New Wave Ware

One strategy that major record companies have been employing lately to deter downloading is adding bonus computer content to new CD releases. I recently discovered that this technique is not unique to CD’s, but had in fact been practiced in the vinyl era as well. That’s right: there were a handful of records released in the late 70’s and early 80’s that contained computer programs as part of the audio.This is totally insane, and totally great.

A Manifestarian Biography

Life Event:
Micahness arrives in 1967 to a small hospital in Winchester Virginia, where mother and father were pastoring at a small baptist church, purpotedly the church where Patsy Cline learned to sing in choir.
Worldview:
At this stage, having been birthed as many other human children are, Micah is unable to form cognitive abstract thought processes that could lead to politically enlightened view. Conclusive proof that, even though most people believe him to have been born prescient, that he is not.

Life Event:
Micah’s family, from his earliest memory, lives in a desert town in northern peru called Chiclayo. while living there, he remembers a nationalist dictator making a commotion by dictating that all news-casts must be in the native language of Peru’s Indian population – Quechua. Living with television from only 4pm to 9pm, and with most of the shows being Japanese cartoons dubbed in Spanish, Micah opts for life outside of the tube room and finds that he is quite capable of losing shoes quickly as he climbs sand dunes. Mother catches on – buys ‘yanquis’, cheap sandals made out of old tires. Micah experiences first crush on girl named Paola. Said Paola courts Micahs best neighborhood friend instead. Micah nobly steps back pursuit and writes first sad poem at age 8. Learns fine art of deception when realizes that people will pay for the small pamphlets local church hands out for free. Micah develops scheme to go door to door selling pamphlets claiming money will be used for orphanage. Instead, money will go to Micah’s burgeoning sugar fix for lemon drops. Plan has surprising positive effect. Church members seeing me cart out loads of pamphlets assume he is giving them out for free – Micahs ‘evangelistic piety’ is duly noted.
Worldview: Micah finds it strange that newscasters are speaking in a strange language all of a sudden. Micah begins to realize that with the power of well placed words, one can get what they want. Sensing guilt, years later Micah will be affected by this by understanding that most politicians also capitalize on the power of well placed and half sincere words. Micah begins path down OCD avenue, obsessing over whether or not what he has said or written is effectively truthful or not. Or not.

Life Event:
Micah moves with his family from Chiclayo, Peru to Spotsylvania, Virginia, as his father takes leave of absence from missionary life to due baptist politics in mission in peru and militant feminist homeschool teacher who takes a liking to using corporal punishment as method for improving older brothers grades. Micah sees President Reagan shot by Hinkley on Television during sick day due to chicken pox. Micah’s father reconciles political mission when offered position in Lima where his children will not be affected by feminist correspondence home school teachers, and instead will go to posh preparatory middle and high school in Lima.
Worldview: Unaffected by experience with Chicken Pox, Micah leaves the back woods of Virginia wondering why his extended family is so different. Micah is unwilling to chew dip to fit in, citing concerns regarding nausea. Micah sees strange tendencies in family and friends regarding world outlook – everything is ‘evil’ or ‘good’. Although Micah tries to fit into this mold, he begins to realize that those two words don’t always fit everything. No worldview yet, but begins to understand why people who never travel may have a harder time understanding why anyone would think differrently than they do.

Life Event: Back in Lima, Micah experiences some strange feelings about life as adolescence unveils itself. Micah begins to withdraw from family and potential friendships in light of said judgemental approach. Micah finds solace in video game POLARIS, and Gorf, and Defender, and Galaga. Also discovers a deep passion for music and Dungeons and Dragons. Hell, who is he kidding – he discovered a passion for following his curiosity, wherever it may take him! All hobbies are labeled by the well-meaning parents as selfish, unchristian endeavors. Micah agrees! And loves his passions even more! Secretly thieves older brothers collection of Abba records to support habit. He should thank me for this.
Worldview: Micah knows that things are broken with the world, but can’t quite put his finger on it. Looks around to see that gods love isn’t always terribly apparent in Peru. Also realizes that more modest people seem less occupied and more at peace than richer school mates. As the child of clergy, Micah is exposed to both the very affluent and very poor. Begins to notice patterns in behavior – the poor seem eager to give and sacrifice, the rich seem less eager to give and sacrifice. Micah begins to see correlation between conflicts in reality between justice and injustice, and begins to wonder why people let other people be born into world without basic needs while others have more than enough. Micah begins to question existence of said god. Why is anyone allowed to starve, Micah asks himself. Micah begins to sense the rift between the polar, very ugly view of fundamentalism, and his own innate love for all those pretty subtleties, grays and amoral wonders. While at church, Micah’s mind wonders off to shapes, colors, concepts, feelings….so much to space out about!

Life Event: Micah hears fathers footsteps coming up stairs to dispense justice at discovering that Micah has failed Algebra. As this is occurring, Micah asks god for assistance in getting his shit straight. Micah soon after discovers two books that change things permanently. A quote book called ‘leaves of gold’, and C. S. Lewis’ book ‘Mere Christianity’. Soon after, Micah recognizes the power of formulas. Next semester at school, Micah enacts new philosophy. Micah begins to apply fundamentalist rules to his grades. Bad grades are evil.
Worldview: After an apparent conversion experience, Micah wakes up to concept of spirituality as honest approach to self and god. Begins to realize that fathers religious institution does not match his own discovery. Begins to see correlation between ritualism and institutional rot, and begins to associate it with the fact that people sometimes either forget why they are doing things, or when passed down, some people forget to ask why their doing things.

Life Event: Micah arrives in Birmingham, Alabama to discover that his peers are not who he thought they would be. The American South whacks Micah on the head. He attributes his inability to feel comfortable in supposed home with his inability to be flexible. Attends multimillion dollar megachurch in Alabama and begins to experience existential anger at imbalance of wealth. El Agustino church in Peru had no roof, and pastor sometimes had to ask for food from missionaries, but people were much more complete and healthy. Megachurch was about to split over whether activity center pool should be olympic or larger. Finds that most Baptists neither share enthusiasm or interest in spiritual realm or in global matters. Iran Contra affair kicks off. Micah protests Nicaragua policies citing reality that Jesus was a pacifist.
Worldview: Micah enters early adulthood in a state of culture shock. Experiences depression at inability to reconcile home not feeling like home. Inner conflicts could possibly be attributed to too many hamburgers. Micah begins to experience deep pangs of guilt as own personal philosophy of outright honesty comes in conflict with trusted spiritual institutions. Micah leaves the States for Europe where he once again withdraws from world and drowns himself in new discoveries of culture, art and personal mores. Becomes emo poster-child. Micah discovers that humans with no religious ideology have no pretense at being better and therefore are more frank. In other words, meets atheists, and discovers true friendship.

Life Event: Out of money, Micah accepts scholarship at Hardin Simmons university in Abilene Tx. Extreme fundamentalism wakes him up to the reality that his gut instinct was right – personal openness is path to spirituality, and although still waking up on Sunday mornings feeling guilty for not being in church, Micah realizes that the courage to ask the right questions may be more important than the instinct to claim the right answers. This of course does very little for his social life. While thinking big thoughts, Micah introduces himself to Boones Farm and seedy West Texas nightclubs, and finds that his early love, music, carries him through all this big thinking.
Worldview: Shaped by the knowledge that people are not defined by political boundaries, Micah forms organization called AWARE, purpose being to serve as information brokerage to help people become informed citizens. Soon after Desert Shield and Storm happen. Micah is galvanized to act on behalf of better half of the human self and turns AWARE into anti-war organization. Ironically, his best friends on campus are ROTC types. Micah discovers the awesomeness in surrounding himself with people who think differently than he does. Realizes his brain is short-circuiting because he’s not very good at the fundamentalist thing even though he’s scratching for things to label as ‘good’ and ‘evil’.

Life event: After 128 hard-earned hours, Micah decides that his full studies in Political Science and Philosophy aren’t enough motivation to catch up on hours upon hours of required Baptist chapel credits. He’s had enough of the dogma for one lifetime. Micah moves into career adulthood deeply concerned about poverty, injustice and general lack of balance. Simple fact that some people don’t get as good of a chance as others becomes motivating factor. Career in art and design moves him away from political activism for 5 years, but soon comes back around once the dichotomy between government and political accountability become too obviously out of balance in Bush administrations. Keeps on dancing Wednesday through Sunday nights. Finds great solace in not overthinking the dancing thing.
Worldview: Micah still believes that there is wealth imbalance. Micah continues to love chocolate to this day. Micah, however, does not believe that political realities should separate people from commmunities. He continues to befriend people who have vastly different worldviews, and finds joy in the discovery of what makes people tick. Micah has permanently abandoned his family’s faith – a belief that people are inherently evil and sinners, and instead sees humans as frail and eternally in search for security. Micah also still loves lemon drops, but no longer sells what is free.

2009 Update. At some point in this process, Micah realized that the journey is just as lovely as any destination. And given that those inches of gray mush in his skull might have difficulty with finding absolute evidence to the answers to the universe, he may as well just learn to enjoy those moments along the way. Sure it’s comforting to think one knows the final answers, but maybe that’s just not important. Sure, I’m a buddhist. We’re all in this together…

My Upcoming eBook: Creatives in a Box

So, you’re a creative, and you found a job. That’s pretty general, so let’s peel it a bit.

So, you’re a commited right-brainer, and you find yourself in a work environment deeply set in the language, manners and values of a left-brained work world.
If you’re a true right-brainer, you might be thinking, ‘Please give me an example I can visualize!’.

Your first day of work arrives, and you wear your best. Your best includes those awesome Scottish bowling shoes that have a stripe down the middle. Halfway through the interview, the fellow representing corporate marketing sternly looks at you and says, “oh, and we have a very comprehensive ethics and compliance policy, which includes a paragraph on open-toe shoes.”

So, yes, he saw your shoes, and he mistook the tan stripe for your bare skin, or, maybe he just sees you as that slacker stereotype he’s going to have to watch from now on to make sure you’re not sniffing company glue, or worse, violating company policy by wearing an open-toe shoe!
That’s an actual event that happened to me, and I promise you, I’d never give you any advice I haven’t learned, well, the hard way.

The lesson there is the same as it is anywhere, which is, try to do the homework on culture. Learn which cultural rules you can live with and adapt fast – or at least appear to. More about this in Chapter 5.

Here are a series of Axioms I’ll cover later in the book. I’ll also be providing you with some hilarious and, well, embarrasing scenarios I’ve experienced in the process of learning the value of these truths.

Corporate Axiom I: Corporations take words that mean things in the real world and use them in very, very different ways.

Corporate Axiom II: People who talk about people to you at work are most likely talking about you to other people at work.

Corporate Axiom III: In life, you have friends who are always allies. In life, your allies are most likely your friends too. At work, your friends may not necessarily be your allies, and your allies may be the worst of friends.

Corporate Axiom IV: Don’t follow the herd. But don’t do the opposite either. Join it on the fringes.

Corporate Axiom V: Love what you do. Do what you love. Leave the politics to those with no skill.

Corporate Axiom VI: A communication vacuum will be filled by opportunists. Talk about your ideas often.

Corporate Axiom VII: Being busy is important. But appearing busy is an art. Do both with style.

Corporate Axiom VIII: Good leaders both inspire and reward loyalty. The opposite is true.

Beware the leader climbing a ladder that mysteriously breaks right underneath as they climb up.
Corporate Axiom IX: The company admins are the grease that keeps the engine of industry running. Treat them with respect.

Corporate Axiom X: The Outlook meeting is the sacrosanct ritual to the god of corporations. Show up to all of them early. Schedule only when very necessary, as in often, and include a small note that helps people understand why you want to meet.

Corporate Axiom XI: You’re a creative. You live in a multi-color world, but you’re surrounded by mono-color beings. Learn the rules fast, and fit in where you need to. The ability to fit in and conform is an unspoken rule. It drives the corporate herd. Once you’ve established your ability to camouflage, pull out a little color here and there. You’ll be surprised as to who appreciates it the most. I always am.

Focault’s Muse

Michael Foucault, in his book ‘Madness and Civilization’, writes about how, from age to age, we seek to hide our mentally ill and dispossessed. We look for ways to make those things that reflect our society’s maladies and ills invisible. Other Civilizations believe that a name is empowerement, and when you strip someone of their name, you strip them of their right to exist. Here in Dallas, so many have tried to hide the homeless – to dispossess them of their names. In a city where appearances are everything, and where Mary Kay Corporate fought bitterly to disallow the homeless from standing in one place for too long [and won], in the city where money speaks louder than compassion, the homeless are constantly being pushed back into invisible alleys. I used to see Perry around Fair Park. He was usually carrying huge bags of aluminum cans. He recycles and plays a role opposite to what so many people would think a ‘homeless person’ would play. Living off of our garbage, Perry salvages that which we shouldn’t be wasting in the first place. I approached Perry after finding him taking a door apart – a fully functioning door that had been thrown away. He was removing the metal parts. I introduced myself, and Perry shook my hand with a smile. Perry sleeps at a local shelter and gets an early start every morning, 7 days a week, looking for aluminum to sell. Even though Perry works 12 hour days looking for aluminum, the money he receives from collecting vast amounts of it pays only for his ability to continue staying at the shelter. Perry doesn’t really get helped by being given a dollar. Those small things we do on the corner when we’re confronted by these ghosts in our car are to appease our conscience – we’re paying to have them transform again into ghosts.  Even Perry seemed a bit turned off by the idea when I asked him if he panhandled. Perry, like others, has needs. But we’ll never know what they are until we stop to recognize that they are our as much a part of our community as we are. They are a part of our own society, and only recognition and concerted effort will stop human destitution. Until then poverty and sickness is as much our collective problem as it is anyone else’s.

World of VideoCraft

WoW: Faction Change Walkthrough

Will I ever understand the masses?  The answer is a resounding ‘no’, and proof of my ignorance comes in the form of this video.  I authored it, thinking it was less than adequate – the screen recorder often cuts off the head of my avatars, and it just doesn’t feel complete.  I published it anyway on a whim, and now it’s by far my most popular vid, with about 8,000 views as of this writing.