Have you seen Boiler Room?

I've been working at this crazy job since July and I love the excitement but I feel like I'm in a hamster ball. At first I was learning as fast as I could but I kind of peaked momentarily at this level where I finally know what my job is all about. It's as if I have seen my owner cheering me on from outside the terrarium that is my world and now I've decided that, damn it all, I can run this little hamster ball right off its hinges if I try hard enough. You'd think I would have reached that point sooner than 4 months in but I started more or less from scratch, by choice. I guess I love doing things the hard way. It would be even more difficult without the support of parents and friends.

It's gonna tear away at my precious notions of free time. (It already has.) I am surrounded for the most part by people that are unlike me, whose goals are unlike mine. But I feel like my goals see their goals and raise them a couple, ya know? So I'm sticking it out. "LIKE A HOG," my manager would yell.

The couple of people who joined the company with similar goals have varying degrees of commitment. They kind of want to learn about the market but they realize it requires a significant amount of time and effort just to take the first step. This has stopped most of them in their tracks. This disappointed me, considering they were the folks I most identified with at first but I realized my views about saving the world and public-service-through-peace-corps ideas have changed a lot in 4 years.

The turning point was when my dad suggested that it is much easier to apply one's vision for change from a seat of power and influence. Since then my relationship with the ideas of power and influence has gone from love/hate to one of measured tolerance. I think that's a little healthier anyway. The cult of personality is a little much whichever side of it you're on.

Speaking (earlier) of hamster balls, I saw this guy on Conan who ran 50 marathons in 50 days in all 50 states. He wants to run in an inflatable/waterproof hamster ball across the English Channel. What a badass.

I've been getting my zen on regularly. That's the phrase we use at work to avoid referencing specific religions. (doesn't really make sense, does it?) We do that because there are a surprising number of people in the office with no tact whatsoever. I'm fine with the phrase because it's pretty much true in my case.

Anyway, that's where I've cultivated the patience necessary to plug on. I already had the limitless optimism. Luckily I'm finally getting a bite of all the carrots that were dangled in front of me. And, boy oh boy, I was hungry.

In the meantime, I take outings to the city and the town now and then to hang out with my friends who are fantastic. Their support is invaluable. They remind me in practical terms that one should approach situations without expectations. You will not be disappointed, you will always learn something and you will always walk away (or hop on the train) a better person.

Other than that, I work in the garden, skateboard, run, play video games, cook, read and play Diplomacy when I'm not developing crushes on the Bloomberg and CNBC anchors.

And I'm out.

The Shape of Things to Come

I recently started listening to a lot of rock and roll again. I don't do that nearly enough. I dug through CD spindles to find my burned copy of 'Make up the Breakdown' by Hot Hot Heat, which is a fantastic album. I then sought out my copy of 'The Shape of Punk to Come' by Refused, also an amazing album, which is regarded as "definitive" by wikipedia. What exactly the album defines is not explained. Though its most likely up to the listener/critic and I suppose the artist too.

I was furiously shaking my head and drumming on my desk with a no. 2 pencil and Magic Rub as I got my daily dose of linear algebra and Hot Hot Heat. I could not get over how good they sounded. So I logged on to my trusty file sharing network and started downloading everything they've ever recorded. As I listened to their more recent album, 'Elevator' I got seriously into it. With the afternoon sun pouring in through my west-facing windows, I broke into a sweat as I gyrated in my desk chair. There was only one thing to do. In a move reminiscent of Bruce Campbell's iconic reach for his chainsaw hand in 'Army of Darkness,' I grabbed my guitar off its hook on the wall above my desk.

I simply had to play along. I could think of no other way of further immersing myself in this four-piece reverie.

side note: Four-Piece Reverie would be an awesome name for an album. But that sounds kind of familiar already.

So I sat there and learned how to play half the damn album over the course of an hour. 'Elevator' is one rocking album.

Anyway, later on I was wondering if my parents would like Hot Hot Heat. Their lyrics are as tasteful yet fresh as anything Paul Simon did in his youth. The sounds were no more grating than early Beatles. Before I found out, I got to wondering about what rock and roll really means to my generation. I mean, if my parents liked Hot Hot Heat, would the status of Elevator as a rock and roll album be affected?

To this day rock and roll comes to us through Stratocasters, Ludwigs, Paistes and Hammonds but is it really rock and roll if our parents like it? I mean even the sounds of rock today are born of Otis Redding and the Beatles to name just two. But it just wouldn't seem right if I could blast Refused through my speakers and not have my dad ask me to instead play something with more universal appeal. Bless his heart he has yet to ask me to turn off Hot Hot Heat. Though Company Flow tends to get different treatment.

But I think the more interesting question is: how can the second rock and roll generation possibly produce even more impudent ideas than the first? Do we not all live on the same Earth, working, eating, sleeping only to deliver the next generation? What is the shape of rock to come?

I played some of 'Elevator' for my mom and she was amused but I could see it wasn't her thing. That made me happy. I guess it's the difference of opinion that makes rock and roll, too.

~~~~~ ++ ~~~~~

A couple months ago said father showed me a blog called 'The Shape of Days.' (What is the citation convention for a blog? I wonder if MLA is on top of that.) I was immediately drawn to this guy's (Jeff Harrell) style of writing, which struck me as clever, informative and tastefully irreverent. You might sense a growing theme of tastefulness in the media I choose to consume.

He has several links in his sidebar pointing to series of posts on the same subject, each making a sort of vignette. So I followed one that seemed plain but I stumbled upon an amazing account of Jeff's relationship with his dog, Nelson, as Nelson's health slowly deteriorated. It was absolutely gripping. I read the entire series, non-stop. After reading about Nelson's struggle and Jeff's along with him, I felt like I'd known him forever.

I couldn't stop. I read about Jeff's move from Dallas to new and unknown D.C. I read about how the relationships in his life changed dramatically and how his life in D.C. was really more of a mixed bag than he thought it would be. I read about how he had a long train commute to work and would often blog to occupy himself. There were often really short entries about people on the train. Sometimes they inspired him to write. Sometimes they were just there. I read about his struggles finding his place in the writing world, the blogging world, the world of American politics. He often struggled with complex issues only wishing to relate to them somehow.

Today I realized I hadn't checked back in three weeks. I found what seemed to be the odds-and-ends drawer of his consciousness. He had collapsed in a fit of all-consuming disgust that was a long time coming. Disgusted by our lawmakers who have sold our future down the river. Disgusted by the same lawmakers who have the gall to spend their (and our) time on nonsense while the real problems fester.

"Because they're just polishing the brass on the Titanic, man. They're just fiddling while Rome burns all around us."

Yesterday evening, even in my most understanding mood I might have thought, welcome to reality, Jeff. But after seeing "An Inconvenient Truth" I find it nearly impossible to resort to self-righteous condescension. 'Nearly' because, after all, I am from the Silicon Valley. That is the way of life around these parts.

On a smaller scale, Jeff Harrell is realizing what Gore proposes in his movie to be the central issue of our era. When the facts are clear about the consequences of our actions as a population, what will we choose to do with that information? Will we look on as consequences catch up with us, as they threaten to tear the very fabric of our civilization? Or will we face them head on?

Gore quotes Winston Churchill who laid it all out in the 1930's:
"The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequence."