Archives for 2000

The President of the United States of America

November 10, 2000 by Dave!

As an American, of course I have an opinion on the current election debacle currently raging in our country. I have one thing to say, given the behavior of both the Bush and Gore campaigns: thank god I’m a Libertarian.

I can’t imagine two parties acting with more shame and disgrace than the Democrats and the Republicans. The Republicans dancing around saying “Nah nah nah nah. The count is done, and we’ve won,” considering that there are several thousand absentee ballots yet to be counted. It’s smug. They are cheap shots. These people have no tact and are of dubious moral character. The only correct position for them to take at this point is to say, “We will patiently and respectfully wait until the State of Florida issues an Official, Certified result, based on 100% of all valid ballots counted.” Period. That’s all they should say, nothing more, nothing less.

And the Democrats. Oh, shame of shame. Look, I do think Gore is likely to lose this election, and unfairly so. If and only if after 100% of the entire country’s popular vote is counted, and Gore does win the popular vote while losing the Electoral College vote, it will be sad, and it will be tragic, but it will be within the guidelines of our current system. In my opinion, the veiled threats of legal action and the taunts to the Bush camp cast serious doubts on the moral character of the Gore camp. The only correct position for them to take at this point is to say, “We will patiently and respectfully wait until the State of Florida issues an Official, Certified result, based on 100% of all valid ballots counted.” Period. That’s all they should say, nothing more, nothing less.

So, like every American, I have an opinion on what we should do. Here it is:

Both the Democrats and Republicans should remain silent until the vote count is complete, nationwide, 100% all ballots counted, and Officially Certified by the appropriate State Officials.

The voters of Palm Beach who feel that they were cheated out of a fair vote should sue, on their own with no assistance from any political party, to ensure that this never happens again. They should win their suit, and the outcome should be that split ballots and butterfly ballots are not used again, and that all voters have the right to inspect their ballots in their states well before the election day. In the future then, if they fail to do so, it will be of their own doing. That should be the end of the debate in Florida.

Assuming that the outcome of this debacle is that Gore wins the popular vote, and that Bush wins the Electoral College vote, here’s what I think each camp should do:

The Gore Campaign should issue the following statement: “In the interests of what is the best course of action for the citizens of the United States, the Gore Campaign and the Democratic Party will seek absolutely no legal remedies for the outcome of this election. although we still feel that the people have spoken, as we received a majority of the popular vote, our Constitution provides that the popular vote does not elect the President of the United States. Therefore, we graciously concede the Presidency to George W. Bush. We hope that this historic election will give the citizens of the United States pause, and that the country now realizes the importance of each vote, and that we can now join forces to work for election and campaign finance reform. America is indeed a great democracy, and our ability to set aside our differences and come together to work towards a solution should now be how we prove that to the world.”

The Bush Campaign should then issue the following statement: “In the interests of what is the best course of action for the United States of America, we will seek no legal action in this election whatsoever, and we graciously accept the concession of Vice President Gore. although we have not won the popular vote, our system of election provides for the Electoral College to select the President of the United States, and we rightly won the Electoral votes. The Constitution provides that the President is selected by the Electoral College, not the popular vote, and we will do our best to fill the role of the Presidency with the levity and dignity that the job requires. We hope that this historic election will give the citizens of the United States pause, and that the country now realizes the importance of each vote, and that we can now join forces to work for election and campaign finance reform. America is indeed a great democracy, and our ability to set aside our differences and come together to work towards a solution should now be how we prove that to the world.”

We should all then get on with our lives until December, when the Electoral College meets. At which time, they should say the following:

“This has been a contentious and historic election, and it has placed the nature of our electoral process into the front of America’s thoughts. We have cast our votes, as determined by the laws of each of our individual states, and in doing so, we have exercised our Constitutional right to select the President of the United States. Ladies and Gentlemen, the next President of the United States: Albert Gore.

Several factors have influenced this decision: First, it is our Constitutional charge and right to select the President. Those of us who were legally bound by our respective states to vote one way, did so. Those of us who were free to vote our conscious did so as well, and the American people, regardless of their State elected Al Gore in the popular vote. Now, this might seem to circumvent “State’s rights” but nothing could be further from the case. We are selecting the leader of the entire United States, and for this purpose, there are no individual States, there is only the United States of America and as one, collective body, the majority of Americans selected Al Gore, and in our selection of him for the Presidency, we are simply echoing the wishes of the majority of the citizens of the United States.”

And that’s all the Electoral College should say. And then, Al Gore and the Democrats should graciously accept the role. And George Bush should graciously concede.

And I live in a fantasy land… sigh

Now, before you accuse me of some hidden agenda, keep in mind, not only am I a Libertarian, I cast my vote Libertarian as well. I don’t think either Al Gore or George Bush are of Presidential caliber, which is why they are both behaving so horribly in this current situation. But I also think that the people have spoken, and if a majority of them selected Al Gore in the popular vote, then that’s that. For Bush to win on a technicality is no more noble than Al Gore to win in a Court of Law.

There is no clear winner in this election; there is only a loser: the American People. Both candidates have shown that the Presidency of the United States is a role they don’t possess the dignity and intelligence to fill. They and their parties have both behaved as children, not as leaders, and in this time of crisis, neither has risen to the role of statesmen. It makes me shudder at the thought of either of them dealing with an international crisis. What name calling, derision, and underhanded legal tactics will we be subjected to then?

The only clear course of action, at this point, is for we, the people of the United States of America to reform our process. Now is the time for us to join together, reform our elections, design better ballots, update an antiquated electoral system, even if it means amending the United States Constitution.

It is clear from this tragedy that we need some electoral reform. And the best thing we can do for ourselves and our country is to pass campaign finance reform, take the big money out of politics and open the doors to dissenting points of view in our campaigns and our debates.

Right now, we are standing on a very steep, rocky, and dangerous precipice. The only thing we can do to save ourselves is to join together, and take a cautious step back from the edge.

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: politics

The Bobby Knight Controversy

September 10, 2000 by Dave!

I am a resident of Bloomington Indiana and a former student of Indiana University. As such, I’m disappointed by everyone involved in all of these alleged incidents surrounding Coach Knight.

I’m ashamed that a coach with the experience and track record of Coach Knight can’t own up to his bad temper and seek counseling or help when it is clear to even the most ardent Knight supporter that he has an anger management problem. It saddens me to see him tarnish his legacy at IU with these continued outbursts.

I’m ashamed of the Knight critics who use his every word and gesture as an excuse to pony up to the media and see themselves on television. They don’t really care about the students. They care about hearing themselves speak.

I’m ashamed of the Knight supporters who threaten students with bodily harm simply for questioning the coach’s behavior. Support Knight by talking about his record, or his graduation rates, or the positive things former players say. Threatening students for speaking out is unconscionable.

I’m ashamed of Indiana University President Miles Brand and the trustees of Indiana University. If Knight should have been removed, it most certainly should have been over the alleged choking of a student and a player, not over a lecture on respect and manners. If Knights actions and behavior have cast a dark shadow over our peaceful town and school, Brand and the trustees have done nothing effective to handle these situations.

In the press conference announcing Coach Knight’s removal, President Brand cited a number of incidents that he said showed a pattern of behavior inconsistent with the “zero tolerance” policy. I would expect the President of a major university to understand the definition of “zero tolerance”. “Zero” tolerance would imply that any indiscretion by Coach Knight should have lead to his removal. If the policy were truly “zero” tolerance, by Brand’s own admissions today, he should have never progressed this far.

Truth be told, I will miss Knight; but I am glad he’s gone. I’ll miss him as a coach, and what he has done for the basketball program and young men he’s coached over the years at IU. He’s brought Indiana some great championship moments, and he’s helped many students graduate and get proper educations, which is something that can’t be said for many college coaches.

But I’m glad that finally, people will be able to talk about Indiana University and Hoosier Basketball without making it a cult of personality about Coach Knight. And I’m glad that I won’t continually have to apologize to family and friends for his behavior when they ask me about life in Bloomington.

I would have hoped that Coach Knight would have left a legacy of great Hoosier basketball, not one of scandal. And I would have hoped that Miles Brand would have acted as the leader the position of university president demands, not by cowering, backpedaling and only now owning up to his duties.

If the only way to repair the tarnished IU basketball program is by dismissing Knight, I also think that President Miles Brand should resign as well. He’s demonstrated that he never really had the best interests of the students in mind, or he would have enforced the “zero” tolerance policy when any of the incidents on his press conference list occurred, not just when an incident went public. What Brand demonstrated today was that the university didn’t really have a zero tolerance policy about Coach Knight: the university really had a zero tolerance policy for public scandal. If Knight’s actions are inconsistent with the professionalism we expect from our coaches and leaders, then Brand’s actions are inconsistent with the leadership expected of a university president.

I can only hope that in time, Indiana University can put all of this behind us, and be remembered for what it is: a world class University with several outstanding academic schools and a school with a great basketball legacy.
Most of all, I hope that sports fans and citizens around the country understand that Hoosiers love basketball, and that we are not all foul-mouthed grandstanders or duplicitous administrators concerned only about public relations. Not every supporter of Bobby Knight is so blinded by rage that they would threaten the lives of students who might actually have legitimate complaints about the Coach and his conduct. And not every critic of Knight and his actions is a media hound only seeking to further their own agenda of hate against a man who has been a great coach. Most of the Hoosiers I’ve met are decent, hard working, good people. Please don’t let the actions of all of these sordid characters influence the way you view our state, our universities, or Hoosiers.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: basketball bloomington personal

Open Source Everything

August 25, 2000 by Dave!

Today a friend of mine and I were discussing some of the cool new things that we’d like to develop and got into an interesting discussion about the nature of work, what it means to be creative, and how it might be possible for creative people to make a living in the new economy.

You see, we’ve both lived and worked in the “Silicon Valley” start-up environment, and to be honest, neither of us cared for it much. At the risk of sounding hopelessly backward, we value our friends and our family more than our options. We’d both rather spend a lovely Saturday having a barbeque with our friends than having a catered lunch as repayment at the office for sacrificing a weekend.

So we left the valley, and we left California. Where we are doesn’t really matter now, because it’s immaterial to our business. We write software, it sells very well, and it makes us a good living. We sell it on the web and our customers are all over the world. They can reach us by phone, fax, e-mail, the web, and even traditional mail. It’s not hard to reach us, and it’s not hard for us to communicate with our customers. And yet, with this (albeit small scale compared to a tech IPO) success, we still have time for our friends and our families, and feel like we are living good lives that are separate from our work.

But I would hate to give you the idea we are slackers, far from it. We like to create, and we are always coming up with new ideas we’d like to work on. It’s been my experience, having studied theatre and fine arts in school, and ending up in technology, that software and hardware developers are some of the most creative and inspired people that I know. What drives them (indeed, us) to create is as diverse as what drives all artists to create, and it often has nothing to do with money. That would be hard for many marketing wonks and MBAs to fathom, but really, I don’t know many engineers who do what they do simply for the money. In fact, I know more than a handful who would do what they do regardless of the pay. Now, don’t get me wrong, these are very intelligent people, and if some VP whose contributions are all filtered through a focus group is getting rich, then the engineers who designed the thing in the first place deserve a cut!

But all too often, the creators get marginalized. What started out as a truly visionary idea goes through so many focus groups and marketing studies that the end result is a often a far cry from the original inspiration. I’ve seen a number of really great, awe-inspiring ideas be lost in organization churn, or obliterated by “mass market” ideals. This always makes me sad, not just for the developer who loses their baby, but for the loss of the idea itself.

Another way great ideas are destroyed is by the whole “venture capital” process itself. Take a look at great companies with great products. Then try to find how many of the original creators or innovators are still around after going through a few rounds of VC. Not very many. Most will be replaced by a stronger management team in the blink of a stock ticker. Those that manage to stay on in a role are often turned into dead weight, as a mouthpiece, or worse, relegated to some obscure management position designed primarily to keep them out of the way. The percentages of ownership that are retained by the creator of an idea is actually pretty sickening. In an article in Business 2.0, Jim Clark points out that the most common mistake entrepreneurs make is over-valuing themselves. What??! Have you heard such non-sense? I guess that’s true in the new e-conomy. Fuck the innovators; the only people who count are the ones who grow market share. Look, I understand the value provided by good sales and marketing people. However, when company founders end up holding less than 10% of the equity in a company, I think that’s pretty crappy. Hell, if you ask me, anything less than 50% is pretty crappy. What a way to be paid for you innovation: loosing control of your company. Yeah, yeah– 10% of a 50 Billion dollar company is better that 50% of a 5 million dollar company. But come on! How much money is enough? And is that money really worth giving up control of your vision? Your idea? And watching your idea become just another mediocre product in the already rotting pool of dead .coms?

After all, it’s not just the innovators who suffer when VC enters the picture. The innovations suffer too. Many great ideas are turned from something truly creative into just another B2B, P2P, B2C solution. Focus groups can provide valuable feedback, but then again, too many cooks’ over analysis of market trends can lead to bad choices and compromises in the product development cycle of a new business.

So the process of building a business in America today leads to the destruction of the innovator and innovation. How can this be changed? How can the creative still manage to create, retain control over their ideas, and still eat?

What could possibly be our salvation?

Open Source.

Everything.

Seriously. I think it’s an idea whose time has come. Now stop laughing. To anyone skeptical of open source reading the article: I’m serious. To any open source advocates reading this article, I think you’ve only scratched the surface of possibility. Open source doesn’t mean free, it means open, and in the end I think it can benefit creators and business interests alike.

I think we should open up everything. Everything. Software. Hardware. All of it. Why? Because it’s good for you. It’s good for me. It’s good for us. And it’s good for the market.

But the market gods cry! How can we make money! How can we protect our “industry secrets!” Why do I care? Why do you care? And why did we get all secretive in the first place? Usually, secrets exist to protect bad products. After all, if no one else can make the same product better, your market is protected. That’s why I think open source has many people on the run; open source might actually provide consumers with choice in the market, and give them access to superior quality technology. Man, in that world, there are a lot of bad companies that stand to go under.
So how does anyone make money with open source? The creators and the companies retailing products? Here’s how everyone can make money: producing innovative things people want and like. So now let’s talk about specifics with an example.

I’m a media junkie. I take in as much media, be it television, radio, the net, as possible. But I’m also a mobile guy. I’m always on the run, and I certainly don’t bend my schedule for television. I want to be able to watch Nova when I want, damn it. Not when my local PBS station airs it. And speaking of which, I might want to watch it on my computer in the office, over the network, on my lunch break. Why not? There’s no real reason I shouldn’t be able to do this.

So, let’s say I get a real itch to have this kind of “media convergence” and I decide to do something about it. I go and I build a machine for my home, based on Linux, that can capture video, encode it and make it available on the Net via my DSL connection. Let’s call this my “Convergence Box”. Cool. I need to write some software to make this all seamless, so maybe I write a web application for scheduling the Convergence Box, and some other software for selecting shows to view, stream it, etc. etc. Now, all of this is some work, and I think it’s pretty valuable. Evidently, so do companies like Tivo and Replay TV (even though they still lack some of the cool features of the Convergence Box, like networking).

Well, now that I’ve gone through the trouble of building this box, I think I’ve got something pretty cool, I show it to some friends, and they want one two. So what are my options? I can:

1. Build it for them. Hey, I don’t have the time.
2. Start a company to build these things. Sure. And go through the hell of subjugating myself and my idea to MBAs and lose all of the cool functionality that was why I built this thing in the first place.
3. Sell it to a company direct. Yeah, if you have the connections, sure. Go for it.
4. Give my friends the plans & software. Hey, my friends are smart. They can make it themselves, and they get a cool box out of it, and I get credit. Neat deal.

In fact, the whole project could stop right there. I don’t have to do anything with it. I created it on my own, I own the idea, and I didn’t do it to get rich. I did it because its an idea for something I needed or wanted, and no one sold it, so I had to build it. But I know that many times, if it’s a product or something I want, chances are someone else wants it too.

So, let’s say I take this Convergence Box and “open source” it. I publish my plans on the net, with a license that effectively says “For personal use, all these plans and software is free. If you want to use it for business, write me.” Yeah, it might cost me a little to have a lawyer review this license, but regardless, that investment is pretty cheap.

Now anyone on the net can build my box if they want to. A great idea is shared with a community of people who can take something cool, build it, use it, extend it in any way they see fit. I like that. I personally think it feels pretty good to share. We all get a cool new toy, and those with the time, knowledge and parts get to build and use my good idea.

But what if a company decides this is a product who’s time has come? What then? Well, easy. They license it too. In fact, this is the best thing a company could possibly do! After all, I’ve done the R&D. I’ve built the prototype. I’ve established a market. Now, they could license my plans, for say a nice royalty, and everyone is a winner.

The company can take my idea, maybe make it more efficient, maybe dumb it down for the mass market, and they walk away with a product they can sell to the mass market of people who don’t want to tinker with hardware and software (and that’s a pretty big market). They can even remove features that might get them into hot litigation. Whatever. They are free to do so, and I still get paid and make money from the base idea. All of the technophiles who want a feature-rich, custom machine, well, they get what they want too, from my open source license. Let’s face it, those people aren’t eating into the company’s market at all, they wouldn’t want the dumbed-down mass market version anyway. If anything, letting these people use it for free is like an investment in community development: everyone wins.

“But hey!” you cry, “there’s nothing to stop another company from licensing the idea too! So who protects the first company’s interests?” Well, okay. Let’s take a look at that. We have two companies, Company X and Company Y. They both want to make the “Convergence Box”. Fine. Why not? There’s a good chance that the market is big enough for both of them, and that my extending the base features established in the original idea, they could actually develop different markets. One might even have a machine that would appeal to those tech savvy buyers out there.

But even if Company Y wants to make a similar product to Company X, they can too. People can then freely choose between product X and Y, and base their decision on minor issues, like say, customer service. Now each company has a reason to build a good product, because the better product will win in the market. What could be better for the consumer? And people who don’t mind technical info and want a supped up version of the product get to build one themselves for the costs of supplies, all thanks to open source. Technological innovation reigns supreme, the market economy does it’s job, and we all share. The company making the best spin off product wins the market, and the developer gets to eat! What could be better?

Now, I realize this idea is not without flaws. Greed always complicates matters like this. But I offer this little diatribe as encouragement to those of you out there that are tired of seeing good ideas go to waste. For innovators who are tired of seeing their ideas compromised. For developers who want to create, but want to eat. For companies with the vision to really adapt to a new economy, and not just want to slap an “e.com” to their name. This a chance to do some real outside-the-box thinking and profit. I think there are enough of us out there that we will survive. And if I’m right, we’ll prosper. And if I’m wrong? I’d rather survive on my terms than compromise my ideals to survive on theirs.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: open personal source technology

I hope you know this will go down on your permanent record.

August 22, 2000 by Dave!

So what do you want to be when you grow up? And don’t tell me that you are already a grown up. I know better. You’re surfing the web, aren’t you?

This is actually a problem that seems to be facing a number of my friends lately: what do I want to do with the rest of my life? As if there is an easy answer. It’s a shame, we can’t feel free to try several different things and be free to fail without making us feel worthless as humans. I think that is a by-product of our society, and as we move into a information society, it’s only getting worse.

Do you remember way back in high school, or even earlier, when you met with a guidance counselor? Their sole purpose for existence is to help you get started on the right career path, so you can take the right classes and go to the right schools. And you’re expected to choose that career path in your adolescence. Of course, at that age they’d never trust you with sex education or dream of teaching you about condoms, but by golly, you should certainly be ready to choose what you want to spend the next 40 plus years of your life doing to occupy your time!

So, with parents and educators breathing down your neck, you choose your lot in life, and you are placed on a precipice called “your future” and then without warning, they shove you off the edge.

But never fear! There’s always time to change those horrible decisions of youth once you get to college. After all, that’s what majors are for: changing. So now, you are out of the nest, on your own for the first time in life and finally you are free to make your own decisions. So when you aren’t getting drunk, sleeping late, or selling plasma you are free to contemplate your future. And figure out how to summon up the courage to tell your dad that pre-med isn’t your destiny, you really want to paint. Good luck. Have another jello shot.

But now you’re getting older, the university is informing you that you’ve already changed your major four times, and if you want to graduate in four… five… six years, you’d better finally decide and stick to it. Good thing they have all of those easily accessible counselors too. Just take a number, wait for days, fill out these forms. Before you know it you can meet for 15 minutes with someone who barely has more education than you, and after reviewing your transcripts, will give you the best advice possible. For the university. You see, it’s in the university’s best interest for you to graduate in four years. It looks better in their statistics. And the counselor is paid by the university. Hey, you aren’t a student in this new e-conomy, you know, you’re a customer. They aren’t a learning institution existing for the pursuit of knowledge, they are a training facility, designed to crank out employable graduates in a four year program. Conflict of interest? You bet.

But that’s okay. You get the degree and you’re golden. You do the job search. You get depressed. You find the holy grail of jobs. You don’t get it. But another, acceptable job comes along and you are in the workplace. I hope it’s a good one, because changing your career path now is harder than swallowing broken glass.
Why is that? Because a “service” based e-conomy requires that the work being done is being done by a skilled worker. And becoming a skilled worker means that some company is going to have to invest time in training you, and once they’ve done that, they want a return on their investment. This is it– you are rapidly approaching the point of no return. That happens in your late 20’s. Here’s why:

1. Sometime in your late 20’s, for reasons unknown to biologists, you will actually want to stop living like a student. That means you might want furniture that isn’t plaid and smelly, and you might want a nice apartment that you don’t share with 3 other people.

2. You’re no longer “just out of school”. You know it, and any employer looking at your resume knows it. That means that they don’t think they can get you as cheap as a recent grad, because of your new lifestyle desires (see #1).

3. Any new employer will want to know what you’ve been doing for the last X years. They will automatically assume you want to keep doing something along the lines of whatever it was you’ve been doing.

4. If you inform them that you want to do something new, no matter what they tell you, they will think “Ah� they were bad at doing it. That’s why they want a change.” Seriously. That’s what they are thinking.

5. You’re getting old. Spare me. You are. Hey, I don’t think so. You don’t think so, but I guarantee your new prospective employer does. Unless you are trying for a job that requires grey temples, and you aren’t, those jobs exist for white men in their 50s, you are getting old. Said prospective employer is wondering why you fucked up your last position, why you aren’t “getting anywhere” in your chosen profession, and wondering why you’d want a change. Seriously. They are wondering that, you and I both know it.

So where does that leave you? Well, never fear, Dave is here with a way out: work for yourself. Seriously. It’s dirty, it’s grueling, it’s thankless. You will work long hours, for little money, the government will take more money from you, and it’s still the best job you’ll ever have.

There are disadvantages, many of them. The reason that they exist is because no one in our society seriously wants you to work for yourself. Corporations certainly don’t, but the government makes corporations look like Casper the Friendly Ghost. Seriously, Uncle Sam wants to stick it to you big time.

Here, in a nutshell, are the negatives. First, you will be taxed. Self employment taxes mean that you pay all of your FICA and unemployment, and all that good stuff. This is the same stuff that your employer normally matches you on, but now you are the employer, so pony up. The second, and actually by far the worst, is healthcare. You see, it’s virtually impossible for really small business, let alone a single employee to get decent health coverage. You’ll likely end up paying too much for a personal policy that will not even cover a fraction of what your former employee policy did. Why do we need healthcare reform in this country? Oh yeah, our healthcare system sucks.

Okay. Those are really the big drawbacks. But the benefits are worth it, they really are. For example, think about anytime you had a conversation with your boss, or a disagreement with your employer about procedure. Now imagine getting to do it your way. Not too shabby. Oh, and you need to leave the office for a while to run some errands? Go ahead. You say you work best coming in at 4am and leaving at 2pm? No problem. You’d rather come in at noon and leave at 8pm? No sweat.

But all of that pales in comparison to the real benefit to working for yourself: fail or succeed, you are the master of your own destiny. You make your own mistakes and learn from them. Or you make your own mistakes and fail because of them. But right or wrong, they are yours. It’s the closest thing to freedom you could ever experience. It’s hard work, and you have no one else to pass the buck to when you mess up. But those moments of success are so much sweeter when you know they are because you did what you wanted to do the way you wanted to do it.

So what is stopping you? That fear of being too old, or too inexperienced? Get over it. Let me clue you in on a couple of secrets that working for myself has taught me: it’s never too late to change your career if you step outside the “conventional” world of employment and write your own career guide. The only time it’s too late, or you are too old is in death. All mistakes can be learning experiences and help you succeed even greater, never be afraid to make them. There is no permanent record. They lied.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: education personal

Me and My Motorcycle

August 20, 2000 by Dave!

If you have never ridden a motorcycle, you are truly missing out. There have been times it’s better than sex. Well, a really great ride can be better than really bad sex. Well, it can come close!

There is something about a motorcycle that I think makes it a more special machine than a car. There are other special machines–airplanes. Nuclear missiles. These are both special machines as well. And airplanes might be cool, but motorcycles are decidedly better than nuclear missiles.

So what is it about motorcycles that I like so much? Well, I like speed, but honestly, I don’t ride my bike like a rocket. My mother will be glad to read that. I have a “cruiser” which is built for comfort, not a “crotch rocket” designed for raw speed. So yes, there is some element of the wind rushing through my hair that I really enjoy, but that isn’t what makes it so special. After all, I could always just roll my window down in the car and stick my head out like a dog, oh and if you need help on the road just go here !

What I really love is balance. Balance. A motorcycle left to its own devices at a standstill, will fall down. That means that a rider has to have some sense of balance, and that is a very important part of riding. But what most people who’ve never been on a motorcycle don’t know, is that when the bike is in motion, it doesn’t want to fall down. In fact, it wants to stay up. You can thank physics for that one. When you get the two wheels of a motorcycle spinning, they exhibit some gyroscopic tendencies, and one of those is that when you lean over, and apply some power, the bike will straighten up. Now, obviously, you can’t lean over too far, they aren’t anti-gravity devices, but the result is that a motorcycle has a pretty unique sense of balance that I have yet to experience anywhere else.
Another key difference is the 360 degree view. Oh sure, in a car you can look forward, back, left, right. But whenever you look, there are those pesky support beams and “windows” getting in your view. When I turn my head on a motorcycle, all I see is the world around me. I feel much more in touch with the world around me, and I honestly think it makes you a better driver. We’ll get to the better person part later.

Okay, there is something to that whole “wind in your hair” thing too. That is, you are much more in touch with your environment on a bike. You smell everything you pass, fields, factories, cows. Yeah, you smell them in a car too, but it is just not the same. And I even like riding in foul weather. Rain is cold and prickly in a way that you’ll never experience in a car. However, in a hail storm, I’ll take the car. But the taste of bugs, and the sticky air on a hot summer night on a motorcycle–that is something truly wonderful, and nothing you will ever touch in a steel cage on four wheels.

Okay, so you are wondering, what about being on a motorcycle makes you a better person? I mean, after all, you’ve seen all those dirty bikers and their scruffy beards. Certainly they aren’t better people because of road grime! Well, as a matter of fact, I think they are. Bikers wear leather because it protects you from the elements and the road. Spend some time in the sun and on a bike, and see what it does to your hair. But mostly, every biker I’ve had the pleasure to meet has been an honest, hard working, friendly person, who would simply rather care about riding than care about an Armani suit. And I’d rather know them than your average lawyer any day.

For example, when I’m riding around in my car, just out and about, how many people in cars do you think wave at me when I pass? None. Really. In fact, I tried it the other day, and I actually had a person flip me off after waving at them. Friendly bunch, those car drivers. But this weekend, I took out my bike, and I encountered 14 riders out on the roads. And do you know how many of them waved at me? Every last one. In fact, many of them waved at me first. I love that. I love the camaraderie and friendliness that I encounter whenever I’m on my bike.

But most of all, I love the combination of all those things. Gliding gently down some forgotten country road, past the double-wides tucked away behind a hill or behind some trees, as the sun warms my arms and back, and as the air cools my face. Over the hills and around the curves I feel like my bike and my body are one, and as I lean left and right with the machine, I achieve a perfect sense of balance. I can smell the fresh cut grass and sweet sticky juniper, and as I see another rider approaching just over a hill, we can both raise our hands as we pass, and know that even as we ride on alone, we’ve shared something that very few ever will.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: motorcycle personal

A Night on the Town

July 30, 2000 by Dave!

So tonight my friends and I went out drinking. We went to a few various bars and I had quite a bit to drink. I guess what they say about alcohol is somewhat true, I did loose my inhibitions. However, I still didn’t feel any more connected to the rest of the human race.

I have no idea what it is, if there is something wrong with me, or if there is something wrong with everyone else. But most of the time I don’t feel as though I have much in common with the people around me at all. I feel as though I have my close group of friends, relationships I’ve cultivated for decades or more, and everyone else seems very foreign to me.

As we sat at the bar drinking, I eves-dropped into the various conversations around the bar, and none of them interested me in the slightest. In fact, several of them made me want to cut myself.
Maybe I’m just going to the wrong places or maybe I’m just a freak. I really do go out intending to have a good time, but it so rarely works out that way. I can just let go and drink, engage in various other activities that would commonly be accepted as “partying”… but I still end up going home feeling empty and worst of all I have no idea why.
I’m not snobby. I’m really not. I’m pretty well versed in popular culture, and while not a sports nut, I could hold my own in a conversation. So why is it that every time I go out to the bars with my friends, I just keep sitting there thinking, “My god. These conversations are all so insipid, I’m wasting my time and I’m not even going to get laid?”
I guess it doesn’t help that I’m getting older. I’m not old, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve definitely passed those days when I can just sit around and talk about nothing for hours and hours. I can’t just sit around getting drunk or high any more, I’d like my conversations to actually be about something. It doesn’t seem like that would be too much to ask.
So why is it that there is no place that I can get that?
These days my favorite place to be is watching live music. At least then, provided that the band isn’t absolutely horrible, I can lose myself in the music. That’s why I like a particular local bar called “Second Story”. The bands that usually play there are not usually the best bands but they play honest and they play loud. So I can close my eyes and try to listen to the conversation. After all, that’s what really great music is: a conversation with the musician.
But I’m getting off topic here. Tonight there were no bands. I couldn’t close my eyes and lose myself in the music. I had to sit and actively take in the people around me and it just wasn’t a very good way to spend my time.
The bar was full of people who were seemingly very interested in impressing each other without actually doing anything impressive. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m just too harsh on people, but really, you can’t impress me just by looking good. I mean, everyone in the bar, men and women alike, were going way out of their way to impress people with their looks. And I will be the first to admit, some of the people were very attractive. Physically. But it is amazing to me now how quickly someone can become repulsive simply by opening their mouths.
I never would have thought that when I was younger, and far be it from me to imply that I don’t appreciate a nice body, I certainly do. But I missed that point at which I suddenly realized that a body is just a shell, and that there has to be something more or I’m going to get bored really fast. I’m not sure when that happened but it sure did. And now a tight body might grab my attention, but it certainly won’t hold it.
I’m also not afraid to admit to you that I don’t have a booming body. In fact, I’m about as far from knockout as they come. I’m overweight and I know that the hair on my head is starting to thin as well. So maybe my loss of fascination with fantastic figures comes from the fact that I don’t have one and I don’t think I ever will. But maybe I’m just coming to the realization that you need a little more than a thin waist to be happy in life.
Or maybe I am getting old. But I think that I’m at least getting some perspective. And getting older doesn’t mean then end of anything. As I get older, I get more liberal and accepting. I try to consider others more and I’m certainly less selfish. Maybe that’s what it is: that I’m just at a point where I want to meet people who are capable of sharing and youth doesn’t lend itself to that. I’m not sure. Maybe I just need another drink.

Filed Under: Observations Tagged With: personal

Boys and Girls

July 24, 2000 by Dave!

Girls. I like girls. I can’t help it, I think it’s some kind of biological thing. Maybe there is some research out there that can confirm this for me.

Lately though, girls keep confusing me. They never seem to know what they want, and they are always causing me and my friends troubles. What gives?
Actually, that’s not fair. Boys give my friends a lot of trouble too, so I guess it’s not strictly a girl thing. It seems that as I get older, relationships among my group of peers just get more and more problematic.

Is this something that all late 20s people experience? Can you divide your friends into the “terminally coupled” and the “terminally single”? I sure can. Many of my friends coupled towards the end of college, or shortly thereafter. They now concern themselves with landscaping and, shudder, babies.

The other camp are the terminally single, a camp which I’m pretty familiar with. We date, we go to parties, we go to clubs, and we bitch to each other about not being able to discuss landscaping with anyone. Or at least not with anyone who cares.

There are many problems that face the terminally single, and I really don’t have any answers, so I’m just going to enumerate the problems, in the hopes that some of you sage readers will know how to deal with them. Or at least identify with them.

Meeting people. The first problem with being terminally single as you get older is meeting people. When you run in circles with the attached, you just don’t meet as many singles as you might like. That means you either settle for the slim pickings around you, or you have affairs with attached people, which leads to a whole new realm of problems we won’t go into here.

Dating people. Am I the only person that is just a little tired with the whole dating scene? You meet someone (see problem #1). You ask them out. You go out. You have the same conversations over and over with each new date. Where are you from? What do you do? Where do you work? Do you like it? I’m beginning to think it would be easier to just write up a bio to give someone before that date. Just get the whole thing out of the way so you can move on to some interesting conversation during that awkward first date.

Sleeping with people. Here you have two choices. Do it or wait. Neither one seems to work out very well. It seems like when you go out with someone and there is immediate physical attraction, you do it fast. And then the relationship goes to hell because you just jumped into the sack and rather than intimacy based on anything substantive, it’s just crazed monkey lust.

Nothing wrong with the occasional fling, mind you, but jumping into bed does seem to destruct relationships or relegate them to fuck buddies.

Holding out doesn’t really seem to fare much better. Then you build up something in your mind that no human could really live up to, and you end up disappointed with the first physical encounter because you’ve built it up to much, or you wait too long and the other person loses interest. There is no winning.

So what can be done about all this? Nothing, really. I’m not suggesting any solutions. I’m just venting. I have a friend who walks around leering at every woman he sees, he loves strip clubs and objectifies women at every opportunity. And then he’ll turn right around and say that he just wants intimacy, to be loved for who he is and to love someone for who they are. He’s a walking set of contradictions: a horn dog pervert and a loving, caring friend. He’s no different from you and me.

And maybe that’s what keeps so many of us single: we have these conflicting personalities. We want raw physical sex. We want close, intimate love making. We want to laugh with someone at the same jokes, but we want someone who can challenge us to be the best we are capable of. We want someone who is perfect in every way, but who will accept us for all of our flaws. God forbid they should have any flaws of their own. Is that what keeps us alone in the world? I wonder.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: personal

Nair and Hair

July 17, 2000 by Dave!

Don’t ever shave your body. Really, trust me on this one. No good can come of it.

Okay, I suppose that there are exceptions to this rule: Olympic swimmers, Mr. Universe contestants, exotic dancers. Members of those professions can violate this rule if they so choose. But let me tell you, as a hairy man, I recommend against it.

I know all of this first hand because of a party I attended last week. My friend Sylvia was having a birthday party, and being a lover of theme parties, she chose “Cross-dressing” as the theme for this particular evening.

Now, I love a good party. I’m the type of individual that really loves to go all out and theme parties really give me a chance to shine. So when I got the invitation to this particular party, my mind was a flutter with ideas. Being a large, hairy man, I knew that I would really have to go the extra mile to win first prize at this one, and go the extra mile I did.

I selected a hot little purple satin number, complete with eye shadow, lipstick and nail polish to match. It was divine! Silky and spaghetti strapped, I knew I’d be the hit. However, it also showed quite a bit of my skin and quite a bit of that skin was covered in bushy man-hair.

Well, I knew that no woman (or respectable cross-dresser) would allow this to stand, so I knew what I had to do: shave my body. Never again. Blinded by my desire to be sexy, I rush headlong into the most uncomfortable experience in a long time.

First mistake: Nair.

I had no real idea what exactly Nair was, and I certainly had no concept of how it worked. I thought I did. I was horribly, horribly wrong. See, all I knew was that I really didn’t like shaving, period, which is why I usually sport a beard. So the idea of shaving my whole body was pretty unappealing. However, I knew that if I used Nair, I could bypass the pain of cutting myself and razor burn. Oh, sweet, sweet razor burn. How I long for razor burn.

I was so happy that I’d thought of Nair. I wouldn’t be wasting razor blades: just wipe on, wipe off! Hair be gone! So I came home from Target, pink bottle in hand, all ready for my depilatory adventure. I squeezed a little bit out onto my arm, rubbed it on my arm hair and waited. After five minutes, I rinsed the arm off, and viola! No hair! I was psyched! This was going to be nice and easy!

So I stripped down, hopped in the shower, and began to smear Nair all over my body, not thinking about silly little things, like nipples. I stood there, waiting for the Nair to do it’s chemical wonder, when my whole body began to tingle and get warm. Warmer and warmer. Soon, my nipples were hot and suddenly it occurred to me that perhaps, just perhaps, smearing the Nair all over my body might have been a mistake. So I wiped the Nair off my nipples, but decided to leave it on the rest of me.

A quick test showed that the Nair wasn’t having the desired effect on my chest hair, it still wasn’t ready to come off, so I kept waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Now, during this time, my skin was getting pretty hot, and the directions said, don’t leave it on longer than 10 minutes, so it was time for this crap to come off. On came the shower, and off came my hair.

Or most of it.

Seems some of my hair is Nair resistant. I have no idea why, it’s not like I built up a resistance to Nair from repeated exposure. I guess I just have good genes. So, now I was mostly hairless, but had several patches of extremely irritated skin. In retrospect, I’m amazed that a chemical compound that dissolves hair can even be used on skin, but I digress.

Second mistake: the razor.

So, I had these patches of Nair resistant hair to deal with, and a patch of hair on my back that needed to be dealt with, too. So out came the razor. Bring on the razor burn. Unbeknownst to me, Nair makes skin very sensitive and subject to razor burn. So slowly, and painfully, off came the remaining hair.

(Allow me to interject here a note about true friendship: Anyone can help you move, make you dinner, cheer you up when you’re feeling down. But a true friend, a genuine true friend is one who will shave your back. Thanks, Mikey. 🙂

Finally, I was ready. Showered and clean shaven, I slipped into my silky drawers and got ready for the party. That’s when I discovered some interesting, body shaving facts:

1. Body hair does help keep you warm. I’ve never been so cold in the summer in my life.
2. Clothes feel weird on bare skin.
3. Shaving your entire body and putting on a silky dress will make you a hit at the party.
4. It is absolutely not worth it.

So here I sit, itching madly as the regrowing hair pokes out of my skin, irritating 70% of my entire body. Even if Ihad know the sheer terror of the shaving experience, nothing could have prepared me for the hell that I endured as the hair returns.

Little did I know that I would be uncomfortable between the sheets without my hair buffer. And how ill prepared I was for the pin-pricks of stubble over my entire body as my natural fur returned. I sit around at work scratching my legs. And my arms. And my chest. And my back. Dante never envisioned a circle of hell this unspeakable.

So if you’re ever thinking about shaving your body: don’t. Trust me on this one. It’s just not worth it. The next time someone invites you to a cross-dressing party, forget skimpy. Forget sexy. Think Victorian.

Filed Under: Humor, Personal Tagged With: humor personal

The MP3 Saga…

July 12, 2000 by Dave!

Note: This letter was prompted by the outrage against Napster, and the absolutely silly lawsuit Metallica filled against them and Indiana Univeristy

All this controversy surrounding Napster and MP3s seems to have everyone barking at each other, accomplishing nothing. There appears to be a real lack of critical thought on the issue, and as a regular Napster user, an avid music fan, and a purchaser of albums, I thought maybe, just maybe, the recording industry and the artists might want to take a moment to listen to a consumer and a fan. I doubt it, but here goes.

Musicians who are business savvy will survive, and even prosper under the new digital age. Napster and the proliferation of MP3s available on the Internet does not have a significant impact on artists revenue, in fact, it could be a way for progressive musicians and artists to help take some control of their content back from the labels and cut out the profiteering middlemen of distribution.

You see, I am what I consider to be a very prototypical MP3 user. I listen to MPEG radio on occasion, and I use Napster everyday. Why? Because often there is an artist with a single that I would like to hear, and traditional radio or music television programming does not match my tastes in music. I also collect MP3s of some of my favorite artists, and am in the process of digitizing my CD library, so that all of my music is available as an MP3.
Now, am I cheating the artist out of money? No. I am absolutely not, and here’s why.

First, I collect MP3’s from MP3.com which are often local or regional amateur artists. Theses artists are generally not even available for purchase in my area, so they are benefiting greatly from the increased exposure the Internet provides. Even major label artists would exploit this type of exposure, if they were intelligent about increasing their audience.

Second, a number of the MP3s I collect are singles by bands that I would not purchase the CD regardless. I will freely admit that occasionally I succumb to the siren song of a top40 hit. Let’s face it, some of them are quite infectious. However, these are not artists that I would typically add to my permanent music collection. When I was in junior high school, I might have taped the song off commercial radio. Now I “tape” the song via Napster. It doesn’t really matter, I wouldn’t buy the album regardless, no revenue is lost, and at best the artist has increased their potential audience, and I might at least give their next release a listen to. It increases awareness, just like a radio hit or a music video. Now, I understand that stations pay artists royalties via ASCAP, BMI or some other mechanism for broadcast rights, and I think perhaps a similar mechanism could be explored for MP3s. However, I don’t think the artists are loosing millions in this market, just as they aren’t making millions off radio airplay.
Finally, Napster and MP3’s can actually *increase* the money an artist earns from a release. That might come as a shock to many artists, but that’s because they are obviously listening harder to the RIAA then they are to their fan base. How do people get exposure to new music? I would postulate that there are three mechanisms: radio, television, and peers. Radio and television are both increasingly being marginalized by the Internet. Studies show that as children spend more time on line, that time is usually time they previously spent watching TV. Digital convergence means doesn’t mean people will stop listening to catchy pop tunes or watching narrative movies. It means that they might not watch MTV, they might download from MP3.com just as easily. Who suffers in this scenario? It’s the networks and the distributors, not the artists.

However, I think that a very large number of music fans actually learn about new music from their peers, I know I do. When a friend recommends a new artist to me, they might lend me the CD. Or increasingly, they might send me some MP3s of the bands material. I’ll listen to the MP3s. Maybe check Napster for some more songs. And then you know what I will do? If I like the artist, I will go buy the CD. I have a CD collection of over 700 titles, and growing. And it will continue to grow. Why? Because CDs are convenient. I can listen to them in my house, my car, my office. They are portable and easy. In the future, if MP3s were to replace CDs, I’d *still* buy the albums. Why? I want the liner notes, the cover art. I want the experience of knowing what I bought is what the artist created, and as they wanted it presented. Does it matter if that format is on an 8-track, vinyl album, CD-ROM, or bits in an MP3? Hell no. I care about music. Not bits.

Since I began using Napster, my CD collection has grown steadily, and the number of new artists that I find everyday makes my wish list grow much faster than my paycheck can feed it. So why don’t I just grab all those artists in MP3s and “cheat” them out of their hard earned paychecks? Maybe because I’m honest. Give the fans a little credit. We aren’t all out to cheat our favorite band out of a royalty check. Maybe because often only a few songs by an artist are available via MP3s. I want to hear the whole work, not just the two singles. Maybe because I like the experience of listening to an album and reading liner notes and looking at cover art.

So do MP3’s hurt musicians? Will they mark the end of the ability of an artist to make money from music? Not likely. In fact, there are already big artists who are intelligent and seeking ways to *exploit* MP3s for additional exposure and money (Chuck D and the Offspring jump to mind). Need some ideas? A special “web only” release of a few special tracks. Sell “MP3 singles” via a website, or partner with MP3.com or Napster. Put an effort into marketing and exposure in the digital community, and you won’t end up on the bread line; you’ll end up on the cutting edge and profit from it.

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: copyright mp3 technology