So it's almost the end of 2005 -- is it necessary to do one of these retrospective / looking forward thingies? Sure, why not.

Recent fortuitous events have placed me in a remarkable position... after ten years and eighty-some days with the same company, I will be quitting what I have semi-sarcastically called my Cursed Day Job on the day after Thanksgiving. Very strange. I'm alternately very nervous and out-of-my skin excited. I'll still have to work somewhere... we can't quite afford to be a one-income household, and the cats and dog don't know too many marketable tricks, so that's not an option. I'll have to get a part-time job. But it won't be a management job. It won't be a bottom-line, responsibility, babysitting for too little money job. I long to punch a clock! And so I will. What, you ask, will you do with the extra time and less money? Make stuff, baby! Promote Brave Men Run. Write my new novel The View That Comes With You. Make podcasts. Get extra active with the various associations and groups I'm involved with. Get out and do some culture now and then. Maybe make some music. Be creative. Additionally, I won't pass up any editing or story diagnosis work you might send my way. I'm still offering dirt cheap web hosting for DIY, creative…

... I've thought about it for a long long time... Oops, wait, this isn't a Todd Rundgren song, it's a blog post, and long overdue at that! Yeah, it's been a couple of weeks, almost exactly, since I've posted. What's up, Matt? Well, work at the Cursed Day Job (CDJ) mostly, and red-pen work with Brave Men Run. The edits are almost complete on the book. I've started working on the web page. I'm gathering my ideas and plans for marketing the work, which will be available in no less than three different media... podcast, e-book, and print. Speaking of that, many thanks to Jan at the Big Bear Grizzly for her generous research work on my behalf. She saved me a day long excursion up the mountain. Actually, a day in Big Bear is a nice thing, especially now that it's finally autumn. Fall is my favorite season, and at 3,500 feet above sea level here in the lush and lavish studios of MWS Media, I can actually experience the change of seasons despite living in Southern California. Big Bear's higher still, which means I can go up there in a couple of months for a snow fix. Ramble,…

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…

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!

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!