i'm all over the place these days. you don't even have to be a friend or familiar to recognize that i don't have shit goin' on but i'm sure talking a lot of it.
depending on the day of the week or the direction of the wind i'm going to start a young-digital-pundit distributorship, video-interview my friends, write a computer game, review computer games, become a columnist or apply for a job.tonight i decided i want to be a DJ from my house. shoutcasting or whatever i can do. I emailed dslnetworks to see if they will sponsor it.
having my own home server is liberating. i'm sharing files with my friends and i can think about putting all sorts of super-bandwidth intensive stuff on there that i wouldn't want to burden other people with but i just need a fatter pipe so i can get multimedia on that ass
because i don't know what i do but sometimes it is entertaining and so i want to continue doing that and having fat pipes is nice. sometimes i think about not being online but i realized that this is where i'm maximum stimulated so why shouldn't i dive in even deeper and see where i come up for air?
amy today asked me to work on her art piece. i am sick, coughing and tired, anyways i wasn't moving full speed. she remarked that she doesn't think i move full speed in my life unless i am typing (and driving at times regretfully)
i don't know that i agree with her - i can get excited, as i am now, and if someone turned to me and said hey bro what's going on i would just say something maybe like this:
slashdot reports that the RIAA blames MP3s for a decline in CD sales among 20somethings
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990324S0022i find myself trying to keep up with the big boys. my friends who all work at large internet companies keep themselves grooving all day with MP3 servers - large hard drives filled up with directory after directory of classic rap and ska and old punk and new pop throw away music. all those fly singles you admired on the radio but would never buy are now available, practically disposable. and you can play your own dj!
when i was at college i worked in radio and i loved collage. i loved mixing incongruous artists and deeply moving tracks from across genres. i called my show the electric eclectic. college was perfect for that because they extended the priviledge of their equipment and patience with my experimentations. now that i am finished with college, where can i go to share the music i love?
taking my favourite songs off my favourite CDs and sharing them with my friends seems like the first best way, until i can run an internet radio show out of my house.
which i thought might make a good article for my freelance writing but i just don't have the patience these days to see anything through - anything that is except my 12 paragraph review of might and magic six for a web site that doesn't yet exist but might still pay me $150 which ellen thinks equals about $.02 a word.
recently i've been feeling this kind of weight on my shoulders like i am very busy and mostly motivated - i do things and things come out of me - i leave a human trail but i have no direct social function, there's no handle on justin hall, no direct way i am being manipulated to serve society. perhaps an indirect way? so i need a job because i feel like maybe i need that consistency
and between jonathan steuer and jonathan wilner each working at scient and being high profile information consultants flying here and advising there and big client this, i say wwaaaah why can't i consult?
and my friends at c-path which goes public tomorrow and maybe they will be rich and i say, man i got to get me a piece of that! like some superfly type shit, except i want to get in on the game
but then i realize, i do have the dopest shit out on the streets! i chat a pound of shit every day, i got a big internet connection, my girl can whup just about anybody's ass (including the llama's ass), the weather is nice in oakland and man there's just good shit happening all over!
so i am a manic fuck like anybody like my father and so many people i've accused of wavering in the face of such inextricable logic -
my column writing gig that i have not ful-filled is like eminds, or hotwired - each offered me the chance to become a columnist. to take my spew and channel it a bit and recieve some advice or teaching and perhaps a new level of respectability and maybe some money. and what's me is i find every kind of excuse or mental block, emotional and physical sickness to get in the way of what they have asked me to do. how is it that i could take such fabulous opportunities and stall until they are gone?
krusty said something tonight - he was talking about the difference between an author like (insert friend here) who writes books and me, it's like closed-source writing and open-source writing. i'm honoured to be called an open-source writer. i did ask what the income model was for open source writers - do i offer support? he suggested some kind of closed-source adjunct, ie, a book or column.
open source writing:
words shared for joy or pain of experience without so much regard for package or price except that the package allows the most seamless and flexible distribution possible and preferable to the author. writing for the web is a flexible widespread exciting way to share words thoughts feelings but it is only one way and textual. and only sorta free. still, compared to a bunch of books? this is cheap! for both of us!
oy. well at least reboot is paying me to spew in person which seems to come naturally to me. i mean i could say "it's less work" and somehow i picture howard telling me to read some and learn some but i feel like how could i be alive and not be learning? what am i not doing? i just read a history of death row records and a haruki murakami book. i don't want to read critical theory about the internet. i breathe the goddamn internet.
here, i exhale.
justin hall | <justin at bud dot com>