Yeah, so it's about two minutes to two, been a long day, good day... and I have one more. This is how I do it... no blogs forever, then, when it's really worth it, you might get two, three in the course of twenty four. Maybe sometime soon I'll be more prolific. Now... well. Here we go. It's late, and I'm tired, but here we go. Long time ago, I was pining for some closure with a situation, a relationship, a time that didn't go so well. It was (another) one of those things where I gave as much as I could, where I dedicated all I had to someone who just wasn't ready, then, to take it. I always wondered why things ended up the way they did. I always wondered what I did to deserve it. I always wondered if I would have gone right back and done it again. I wondered if anything came of it. Found out, today, for sure, that I did something right. Understand that I'm not easy with my past. I have history that walks in front of me when I close my eyes, before I go to sleep, and at those moments…

So I met some real live podcasters in the flesh today... some folks whose work I've listened to for the last few months. Don't think they've listened to me (yet) cuz I'm kind of a small fry... but based on my Feedburner stats, that may have changed after today. It was a fun meeting. It's interesting how quickly a group of people who haven't really interacted can just get to work on a common task. That's the pod/blog effect, though -- we have interacted, by being each others' listeners. Having an agenda helped, too... What did that agenda entail? Mostly deciding what we were going to do with our exhibition booth at the upcoming Portable Media Expo in November. Yes, I'm going to be a conventioneer. Crazy. See you there -- booth 313, November 11th and 12th, Ontario, California. It was invigorating, being around peers who do what you do. It was way worth the two hour drive "down the hill," and a great start to a day of socializing with old friends and new!

I just wanted to say that today, July 31st, 2005, at around 6:50 in the evening, I passed the fifty thousand word mark in Brave Men Run. I've never written anything this long. It's going to be finished soon. I'm happy!

My, that's a provocative title, no? Well, it's nothing like that... it's simply that I'm finally getting back to finishing my novel, Brave Men Run. See, July has been just awful when it came to writing. There was just too much pressure from the Cursed Day Job, too many outside things taking not just my time but, more importantly, my energy. Today, a few days before the end of the month and more than thirty days since I've written a word of the book, I'm just starting to feel halfway normal. Yesterday I dipped into the book and read the last few scenes. And I felt like I could get back to it. I felt the trepidation slipping away, and started to hear my characters speak again. Trepidation? Yep. See, I'm in the last third... maybe the last quarter... of a piece of work that's been building in me for better than fifteen years. Now, I don't say that to create an inflated sense of the book's literary merit -- this is a light piece of science fiction, a coming of age story with a helping of innocence lost, not The Remembrance of Things Past. But yeah, I feel a…

It's the Go-Betweens "Bye Bye Pride." Originally from their "Tallulah" record, it's appeared in various forms (mostly live) on other recordings of theirs -- most recently a semi-acoustic live version on their new disk, "Oceans Apart." I know it won't have the same effect on you, but for me, every time I hear it, my chest tightens, I feel happy, I feel sad, I feel exhilarated, I feel nostalgic and a touch melancholy, and I feel optomistic and hopeful. Sometimes, purging tears spring to my eyes... not weeping so much as a gentle release of pressure. Every time. I love that song. I owe so much to that band, for that song, and for others that sometimes come close. But "Bye Bye Pride" does it every time. Just wanted to share. What's your favorite song ever? Why? Oh yeah... once again, thank you, Anne.

All right, folks! Here's a reminder that it pays to speak, to act. Earlier this week, it came to my attention that Nike was using a knock-off of classic, iconic Minor Threat album cover art to promote a skateboarding tour. Dischord Records never gave permission to use, never approved of, and never condoned the Nike ad campaign. In fact, they were diametrically opposed to it. Unfortunately, Dischord recognized that they didn't have the financial resources to mount a legal battle against Nike. So. I wrote a letter to Nike, essentially calling them out, and I spread the word to the folks on the Mike Watt discussion group on Yahoo!, and to my friends on MySpace. I encouraged everyone to contact their own mailing lists (most or many including many, many more people than I could reach) and we got viral on the whole thing. Today, Nike issued an apology and removed the image from the media, both in print and online. Fuck yeah. I'm not saying I'm responsible. I'm saying it feels good to stand for DIY, for what's right, and it feels good to be involved in something that ... in a matter of less than 100 hours... changed…

Oy, right now, mostly ebb. I'm sitting here knowing that I should be writing, it's the time of day, the hour I reserve, when I should be working on Brave Men Run. That takes some energy, though, especially since I'm in the last third of the book and things are cooking... it's physically draining to write this part of the book, at least it is if I intend to do it right. And I intend to do it right. It's tough to find the energy to do the things I want to do... this is an old song I'm singing, I know, but it's a melody that keeps getting stuck in my head! I know I can't up and quit my job, and if I did, I'd have to replace it with another one, right? There's no living off of my art, not yet, not for me. So I have to find the energy. Right now, I don't have it. So I sit and blog to you, dear reader(s), and when I'm done with this and the time is gone, I'll be a little frustrated and feel the pressure of time and an empty legacy on the back of my…

After many "yougottaseeits," I finally spent a few hours to see Sideways I admit I've been gunshy; the last movie people raved about and insisted I'd like was Lost In Translation, and that was a piece of crap. No, it was. You wanna make something outta it? Anyhoo. Sideways was great. Nailed it. And what do you know, it had an actual story. Nice job. There's more to it than that; it's affected me, and I'm not sure where I am right now, in my head. It was a good time to watch it, that's for sure, because I've been both of those guys at one point or another, or even at the same time. These days, I'm certainly more Miles than Jack. Which is challenging, but honorable, and I can wake up in the morning not afraid of the mirror, you know? One of these days, I'll write about being a born-again moralist. Or something like that. For now: good movie, and a nice endcap to a fine, relaxed, reflective day yesterday, and a very satisfying evening with an old friend and her new husband. Finest kind, they are. Two and a half days of vacation to go!

It was an interesting morning at the lush and lavish studios of MWS Media. First, a sprinkler valve on the expansive and well-appointed lawn burst, leading to a few hours' of repair work and no water for cooking or showering for the on-site staff. While waiting for pipe seal to dry, I pursued a very active thread at the Podcasters Yahoo Group. The essential question: would listeners donate money to offset the costs of podcasting, and would they do it often enough to avoid traditional advertising and sponsors? Or are we doomed to have commercials in our podcasts? During the course of the discussion, I checked in with the Boing Boing newsfeed, and discovered a new site called PledgeBank. Essentially, this site encourages folks to pledge their support of something on the condition that others do so as well. This dovetailed nicely with the discussion I'd been having all morning. So here it is: I will contribute $5.00 each to five podcasters who are not supported by paid sponsors or paid advertising... if and only if twenty five other podcasters or listeners to podcasts do the same thing before July 14th, 2005. Who's game? Full details.