Paxgitmo's Journals

Freewayblogging by Word of Mouth

For the last 8 years, some of us have been telling each other (knowingly? optimistically? desperately? smugly?) "01-20-09".

It's coming up soon.

I'll obviously have to work. Someone always has to talk to all those planes. At least this time, it's not rendition flights into nowhere but Americans to the Inauguration of the century.

But, missing the party doesn't mean I miss the point.

President-Elect Obama, you have already proven that when you talk about an issue, people will listen. They will change the way they think about it.

Bombing thirty civilians a day, even if its by one of our allies, is so post-9-11/pre-Obama.

Your mother was an anthropologist. She also raised a son. And she was American, as well as a planetary citizen.

I think she would back other mothers of sons like myself who would like to remind you of the tremendous power and potential of females who want an end to stupid wars. You said yourself that stupid wars are wrong.

(I donâ�™t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war.
Barack Obama )

Please say something about the killing going on in our name. War is so over.

In the meantime, I am going to remind you the way mothers say 'pick up your drawls' the reason why you were elected.

In the frosted window of my elected representative's local office -

Waiting for the doctor

"I Voted for Peace" is the new "Yes We Can".

Pass it on.

"What's so great about democracy anyway?"

The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do.
- Joseph Stalin, 1879 - 1953

Many count their chickens before they are hatched; and where they expect bacon, meet with broken bones.
- Miguel de Cervantes, 1547 - 1616

If you can't vote, you can help change America's course just by not being a jerk. Don't be a self-righteous douche to people who disagree with you. Avoid talking points. Listen. You'd be surprised how many people may be more inclined to change their thinking by your respectful listening than by sarcastic comebacks from the halo-polishing and rigidly territorial so-called 'peace' groups like the ones I've been involved with.

If you can vote, vote. Go to GoVote.org to find out if you can still vote early. Pay attention to detail. This is proving to be the most aggressive assault on voter's rights since women got the franchise. The harrassment will be of the bureaucratic, chickenshit hair-splitting type. Don't be deterred, and don't expect it to be easy. Nothing important is always easy.

Video your vote.

Put this number in your speed-dial - 1-877-523-2792 Voter Supression Hotline

Machines are known to flip your choice - it happened to me. Be ready. Be sure that your county,state or parish allows you to bring your phone in the booth with you beforehand. Yes, that's one way they will void your vote.

If you get jacked around at the polls, take downloads of the Steal Back your Vote comic. Go prepared with the suggestions from VoteKindly.org

On November 5th, our job isn't over yet. Join the cyber-militias standing by in case of a contested election over at NoMoreStolenElections.org.

Don't forget to have fun. I have to work, but I'm planning a big post-election party to go sweat out all the week's work.

May our national nightmare end.

And may God Bless America.

Emergency guide to self-defense against unimaginative pop-culture costumes

Hello friends and lurkers

Yeah I know I suck at updating, but I still keep one paw in over here. Kind of like a wolf in a trap. Segue coming up, hold on.....

If your friends are anything like mine, people look forward all year to dressing up for Halloween. The only time this can be a problem is when people's need for inordinate attention outweighs their imagination. Not that this would happen to you, but sometimes the party moves to another place where everyone still rocks the lingerie-and-ears thing.

A good sport does not simply roll her eyes until the feather-tipped eyelashes pop off. No, a real fun guest comes prepared.

Mind you, I've got the same problem as Crash13 here, ie, only an hour a day on a slow and infected public computer, so feel free to keep this going. Or not. I'll never know. It's pretty fun not being tied to my camera or computer after so many Halloweens when I was. But enough about me - I promised to guide you. Here we go....

1)Vampires. Vampires. Fuh-uh-uck, will someone drive a stake through this trend? (I say that with all due respect for real vampires, being married to a Transylvanian, who assures me that vampires of his homeland are thick and ugly things. Hey, I could be one of those!) But back to Twilight and True Blood ....

as anyone who has done time in Death Care Studies or Phlebotomy can tell you, the people who most fetishize the idea of blood and death are the first ones to faint at the sight of cadaver or needle. Give the Bill Compton in your life a personal nurse, one who's put in her time at the blood bank and knows her way around a resuscitation case.

Basket of Twinkies and 10-gallon donor sticker optional.

2) This is a gimmee. Let's face it, you're not going to be able to swing a black cat without hitting some version of The Joker. You must be prepared to be even Jokier.

My friend Cesar who is getting married in a Hollywood wedding this Saturday is planning to take this to the obvious extreme

Cesar as el joker! It's the Prop 8- Latin holiday - cool retro trifecta! Arriba! Oh my goodness. You just can't find anything that tacky at Good Goth anymore.

Another possibility, if you've got political homies and great legs, is to pair up the Joker-in-the-nurse's-uniform thing with a Dick Cheney mask. Bloody aerial map of Iran optional.

3) Sexy Sarah Palin. Unfortunately, the hottest costume idea this season is one that can be pulled off successfully even if you've got a body like a sack of meal and an imagination the size of a pea. So let's go ahead and accept you're going to see a minimum of three Sexy Sarahs in an average-sized bar. How to have fun with those odds?

Embrace the fact that you know the territory, and pre-empt the person's act while upping the interactive-role-playing factor. Channel Rabbit from 8 Mile in the final battle scene. Whichever of these that you wear is an implied 'gotcha!' on the total expectitude of the person's costume choice.

Which brings us to the most obvious Sarah- foil

Meeses (hat tip to Agitproper for this one)

One hot, uncomfortable hour to make an impression, a whole night of tossing off one-liners with your antlers tucked under your beer arm.

This is totally versatile and do-able. Leave as is, or buddy up as the back end in the full-body version, this year's couple costume. Hang a '$150,000' price tag off one of the antlers for a gravid political comment, or just run around nuzzling up against pencil skirts all night.

On to my personal favorite -

Angry Like the Wolf

Ohhhhhh the possibilities. Now that those ratty beehive wigs are already half-price, you could splash some fake blood on one, tease it up, and let it dangle from your pseudo-jaws. Strap on Dad's steampunk aviator helmet, add a plastic uzi, and go as Brother Wolf's Revenge. Walk around making helicopter noises. A-hooooooo!

Too obscure?

Offer a camo- bandana-wrapped basket of these labeled "Bounty Treats". You could do that even if you are dressed like one of the Girls Next Door.

If any of these are too angry, too dumb, or just too much trouble, I noticed that all the 'character' rubber masks are 76 % off at Spirit stores. You could put on a Putin mask and just mill around the dance floor rearing your head.

I'm going to be in the wedding party of two dia de los muertos ceremonies this weekend so sadly, I can't use any of these. But in my opinion, you just can't beat the classics - witches, ghosts, skeletons,and that goddess of all night creatures, the cat

Class. Style. Yep.

Meow.

Happy Halloween.

Pride in the name of Buzznet

I just finished reading this incredibly resonant graphic novel about the family of starving lions found by American forces during the first days of Shock and Awe called "The Pride of Baghdad".

It made me think a lot about that time, and what brought me to the internet, including here, and how all that keeps changing.

All graphic novels are not created equal. Some use pictures to distract from lazy writing. Others, like this one, and Persepolis, are like being inside someone's dreams. Like good photography.

I'm leading up to something with this, honest.

I am a functional depressive. I will probably be limited by anxiety and depression in one form or another for the rest of my life.

Since the brain changes that led to my PTSD were not organic but caused by, umm, "external events", it's not even like conventional drugs work. Not that I believe in them anyway. Tried 'em all, and no thanks, I don't need to ask my doctor if being a duped target of the pharmaceutical industry is right for me.

So I kept a journal, and found out what worked.

Turns out that writing and exercise were the only things that really helped. Really helped.

This coincided with the time I started working nights, and blogspot was new.

I got a blogspot. I wrote every night. I felt blessed when another blogger found me (so rare in those pre-sitemeter days!) and felt affirmed if something I wrote helped somebody out.

Then I discovered dance.

It became obvious that my choices in themselves made me a healthier person - that it is better to go alive and dancing through life than benumbed and drugged.

Writing, especially journaling, when practiced as a habit, forces self-reflection. You can't fake it. What kind of loser lies to a diary?

And dancing, like photography or illustrated novels, is one of those things that you can fake at the risk of looking like a desperate, untalented hack.

I still write and dance every day. I'm not talented, but I am honest. I think.

Sometime during the last four years, it seems, everybody else got a blogspot. Or a MySpace

MySpace became the platform for losers -who- lie- to- a- diary.

Photo-editing programs became a million dollar racket. Turns out, it is actually easy to fake a good photo these days.

And the groups of users both in the dance and online-writing worlds seemed to be seperating into two strata -

The ones who need to do it, like I do, to prove we are alive,

and the fiercely ambitious, often talented, but relentlessly self-seeking who need to be in the front of the mirror, in the middle of every solo, at the top of the bill, on the front page, collecting the most 'badges', etc etc etc

This isn't a problem unless you are depressed and as sensitive about other people's feelings as I am.

If I have one good hour a day - on a good day- I write.

Since I prefer to write blogs, my journal is often online.

So what happens if someone who needs to be validated reads my dumb little journal and leaves a nice comment and I don't see it for days? Or I just don't have the juice or the energy to say something back?

"That Paxgitmo is such a bitch" - a hilarious accidental bulletin read. "She never reads my stuff".

Another contact from my dance-related Tribe group discovered my twitter.

"What a bitchfest" she said. Meaning, 'where is the part about me?"

And what does that say about Buzznet? That it's only a place for the dozen or so most popular users to compete for Comment of the Day to each other all over the front page?

Obviously, that person never had PTSD on a no-internet week.
.

Everywhere I've been since reading The Pride of Baghdad, I seem to be surrounded by those elbowers-in-the-dance-studio, whiners-for-badge type personalities; announcing 'this is boring' during "Religulous", laughing at Frida's eyebrows at the Kahlo show at SF, getting drunk and stupid during someone else's spoken word solo, and, leaving off-topic comments all over my blog-circles that all say the same thing - quit paying attention to that work of art and look at mememememeeeee!!!!

I like lions. I like solitary and graceful beings who act according to their own instincts. Take this as metaphorically as you like.

A cute and clever little monkey jumping up and down and flinging poo at the backs of zoo-goers admiring the big cats is still a monkey. And their chosen medium is still shit.

That is not enough to keep me from admiring the lions.

I'm not much of a joiner, but if I were to start a group, it would be No Comments or Buzzes Solicited or Needed.

Come in and browse.

Kinda like a zoo without the monkey house.

Remote

(My old camera used to have a remote that worked. Too bad.)

Anybody remember my last whiny journal entry?

This is the message I mentioned in my comments- reprinted, understandably anonymously, with permission. From one of my oldest blog-brothers.

"Sophisticated, deep, sensitive, intuitive, freakin hot, tolerant, orgasmic but chaste, prolific, talented and loyal female users with killer tits and asses and a little crush on him are a dime a dozen.

You are all 'fucking amazing'. You are all 'awesome'. That is the horror, the true horror of sites like this. You deserve to feel unique. How can you be?

Be yourself. You can't go wrong being yourself. And you'll have the indescribably good feeling of having been honest in a nest of nasty lies, and of doing the right thing".

Thank you. I will.

Thanks for the link, Homegirl

This is how it feels, sometimes -

You're hanging out with your group..your 'girls' or your homies. Whatev. They wanted to go to Six Flags and you wanted to go to Vegas. You compromise with a road trip.
You can hear them laughing at some girly t.v. phenomenon they are watching in the airport bar and feel both left out for a second and then a little trickle of anticipation because you know it will be something YOU will think is funny. You will add it to the lines and call-backs you take turns reciting to each other in your online tweets, in crowded bars and in Ladies' Room lines. One of them is talking to someone you don't know. The friend who is doing the talking is the one who always makes you feel a little scared and sad when she laughs at something before the rest of the group. The woman she is talking to looks like someone you would never know. You will not remember any physical detail of her appearance when she leaves your group a minute later.

"I'm going to Hoover Dam. We should meet up". your friend says.
Stranger Lady shrugs and pays for your round before she leaves, turning around to wave with a smile.
You have never thought of going to Hoover Dam before, but now Leader Friend adds it to your list of things to do.

"She's really funny" Friend says of the person who left. "You guys would like her" and although you can remember a few nice things she said to you, you can't see anything in particular about her to like.

One afternoon about four days later, you find yourself alone again, keeping place in a bathroom line outside the Hoover Dam Turbine Room, waiting for all your friends and the sun seems suddenly too close, and you are aware all of a sudden of how exhausted you are of drinking in bars and always needing coffee and looking for places to sit, and waiting in bathroom lines. Your head still hurts from the rollercoaster at New York New York and the krunking you were doing with one of your girls there last night, but this is fun, what they call having fun.
You want to sit down so bad you sneak into the air conditioned planetarium where there are hourly slide presentations on the history of the building of Hoover Dam.

You doze off for a minute in the dark letting your mind throw up images behind your burning eyes of all the other lines going on in Vegas right now, all the attractions behind velvet ropes and closed doors. You open your eyes resigned to who knows what.
You realize your sweat has dried and your breathing has slowed. When you lay your head on your knees you realize you have been daydreaming about the stories of those people in the slides. You are wondering what made someone come back day after day in this heat with no coffee or place to sit and wonder if you would ever finish anything in your life. You imagine yourself carrying on after seeing your buddy killed by a crane. You don't ask yourself if this is fun, but you feel good when you get up and go outside.
The woman you saw in the airport is sitting against the wall outside in line for the next showing.

"This is how it feels to follow a friend's link to my blog", I say.

Graduated.

Hai Frens,

Me and my computer are sick today. : ( For some reason I can't figure out, I'm not able to see when my friends update. But that's another ish.

- I had a good friend and very popular Buzznetter say to me recently that they think they are just weaker imitations of the people that came before.

*Reaching through the monitor to slaaaaaaap*

PLEASE don't compare yourselves to anyone! If you must do any comparing, ask yourself is this really what I want to be doing? Could I be better? Should I try x y z or screw the whole thing till time I get my groove back? Maybe I should't be putting this in a bulletin. But. Anyway.

Yes. We do compare. It's human nature.

Yes, the third-, fourth, and fifth-gen Buzznetters sometimes feel shut out by the ones who were here before (personally, I'm flattered if they know we exist.) But look at all the pressures you have that we didn't. You have groups and forums and communities. We had comments, if you felt like it. You have badges and titles and contests. We liked who we liked, and it
was pretty simple and sincere. Now there's a lot more excitement around all the opportunities for recognition, but that's hard for some people to deal with. Like me, for instance. I don't want to leave a best comment of the day - it's hard enough coming up with something original that the person doesn't get twisted. I don't need to be better than another user - in fact, I'd like to 'suggest to feature' some of the brave, eloquent mistakes I've seen on people's pages here. It's beautiful to watch ourselves learn.

I guess it really is true that social networks are like high school. It brings out similar feelings in me, that's for sure. I always got along with the popular kids, and even rather liked a few, but I never felt any pressure for them to include me. And I sometimes felt a little guilty that my friends, the people who understood and pleased me, were so.........unacceptable. That's one of the reasons I started writing, for christ's sake. (Would Henry Rollins have been a Buzzmaker?
John Lydon? The Coen Brothers? Those were people I want to compare myself against.)

On the other hand, it is FAIL on a grand scale to mock popular and/or featured people for their popularity. I have spent enough time building relationships here to know it is NOT easy. It can be a lot of fun, but it takes time, and is not without effort (especially for the sweethearts like the late departed Funksteena who had no agenda except to be nice.) Let the featured and popular users enjoy the status they've earned. It keeps the conversation lively, as my English teacher used to say (when I was there.)

You don't have to listen to me though. I'm not the teacher. I'm not the best student in the school
But I'm probably the only one out of that graduating class who still reads, let alone writes, for the joy of it every day.

Besides, you can't ditch Real Life. Ain't it a bitch?

Congratulations to all those with featured content. I appreciate you. Now give yourselves a kiss.

For anyone who missed "Caligula"

The Roman Empire didn't fall because of the excesses of a spoiled, violent and petulant crazy man.

It began to rot almost immediately after the Senate rolled over and got punked by him.

"If we do not change course and stand up for our Constitution, for what is best in America, for what we know is right and just, then history will most certainly decide that it was those of us in this body who bear equal responsibility for the President's decisions -- for it was us who looked the other way, time and time again."
-- Senator Christopher Dodd, July 8, 2008, on the Senate floor during debate of the re-authorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)

Someone in Congress is beginning to hold their colleagues accountable for spinelessly refusing to check the powers of the executive branch.

My IRL people keep asking me why we aren't taking to the streets.

The streets have been dissasembled and the center doesn't hold.

We have the internet.

One group that is making it easy to gather in the public square and be heard -

from the Republic of California -

The Courage Campaign Movement to Censure Senator Feinstein

Yeah, I know. They're asking for money. They already failed once. They are embarrassing the Dems.

Someone is recognizing the damage done to the Constitution over the past seven years, and is doing something about it.

Courage.

What a beautiful concept.

dis-Ëˆkri-mÉ™-ËŒnÄt

"Marked by the ability to see or make fine distinctions; "discriminate judgments"; "discriminate people"

"In general, 'discrimination' is the discernment of qualities and recognition of the differences between things

I've just been accused of being "discriminory."

I can only assume the interlocutor meant 'discriminating'.

It's true. I am. I don't believe in controling an 'image', which is ridiculous if not pathetic for someone not in politics or show biz, so I'm often surprised by how people see me. It's instructive.

Discrimination is a good word. It's a valuable quality that got a bad rap from people who unfairly discriminate, who think they can hear/see one thing about you (ie, you're a baby boomer;she's a Native American) and think they know everything about you.

I do judge, though.

I don't really judge you by your looks, your education level, your income, your age, your favorite bands, your blogs, photos, groups, numbers of friends, or your badges.

I judge you by how you treat other people.

Discrimination will always be underestimated by people who would rather be told what to like, who to fear, and which groups to blame for their own lives.

Class dismissed. : )

Statement of Purposelessness

....and a disclaimer- I know it's not fair to throw down a manifesto when I don't respond to comments, but expression is the soul of art.

I gotz to, in other words.

I just had lunch yesterday with someone from back in the blogspot day. She was one of the first people I met offline, and one of the inspirations for recognizing the talents of the original content providers that eventually morphed into Buzznet Originals.

"I've heard a rumor you quit the group. Is it so you can focus more on your other group?" (yes, bloggers talk in hyperlinks.)

"No, but the thinking is the same. OMG, you just totally helped me figure something out".

As soon as I got to work, I looked for that article that had just come back to memory -

"CEO Tyler Goldman doesn't want people to think of his company as a social network. No, what Goldman says he's running is a music- and pop-culture-focused community site.

"We definitely wouldn't view ourselves as a social network, and we probably wouldn't disagree with folks that say the world doesn't need another social network," Goldman, a former executive at Movielink and founder of Broadband Sports, said in an interview. His preferred jargon? "Socially programmed communities." Buzznet, in other words, wants to be the 1980s-era MTV of the social-media age: an epicenter for youth trends and cultural influence, where the content is fueled by a community rather than hand-picked editorial content." (source)

"We believe this formula of social-media programming is very successful and applies to all areas of pop culture...television, film, fashion, celebrity."

In other words, this generation, the first Internet Natives, with more technology and opportunity to pursue and express interest (and, arguably, more to protest and feel angst about) than any other young people in history, are primarily interested in reading about celebrities.

That's your CEO's vision.*

Oh, and did you know (no, you don't know what you want yet;the right celebrity hasn't appeared to tell you) the one thing Buzznet users really really need and don't have yet is a dedicated Heavy Metal site!

Good news

"Heavy metal has always been a leading music genre with one of the most devoted fan bases, yet there isn't a strong web community dedicated to these bands and their fans," said Scott Boyd, General Manager, Buzznet. "The Gauntlet's founder Jason Fisher has done a tremendous job establishing the site as the metal authority, offering the best editorial content on the web for the genre. This new relationship is a great entree into metal for Buzznet which will allow us to collaborate on content and expose our millions of users to a community and a whole new breed of bands they may not have found on their own."
(source)

Hmmm. I'm for letting the users talk about how they want to be used and who they want to be 'exposed' to, but then, I'm not a celebrity.

So, to answer JessHorrible's question, I didn't quit the groups so much as I spread my originality around. After all, I've never wanted a badge or recognition for what I do. I just like being in the right place to do it. And I'm not leaving, no matter who wins what election or gets merged with which Not a Social Network.

Which brings me back to my current dilemma.

My frustration with the political group blog is very much the same degree as the vision for the Buzznet Originals. Yes, there are good patriotic soldiers opposed to the war. I get tired of trying to convince some hipster virtucrat of this reality. Yes there are people who are happily oblivious to honors and status on Buzznet who post for the joy of it.

But in neither case do they expect to be rewarded for it.

Active troops do organize against the war within the military. It is possible. It is also possible to be creative and original on Buzznet.

But arguing over your right to a badge for it is like a soldier against the war demanding a medal.

End rant.

*(Edited to incorporate Ignatz's correction.)

[For the record, the founders' vision for Buzznet has always been about music, as more than one user has pointed out before.

"The article says Buzznet was established in October 2003 by Marc Brown and Anthony Batt. Marc's a music lover and he got the idea of Buzznet when he tried to find a place to post photos he took of a Coachella Music Festival in Indio, Calif". Yep, that was a few months before I joined.

If he wants to make the celeb sites the tail that wags the dog, who am I to complain? But the groups are mutually exclusive. It's like Banksy asking for stock in the buildings he paints on.]

"A discrimating irreverance is the creator and protector of human liberty" - Mark Twain