrust upon us. Now, that is no bad thing since American football is not for everyone. Nor does it, in and of itself, say much of anything about our culture. But…
But, the Super Bowl used to be one of those touchstone, shared-experience things. We all saw it because we couldn’t escape it. We all talked about it the next day because there was nothing else to talk about. That no longer applies. One of our shared experiences — one of those things that unifies a culture — is no longer filling that role. Another crack appears, another splintering of our shared experiences.
The question of the day, of course, is what comes out of those cracks and fractures? What culture emerges? History is, in this, not much of a guide as “today” really is unique (a concept I am usually loathe to assert). In the past, the slow pace of communications meant culture was essentially a local thing. There could be no real splintering as, try as they might, folks living next to each other experienced the same things everyday.
Today? Today I doubt my neighbors watch the same things I do. Yeah, a whole lot of folks have experienced The Book of Boba Fett on Disney+ right alongside me, but how many followed that up by watching the Millenial Farmer on Youtube?
Yeah, the Lambs beat the Bungles on Sunday, but I didn’t watch it. I didn’t care. Instead I binge-watched Apple’s attempt to turn Asimov’s Foundation into a show (hoo boy, is that a post for another day!). Thanks, Mr Yeats, for touching on this:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Wait…was that another crack I heard beneath my feet?
Okay, so this part of the post started as a mere Musical Note appended to end, but it grew a bit from there. It grew into an explanation and an exploration that I think merits inclusion into the main body. Music exerts tremendous power and influence over me. I say it all the time, but it bears repeating: music has power. I don’t do a terribly good job of explaining the particular how’s and why’s of that power, so I thought I would take a stab at it again by using an explanation from this particular song’s writer/singer as a way to illustrate:
“I write quite a few songs where the sort of issue is faith – having faith, keeping faith. And this song in particular is about the difficulty in having faith in things, and finding things to have faith in. In yourself, in God, in like he said, a woman. Faith is a weird thing, it in a sense it is all about waiting. It’s not actually about getting anything, you know, faith is about the wait, because once you get something there is no need anymore. So a lot about faith is just the willingness to sort of throw yourself on a fence and hang there for a while. That’s a very difficult and bitter thing, you know. In this song, I keep saying the main character, *I*. I said, “All my sins, I would pay for them if I could come back to you.” It’s not just about finding things to believe in, it’s about wanting to be able to believe in anything too. And it’s about all the voices that get inside your head and whisper for you to do it or not to do it as well.”
Just how many times can I start and stop a blog post?
Just how many times can I highlight everything I just typed and hit the Delete key?
Just how aimless and mindless and focusless* can I possibly be? I very much have the “kinda, sorta” disease this morning, by the way. I kinda, sorta know what I want to say…but I just can’t get the thoughts and words into any kind of order. I kinda, sorta have the want to write, but not the right mindset. I kinda, sorta have the right music playing, but its not right enough to immerse me in creativity…
*I’m pretty sure that one is not even a real word, but I’m going to use it anyway…
Hell, not even the coffee is helping.
This piece might end up being one of those posts that just sits there, a quarter written, until focus and momentum builds again. Or it might be one I have to bin entirely. It’s that, or I make it one of those where I just sit here with my fingers on the keys and force the words into existence. I’ve certainly done that a time or two…and always regretted the results.
Well, shit. This is no way to start a day.
***
Okay, so it’s a few days later.
Err…
Actually, it’s six fucking weeks later.
It’s not that I haven’t been thinking about writing. Nor is it that I haven’t wanted to write. The truth is…
Well, the truth is that I have been hiding.
Look, let’s be honest here: until you have heard that black dog howl, you have no idea just how seductive is the drive to hide away from the world. For all the booze and drugs that I have experienced in my life, nothing compares to that particular impulse.
If I was a kid still, I would have built the biggest, strongest blanket fort in the universe and dived beneath the covers. Unfortunately, I think my parents would have objected to me taking a fifth of scotch down into that fort, so I guess I’ll have to throw away the idea of being a kid again…
Ahem.
So what got the dog to howling? I hear you ask. Fear. More accurately, the fear of things spinning out of control.
I think we know each other well enough by now for everyone to acknowledge that I do not surrender control easily. Umm, I don’t surrender control at all, as a matter of fact — just why the fuck do you think I’m single?!
Okay…so…can we skip that particular bugbear please?
This loss of control is more real and less emotional, anyway. I’ve mentioned before that I’m trying to open a brewhouse. Well, a bit more than “trying” actually…
And I’m terrified.
I’m terrified not because of the business itself, but because the numbers and concepts behind the business have become far larger and more urgent than my original plans. Oh, where things currently is better…but better is as frightening as it is exciting.
I have faced danger in my life. I have faced danger in every sense of the word, to be honest. I have stood there and faced as stoically as I could all kinds of danger and loss; the loss of success, the loss of ease, the loss of freedom. I have faced, even, the loss of life.* And none of that danger and loss has been half so bad as what I currently face.
*I still write thank you notes to the very, very large mama bear who didn’t eat me when I unintentionally came between her and her two cubs…
And that fear…well, that fear bought a drink for the isolation of being in a new place with no real friends and they hit off it off. Those two got together and had a little baby that looks and sounds a whole lot like the black dog with whom I am so familiar…
I heard that dog howl and I hid away. Yes, that is an excuse of sorts. But, well…
I don’t do nostalgia. I don’t do memory. But this past Christmas…
This past Christmas I stood outside and tried to look at the stars. I saw only light reflected from the towns and cities around me.
I stood outside and tried to listen. I tried to listen to my heart. I tried, to be honest, to listen to the wolf packs howling in the night.
I tried, but I heard only cars. Cars and the howling of the black dog….
{Musical Note — you have to listen to the words. All of the words. This song works. Like all good songs, it builds. Oh, and by the way, I love live music. I will always choose live music if I can — especially if that live bit is recorded in someone’s back-freaking-yard!}
There’s a cream cheese shortage. No, I’m not kidding, there is an actual, honest-to-God cream cheese crisis happening in the US at this very moment!
For the love of all that’s holy, how have we not mobilized FEMA? How have we not started a milk-based Apollo Program to get out of this misery? God forbid we have to take truly severe steps; when the rationing starts, so do the riots!
Does Washington not understand just how strategically vital is that crucial spread? The only thing that would be worse of course is a coffee shortage, and not even in the depths of my embittered, cynical soul do I care to examine the consequences of something that horrifying…
I knew we were in trouble when I couldn’t find the real stuff on the store shelves. I knew it, but I managed to lie well enough to myself to ignore the problem. I’m good at lying to myself, by the way. I’m good at pretending disaster is not impending, and that the world can and will keep going just the same as it ever has.
So, no real stuff. No big tubs of the dense, smooth wonder with a recognized, trusted label. Just small containers from some generic manufacturer. Just insignificant containers of some strange, clearly artificial paste described as “whipped”….
Whipped?!
Whipped, you say?!?!
What is this nonsense? Is this how you fool the shortsighted and placate the desperate? Is this how you keep the world from ending? Is there even so much as one real cow anywhere in the supply chain for this? If I were French, I would spit on your “whipped” nonsense.
Err…actually…if I were French, there almost certainly would be very real riots happening over a such a travesty as this. You can say what you want about the French, but Gallic pride and intransigence would never allow their world to descend into the misery of a cream-goddamned-cheese crisis!
Why do I write of such things, I hear you ask. Why remind others of the miseries and pain to come? Why focus on the naked bagel that so ruined your morning? Because, well…
Because the Broncos suck, and I don’t want to write about that. Because 2021, which once promised so much, has delivered so little. Because there are still masks and vaccines and viruses exacerbating the differences between that need no more exacerbation. Because everything else is falling apart, so why not the goddamned food chain, too?
And, no, I was neither kidding nor lying about the cream cheese shortage, nor about the travesty of finding only the generic “whipped” version. All of that is the all-too-painful truth.
*sigh*
It really is a sign of the coming apocalypse. Remember, while Death rides the pale horse, and War the red, Famine himself rides the black…
Crap, if I can turn cream cheese into freaking Armageddon, just what will I do if — or, sadly, when — coffee starts to become short, too! I’m adopted, so I have no idea if I have French blood or not, but I know the language and the history and the culture — when the coffee runs out, it definitely will be time to go all Gallic and take to the streets. I wouldn’t go and riot over much, but my daily pot of dark roast Ethiopian is worth fighting for!
{Musical Note — okay, so obviously not a terribly serious day. Let’s go with something that evokes, well, something else. Let’s just go with youth, and days of thoughts and worries very different, shall we?}
Finding My Way Out 