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EGR - Music Appreciation
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Christopher Locke
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Jan 09, 2001 17:24 PST
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Valued Readers:
I'm so tired of seeing this kind of crap. It's wearing. I'm listening to
the Moonlight Sonata to try to calm myself down. And I just fucking hate
Beethoven. Ah, good thing Nirvana's next up on the playlist. Teen Spirit
fits my mood better: stupid and contagious. Here's the latest review of
that book I never mention anymore. It's at...
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738202444/entropygradientr
[one star] Like, duh., January 3, 2001
Reviewer: Sydney Rogers (see more about me) from Oceanside, CA
I originally bought this book thinking that it might contain some
useful business information. Surprise! It doesn't! Cluetrain
Manifesto is nothing more than the ramblings of a number of self-
appointed dot-com smart guys who have little or no experience in the
real world of profit and loss. As the recent and ongoing dot-com
implosion so aptly demonstrates, this balloon -- and this book -- is
filled with nothing more than hot air.
Don't bother.
Was this review helpful to you? [YES] [*FUCK NO]
An albino, a mosquito. (Voting suggestion asterisked above.) But Sydney
seems to have lightened up a couple days later, giving TWO stars to
*this* execrable piece of shit:
Care Packages for the Workplace: Dozens of Little Things You Can Do
To Regenerate Spirit At Work
There are better books on the topic... January 6, 2001
This book is just okay. There are a lot of examples of how to improve
morale at work, but the writing isn't that great, and the book isn't
very well organized. There are much better books on the topic...try
Managing to Have Fun by Matt Weinstein or 1001 Ways to Energize
Employees by Bob Nelson.
I'll energize him alright. I'm gonna call the motherfucker up. Right
now. I'm dialing, hold on...
"Hello, Sydney. What's your favorite scary movie?"
"Who is this?"
"Why do you want to know my name?"
"Because I want to know who I'm looking at..."
Well, OK, maybe not worth the time in Joliet. But really. I ask you.
Shouldn't we do something about people like this? Genocide is too good
for them, but I'm thinking. One thing I'm thinking is that most of these
sorts of proposals are way too reactive. You know, too after-the-fact.
What we need is a more ACTIONABLE, PROACTIVE approach. It's just a
start, but I did have one good idea this week. The next car I buy is
going to be a black Lincoln Continental like the secret service guys
drive. And I'm going to get it fitted out with flag holders on the front
fenders, like you see in those presidential motorcades. Except I'm going
to have special flags made that say:
FUCK OFF!
Imagine me tooling down Broadway like that! Driving with one hand, my
arm straight out, other arm over the seat back. Lookin good and knowin
it. Maybe some cool shades. Yeah. That'll keep some of these people
away. Of course, it may attract other sorts of undesirables. Like cops.
But anyway, like I say, it's a start. And I'll have the windows down and
the radio cranked. Like the secret service.
No pill's gonna cure my ills. Doctor, Doctor, gimme the news...
No I don't have a gun. No I don't have a gun.
Ah, Nirvana. As it turned out, though, he did have a gun. Why'd he have
to go blow his head off like that? So sad. So unnecessary. I mean, I can
relate to the pressures, but some people overreact really badly. Me, I
try to aim for balance.
For instance, while lots of people don't realize it, art is something
that's important to all of us. You have to keep your hand in. Self and I
came up with a great idea the other day. Self is my daughter, who is now
like 10 and five-eighths. Sometimes I call her Selene. Well, we were
pulling up to my apartment and we couldn't help notice the several
million geese that are wintering here and crapping all over the joint. I
said, hey, I know. What if they're really aliens from outer space?
Selene started laughing right away, so I knew we were onto something.
Sell the kids for food. No, wait. That's the MP3, isn't it? Anyway, we
started thinking up titles for the movie. Here's what we've got so far:
1. Day of the Anatidae
2. Night of the Living Anatidae
3. Earth vs. Anatidae
4. Attack of the Anatidae
5. It Came From The Pond
6. It Came From Canada
7. Killer Geese From Outer Space
So far, I like #6 best, but as you can see, we need your help on this.
Self is working on the storyboards, which should be pretty simple. Just
shots of the goose hordes walking around the apartment complex, intercut
with panic scenes of people running for their lives, looking over their
shoulders and screaming in horror, "They've landed! They've landed!!!"
(We're looking for extras, by the way.) Cut back to geese tearing this
guy apart -- we'll put day-old baguettes into some old pants and a
shirt. His head will already be eaten away. Terrible, terrible. Carnage
everywhere.
Their headquarters on our vanquished planet is the Anatidae Citadel of
Empire, or, as they call it, the ACE. Cut to ACE Hardware store with
ominous theramin music and voice-over: "The invaders met in High Council
to decide the fate of the Earth..." Cut to Al Gore smiling stupidly for
no reason. Cut to George W. Bush looking scared as shit, doing lines and
slugging back a 16 oz. Colt-45 with his special nuke key pushed into the
slot, waiting for General Colon Trowel to tell him it's Their Last Hope.
Then, there'll be dialogue. Two Imperial Guard type geese are attending
the fearsome Anatidae Overlord, who has RED EYES and POISON GREEN WEBS.
When he speaks, it sounds like he's got a lawnmower carburetor over his
face.
"Bring the prisoners to my quarters."
"Yes, Your Overlord."
"But first make sure they've been, heh-heh, properly prepared!"
"Yes, Your Overlord."
"And one more thing..."
"Yes, Your Overlord?"
"We are the Sultans of Swing."
"Anything you say, Your Overlord."
Maybe we'll have to work on that a bit a bit, but you get the idea. One
cool thing is that we don't have to worry about making their lips move.
Geese don't have lips. Of course, having to finish the gonzo book is
really slowing down production something awful. But like I always say,
you gotta do what you gotta do. Here's a little of what I had to do last
night.
...Typically, programs like this were modeled on the top-down
approach taken by mainstream marketing and mass media. A central
organization determined what was in the best interests of their
"backward" beneficiaries, then went about implementing their
altruistic plans without bothering to consult with the targets of
their largesse. Such paternalism smacks of Rudyard Kipling's infamous
White Man's Burden, a phrase that Microsoft defines via its Encarta
World English Dictionary as "the supposed responsibility of Europeans
and their descendants to impose their allegedly advanced civilization
on the non-Caucasian original inhabitants of the territories they
colonized," adding that the phrase is often considered offensive. No
shit, Sherlock.
Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
Well hey, I think I'll put a bone though my nose. Ooga-booga! The
white man's burden trope was an important ideological component of a
much larger and quite consciously undertaken agenda called
colonialism. I explicitly mention Microsoft's largesse in giving us
their "world dictionary" because this agenda is hardly an artifact of
yesteryear. The attitude of large corporations coming onto the
Internet has all the same earmarks. Call it e-colonialism. Here we
were, all these wild and sullen half-devil children fooling around
with the net, engaging in strange rituals and idolizing false gods.
Then along comes the Fortune 500 to civilize our heathen asses and
get us all to worship at the One True Disney World. Wow, thanks.
Welp, that's it for me, then. Back to the old salt mines...
The Management
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