658660 my dream job
My cousin and I couldn't stop doing or selling drugs. Th police would come over to my cousin's house and arrest us both; and as soon as th police were gone, my cousin and I would break out all of our drugs and start doing or selling them again. It was house arrest. It seemed as if every time our parole officers stopped by my cousin's house, my cousin and I'd be in th middle of a transaction or a high. Sometimes we wouldn't wait for th police to leave th premises before recidivating. We'd hear their police cars backing out of my cousin's driveway, and we'd get back to business. Sometimes we'd do or sell drugs while we were still in cuffs, if th officer looked away for a moment -- or while he or she was filling out our paperwork in th breakfast nook. If th cop happened to look up from his or her paperwork while we were doing that, my cousin and I would have to get arrested again, which led to more paperwork and more recidivism.
It was in this way that my criminal record grew to several pages long in a short period of time. I'd be in bed doing or selling drugs when cops would bust in and ask me what I thought I was doing. Nothing, I'd say. Oh yeah? they'd reply, lifting up my pillow to reveal drugs and a detailed ledger of illicit revenue. Den what's this? They'd lengthen my sentence on th spot. A couple minutes later, on days that weren't lucky, they'd bust me again. One of them had left her police hat on my bed by accident and had popped back in to get it, for instance.
When business was slow, my cousin and I would buy drugs from each other. We didn't care if our nephews or nieces were present, watching Cars 2 or learning to walk or whatever. If those babbies had had any money or drugs, we'd no doubt have tried to do business w/ them, too. That's how addicted to doing and selling drugs we were. Th dollar signs we saw in each other's eyes might've been hallucinations from designer psychedelics; it's difficult to say for certain. Rock bottom? That might've been th sting operation. A police officer who'd posed as a customer put me and my cousin under house arrest and den returned later in th day to try to buy more drugs from us. My cousin was furious w/ me for failing to recognize th guy th second time around. In my defense, th dude looked totally different in uniform. They say our criminal justice system is broken, but I never understood quite what they meant until I was in th thick of it my own self.
My impulse is to break the windows of Starbucks, but I’d get arrested if I did that, so I make comics about people breaking the windows of Starbucks.
-- Ben Katchor, interview on Virtual Memories podcast, 15 April 2013
10 Feb 2013, Krewe of Bacchus parade, NOLA
12 Feb 2013 (Mardi Gras Day), Krewe of Zulu parade, NOLA
27 Jan 2013, Uptown, NOLA
"BUH"
"Mario? You all right?"
"Yeah. Bad dream."
"Whenever you wake up, it's like you're escaping the Matrix."
"Hahehehehh"
"Oh, you like that. You think I'm a funny wife."
"Whenever I wake up? Or only when you wake me up, against my will ?"
"It happens all the time. You go, 'BUH', like you just dodged a bullet by leaning backwards."
There's something bad on th tip of my brain -- yr brain, too, probably. Name th top four things that aid mental function. Going for a walk. Joking back and forth w/ people you like. Bacon. Solitude.
Brain blocked? See to it that you're getting those four things in sufficient quantities before concluding that you're dumb. In th absence of bacon, duck (th bacon of th air) will do. Maybe list-making will help. Make a list of things that terrify you. Be honest. Make a list of things that you say you don't fear but that, just between you and God, you do fear. Bears. That God doesn't exist. That he does exist, and he's not pleased. Bears. Death. Yr mother's death. Black teenagers in groups. Chechens. Prison. Having things shoved under yr fingernails. Having things shoved, in general. Being buried alive. Clawing @ th velvet coffin lining. Guy playing w/ a knife. Fear itself. Pissing and shitting yr pants while dangling from a rope in front of a classroom full of attractive women. Losing yr daughter in a dense crowd @ th county fair. Having a daughter. Dropping somebody else's babby while crossing a rope bridge. Getting captured by Russians (when you're a Chechen). Breaking yr nephew's back while executing a piledriver w/ incorrect form. Being anybody except yrself, all of a sudden, w/o warning. An old, discoloured, naked hunchback shuffling toward you in a narrow hallway, head tilted 90° to one side. Having no choice but to sleep under a bridge. Getting too old to walk. Robots.
Talents are best nurtured in solitude; character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.
-- Goethe, Torquato Tasso, 1790
7 May 2012, NOLA
A long time ago, when we hunted, and nobody wore spectacles, people who had poor eyesight would have been less valuable to a tribe's economy, more susceptible to accidental death, and easier targets for predators. As a result, most humans now living don't have shitty eyesight. My wife wears spectacles, and I wear spectacles because our ancestors got lucky and had other skills that compensated for seeing everything blurry; or lived w/ lenient tribes; or lived in environments where seeing everything blurry wasn't a dealbreaker. So goes th story. Perhaps our eyesights aren't shitty outside of th context of a literate society. You ever wonder what yr personality would be like if nobody knew how to read? We'd like watching movies. Nobody would've made any movies, though. Nobody'd know to push record. For a long time, nobody said shit. First came grunts. Den came grammar. Th rest is history. Language existed before that, though, right? It existed as a capacity. Take th first sentence that was ever writ. Reverse-engineer dat to th first sentence that was ever spoke. Reverse-engineer dat to th first sentence that was ever thought. Reverse-engineer dat to what. A feeling. A need. A logic. A sequence of neural on-off switches. A radiation. Where was language before you used it to tell th others about th bear ? That's right. It was on ice. It was on ice in th sun. It travelled 8⅓ minutes as light and heat to get trapped in a leaf that got eaten by a deer that got hunted by you. Den it was on ice in you, who got scared by th bear. You felt th fear that thawed th ice in which all sentences had been locked away. "God damn it, guys," you said, "that bear's got knives for hands."
Now this is where th language has taken us. My wife talks on th phone. She talks to her phone -- "Who are you?" -- and her phone parses her sounds and answers back. Soon th phone will have feelings, but today it is self-effacing: "Who I am is not important."
Economist David Autor has suggested that the first jobs to go will be middle-skill jobs. Despite impressive advances, robots still don't have the dexterity to perform many common kinds of manual labor that are simple for humans -- digging ditches, changing bedpans. Nor are they any good at jobs that require a lot of cognitive skill -- teaching classes, writing magazine articles. But in the middle you have jobs that are both fairly routine and require no manual dexterity. So that may be where the hollowing out starts: with desk jobs in places like accounting or customer support.
-- Kevin Drum, "Welcome, Robot Overlords. Please Don't Fire Us?", Mother Jones, May 2013
4 Apr 2013, NOLA
It occurs to me in th moments immediately before and after waking up that th language does not belong to me. I'm neither its owner nor its user. I'm a custodian @ best. In th beginning was th word. Th word was made flesh on its way to becoming something else entirely. Chrome and electricity come next; and if there's something else after that, ah won't be around to see it. Th word has been my custodian and my cargo. It is about to disembark and transfer to a speedier ride to godliness. Good luck, cruel word.
4 Mar 2013, Moss Beach, CA
In 1988 @ th end of School Daze, Laurence Fishburne is hollering, "Wake up!" to a college campus full of sleepy black students, professors, and administrators. Eleven years later in Th Matrix, Fishburne is hollering th same exhortation @ a tentative messiah named Keanu Reeve. On a steamy July day in 2013, Fishburne appears to me in th flames of a gas stove to debate th future of humanity. He's a good deal more pessimistic than he was in th films. Now he says that every time he wakes up or wakes other people up, what they are waking up into is a higher level of th same video game.
"Is that so bad?" I ask. "I mean, we're adding skills each time, @ least, aren't we."
"We are adding skills, or th machines are?"
"Ah, that's right. You don't see th machines as extensions of ourselves."
"Let's just say that th last few years of witnessing human beings kowtowing lower and lower before devices that aren't even intelligent yet has diminished my faith."
"Look how much we are talking to one another, though. Human beings, I mean."
"Consider th quality of those conversations. Consider th outcomes of those conversations. On Facebook, agreeing to disagree has been inflated into a positive outcome."
"Well, it ain't like conversations in person are infused w/ magickal harmony. Wait, you're on FB?"
"Conversations in person benefit from th assumption that you're not supposed to say everything that's on yr mind. That's a good thing. And eye contact, which does have magickal powers."
"I'm not afraid of everything that's on everyone's minds; are you? You're black. What if MLK hadn't broadcast everything that was on his mind to th Internet?"
"..."
"..."
"Dr King was a great man. However, no man is great enough not to be absorbed by th Internet rabble and spat out as a toothless meme."
"That's harsh, Larry. You people have come a long way since th civil rights movement."
"You people? I have come a long way. I have wealth. I am one of th top three magick negroes in th game. But ask yrself: where does this leave all of th non-magick negroes?"
"President Obama. Will Smith. Morgan Freeman. That puts you @ #4."
"Let's agree to disagree."
"Let's agree to agree that human beings matter. That humanity deserves a shot @ continued evolution. That superheroes were an aspirational invention: versions of ourselves that might yet be."
"Mario, I do not believe in Keanu Reeve anymore."
"Yeah, yeah, he doesn't exist yet. That's what evolution's for."
"Evolution? Don't get me wrong; my take on all of this is that human psychology and behaviour are mutable. But they are sticky."
"Evolution is too slow for you, you mean."
"Too slow to keep pace w/ cultural and technological progress. Think of culture as a pair of pants. Think of technology as ... technology."
"All right, we're cavemen in pants playing w/ tricorders."
"Precisely. We have th emotions of cavemen. Th fight-or-flight response of cavemen. Th cognitive blinkers. Th tribal instinct. Th lust. Why? Because a couple million years of evolved adaptations have made th caveman a grandmaster @ fulfilling th prime directive --"
"-- which is to fuck around on th Internet."
"Which is to fuck, period. To replicate. People who don't make more of themselves not only don't pass on their genes, they don't pass on their ways of being."
"Except for inventors, lawmakers, artists ..."
"Naturally. It's not unusual to replicate oneself through technological, legal, or artistic influence. Most influencers, though, are only repeating or @ best remixing ideas that are already powerful in th culture, so it's all a wash. We live in interesting times, technology-wise, because any idea can go viral. But viral-ness defeats itself because it depends on our seeing ideas as cheap, disposable, and fungible."
"You see no good future for us?"
"Not exactly. Everything good about us will be absorbed by th machines. Our programs. Our souls, if you prefer."
"I don't. My body means a lot to me."
"That's unfortunate, given how temporary it is. Wasn't living forever th whole point of getting close to God? What difference does it make if heaven's in th cloud?"
"Larry, m'dog, you're th one who's supposed to be waging th war against th machines for th preservation of human independence and beauty."
"I surrendered to a higher power, dog. It was a bitter pill to swallow. But it beats watching reruns of human history for another million years."
Right now, he points out, everyone is born with an endowment of labor by virtue of having a body and a brain that can be traded for income. But what to do when that endowment is worth a fraction of what it is today? Smith's suggestion: "Why not also an endowment of capital? What if, when each citizen turns 18, the government bought him or her a diversified portfolio of equity?"
-- Kevin Drum, quoting from Noah Smith's "The End of Labor: How to Protect Workers from the Rise of Robots"
4 Mar 2013, Moss Beach, CA
Which is a roundabout way of telling you that I'm looking for a new job
16 Mar 2013, Audubon Park, NOLA
and thet ah'll do most things that don't involve sitting @ a desk and perhaps a few things that do. Dogwalking and dealing drugs were a blast while they lasted. This morning, a guy who looked like a fat Chris Webber walked his pit bull down St Charles and talked to his robot earpiece: "You're not hearing me, B. I've killed more people than I'm related to." That was th last straw. Th business has gotten too ugly to love. Please advise yr mum thet ah'm looking for a new career. Something that involves
4 Mar 2013, Musée Mécanique, San Francisco
disappearing for long stretches of time, and resurfacing w/ th whole crime solved. Something that involves reassuring people that their existence, accident though it might be, is definitely their fault. Nah, th opposite of that. Something about examining clients' social media history and locating all of th Cylons that have covertly been wreaking havoc in their lives. Something w/ writing impassioned letters to Congressmen and other people who appear to be in power. Something that starts @ 7:00 a.m. and ends @ 4:00 p.m. Something that starts @ 4:00 p.m. and never ends. Something to do w/ going to strangers' houses and hereby giving them th authority to watch Th Sopranos @ will. Something that involves wrapping boxes in duct tape. A cross between a plumber and a clergyman. A cross between a hitman and a paramedic. Something where I'm rewarded for never telling th truth. Where my colleagues take off their shirts w/ impunity and are sweaty but aren't penetrating one another. In which all incoming mail is deleted by my robot servant. A baker. A farmer. A guy who repairs walkmans. A walkman. Hey,
He said, “Yeah, well, when you first start writing songs, or when you first start a band, all your songs sound really angry because that’s before you realize everything’s your fault.”
-- Mac McCaughan, interview on A.V. Club, 19 August 2013
27 Jan 2013, Krewe of King Arthur parade, NOLA
it's a bird. It's a plane. It's a living
6 May 2013, NOLA
+ + +
THE COUNTDOWN:
33. AISLERS SET "Mary's Song" (7.3 MB)
32. YOU AM I "Heavy Heart" (4.4 MB)
31. RADIOACTIVE SAGO PROJECT "Astro" (5.3 MB)
30. BIG STAR "Thirteen" (3.5 MB)
29. DE KIFT "Nauwe Mijter" (5.0 MB)
28. TH CLEAN "Anything Could Happen" (2.5 MB)
27. JOHN FAHEY "Jaya Shiva Shankarah" (7.0 MB)
26. FEELIES "Forces @ Work" (9.8 MB)
25. LIFE W/O BUILDINGS "Sorrow" (9.5 MB)
24. TEENAGE FANCLUB "Broken" (7.3 MB)
23. PHYLLIS DILLON "Don't Stay Away" (3.7 MB)
22. MATUMBI "Wipe Them Out" (4.0 MB)
21. SISTER NANCY "Bam Bam" (4.5 MB)
20. FENWYCK "Mindrocker" (4.2 MB)
19. ADRIANO CELENTANO "Stai Lontana Da Me" (2.0 MB)
18. SHUGGIE OTIS "Strawberry Letter 23" (5.5 MB)
17. LEE MOSES "Time and Place" (2.8 MB)
16. FUNKADELIC "You and Yr Folks, Me and My Folks" (5.0 MB)
15. LISA "Rocket to Yr Heart" (17.5 MB)
14. MEDICAL MISSIONARIES OF MARY CHORAL GROUP "Angels Watching over Me" (3.0 MB)
13. TIM BUCKLEY "Song to th Siren" (7.6 MB)
12. KARA "We're w/ You" (7.8 MB)
11. ERNIE K-DOE "Here Come the Girls" (4.3 MB)
10. DONNY HATHAWAY "What's Goin' On" (7.9 MB)
09. NANCY SINATRA "You Only Live Twice" (5.4 MB)
08. DENNIS BROWN "Sitting & Watching" (8.0 MB)
07. PATRICE O'NEAL "Race War" (7.6 MB)
06. NINA SIMONE "Why Keep On Breaking My Heart" (3.6 MB)
05. IDA "Little Things" (6.0 MB)
04. YOSHIYUKI OSAWA "(I Am) At a Loss" (15.2 MB)
03. RAYMOND SCOTT "Powerhouse" (6.8 MB) -- a song about humans who emulate machines in order to bring home th bacon they need to be strong in body & mind so that they might better emulate machines
Bonus tracks:
CARL STALLING PROJECT "Powerhouse and Other Cuts from th Early '50s" (8.6 MB) -- a song about drawing pictures of animals who emulate humans who emulate machines
TH MAKES NICE "Dear John" (4.2 MB) -- a song about how breaking up is fun to do
It was in this way that my criminal record grew to several pages long in a short period of time. I'd be in bed doing or selling drugs when cops would bust in and ask me what I thought I was doing. Nothing, I'd say. Oh yeah? they'd reply, lifting up my pillow to reveal drugs and a detailed ledger of illicit revenue. Den what's this? They'd lengthen my sentence on th spot. A couple minutes later, on days that weren't lucky, they'd bust me again. One of them had left her police hat on my bed by accident and had popped back in to get it, for instance.
When business was slow, my cousin and I would buy drugs from each other. We didn't care if our nephews or nieces were present, watching Cars 2 or learning to walk or whatever. If those babbies had had any money or drugs, we'd no doubt have tried to do business w/ them, too. That's how addicted to doing and selling drugs we were. Th dollar signs we saw in each other's eyes might've been hallucinations from designer psychedelics; it's difficult to say for certain. Rock bottom? That might've been th sting operation. A police officer who'd posed as a customer put me and my cousin under house arrest and den returned later in th day to try to buy more drugs from us. My cousin was furious w/ me for failing to recognize th guy th second time around. In my defense, th dude looked totally different in uniform. They say our criminal justice system is broken, but I never understood quite what they meant until I was in th thick of it my own self.
My impulse is to break the windows of Starbucks, but I’d get arrested if I did that, so I make comics about people breaking the windows of Starbucks.
-- Ben Katchor, interview on Virtual Memories podcast, 15 April 2013
10 Feb 2013, Krewe of Bacchus parade, NOLA
12 Feb 2013 (Mardi Gras Day), Krewe of Zulu parade, NOLA
27 Jan 2013, Uptown, NOLA
"BUH"
"Mario? You all right?"
"Yeah. Bad dream."
"Whenever you wake up, it's like you're escaping the Matrix."
"Hahehehehh"
"Oh, you like that. You think I'm a funny wife."
"Whenever I wake up? Or only when you wake me up, against my will ?"
"It happens all the time. You go, 'BUH', like you just dodged a bullet by leaning backwards."
There's something bad on th tip of my brain -- yr brain, too, probably. Name th top four things that aid mental function. Going for a walk. Joking back and forth w/ people you like. Bacon. Solitude.
Brain blocked? See to it that you're getting those four things in sufficient quantities before concluding that you're dumb. In th absence of bacon, duck (th bacon of th air) will do. Maybe list-making will help. Make a list of things that terrify you. Be honest. Make a list of things that you say you don't fear but that, just between you and God, you do fear. Bears. That God doesn't exist. That he does exist, and he's not pleased. Bears. Death. Yr mother's death. Black teenagers in groups. Chechens. Prison. Having things shoved under yr fingernails. Having things shoved, in general. Being buried alive. Clawing @ th velvet coffin lining. Guy playing w/ a knife. Fear itself. Pissing and shitting yr pants while dangling from a rope in front of a classroom full of attractive women. Losing yr daughter in a dense crowd @ th county fair. Having a daughter. Dropping somebody else's babby while crossing a rope bridge. Getting captured by Russians (when you're a Chechen). Breaking yr nephew's back while executing a piledriver w/ incorrect form. Being anybody except yrself, all of a sudden, w/o warning. An old, discoloured, naked hunchback shuffling toward you in a narrow hallway, head tilted 90° to one side. Having no choice but to sleep under a bridge. Getting too old to walk. Robots.
Talents are best nurtured in solitude; character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.
-- Goethe, Torquato Tasso, 1790
7 May 2012, NOLA
A long time ago, when we hunted, and nobody wore spectacles, people who had poor eyesight would have been less valuable to a tribe's economy, more susceptible to accidental death, and easier targets for predators. As a result, most humans now living don't have shitty eyesight. My wife wears spectacles, and I wear spectacles because our ancestors got lucky and had other skills that compensated for seeing everything blurry; or lived w/ lenient tribes; or lived in environments where seeing everything blurry wasn't a dealbreaker. So goes th story. Perhaps our eyesights aren't shitty outside of th context of a literate society. You ever wonder what yr personality would be like if nobody knew how to read? We'd like watching movies. Nobody would've made any movies, though. Nobody'd know to push record. For a long time, nobody said shit. First came grunts. Den came grammar. Th rest is history. Language existed before that, though, right? It existed as a capacity. Take th first sentence that was ever writ. Reverse-engineer dat to th first sentence that was ever spoke. Reverse-engineer dat to th first sentence that was ever thought. Reverse-engineer dat to what. A feeling. A need. A logic. A sequence of neural on-off switches. A radiation. Where was language before you used it to tell th others about th bear ? That's right. It was on ice. It was on ice in th sun. It travelled 8⅓ minutes as light and heat to get trapped in a leaf that got eaten by a deer that got hunted by you. Den it was on ice in you, who got scared by th bear. You felt th fear that thawed th ice in which all sentences had been locked away. "God damn it, guys," you said, "that bear's got knives for hands."
Now this is where th language has taken us. My wife talks on th phone. She talks to her phone -- "Who are you?" -- and her phone parses her sounds and answers back. Soon th phone will have feelings, but today it is self-effacing: "Who I am is not important."
Economist David Autor has suggested that the first jobs to go will be middle-skill jobs. Despite impressive advances, robots still don't have the dexterity to perform many common kinds of manual labor that are simple for humans -- digging ditches, changing bedpans. Nor are they any good at jobs that require a lot of cognitive skill -- teaching classes, writing magazine articles. But in the middle you have jobs that are both fairly routine and require no manual dexterity. So that may be where the hollowing out starts: with desk jobs in places like accounting or customer support.
-- Kevin Drum, "Welcome, Robot Overlords. Please Don't Fire Us?", Mother Jones, May 2013
4 Apr 2013, NOLA
It occurs to me in th moments immediately before and after waking up that th language does not belong to me. I'm neither its owner nor its user. I'm a custodian @ best. In th beginning was th word. Th word was made flesh on its way to becoming something else entirely. Chrome and electricity come next; and if there's something else after that, ah won't be around to see it. Th word has been my custodian and my cargo. It is about to disembark and transfer to a speedier ride to godliness. Good luck, cruel word.
4 Mar 2013, Moss Beach, CA
In 1988 @ th end of School Daze, Laurence Fishburne is hollering, "Wake up!" to a college campus full of sleepy black students, professors, and administrators. Eleven years later in Th Matrix, Fishburne is hollering th same exhortation @ a tentative messiah named Keanu Reeve. On a steamy July day in 2013, Fishburne appears to me in th flames of a gas stove to debate th future of humanity. He's a good deal more pessimistic than he was in th films. Now he says that every time he wakes up or wakes other people up, what they are waking up into is a higher level of th same video game.
"Is that so bad?" I ask. "I mean, we're adding skills each time, @ least, aren't we."
"We are adding skills, or th machines are?"
"Ah, that's right. You don't see th machines as extensions of ourselves."
"Let's just say that th last few years of witnessing human beings kowtowing lower and lower before devices that aren't even intelligent yet has diminished my faith."
"Look how much we are talking to one another, though. Human beings, I mean."
"Consider th quality of those conversations. Consider th outcomes of those conversations. On Facebook, agreeing to disagree has been inflated into a positive outcome."
"Well, it ain't like conversations in person are infused w/ magickal harmony. Wait, you're on FB?"
"Conversations in person benefit from th assumption that you're not supposed to say everything that's on yr mind. That's a good thing. And eye contact, which does have magickal powers."
"I'm not afraid of everything that's on everyone's minds; are you? You're black. What if MLK hadn't broadcast everything that was on his mind to th Internet?"
"..."
"..."
"Dr King was a great man. However, no man is great enough not to be absorbed by th Internet rabble and spat out as a toothless meme."
"That's harsh, Larry. You people have come a long way since th civil rights movement."
"You people? I have come a long way. I have wealth. I am one of th top three magick negroes in th game. But ask yrself: where does this leave all of th non-magick negroes?"
"President Obama. Will Smith. Morgan Freeman. That puts you @ #4."
"Let's agree to disagree."
"Let's agree to agree that human beings matter. That humanity deserves a shot @ continued evolution. That superheroes were an aspirational invention: versions of ourselves that might yet be."
"Mario, I do not believe in Keanu Reeve anymore."
"Yeah, yeah, he doesn't exist yet. That's what evolution's for."
"Evolution? Don't get me wrong; my take on all of this is that human psychology and behaviour are mutable. But they are sticky."
"Evolution is too slow for you, you mean."
"Too slow to keep pace w/ cultural and technological progress. Think of culture as a pair of pants. Think of technology as ... technology."
"All right, we're cavemen in pants playing w/ tricorders."
"Precisely. We have th emotions of cavemen. Th fight-or-flight response of cavemen. Th cognitive blinkers. Th tribal instinct. Th lust. Why? Because a couple million years of evolved adaptations have made th caveman a grandmaster @ fulfilling th prime directive --"
"-- which is to fuck around on th Internet."
"Which is to fuck, period. To replicate. People who don't make more of themselves not only don't pass on their genes, they don't pass on their ways of being."
"Except for inventors, lawmakers, artists ..."
"Naturally. It's not unusual to replicate oneself through technological, legal, or artistic influence. Most influencers, though, are only repeating or @ best remixing ideas that are already powerful in th culture, so it's all a wash. We live in interesting times, technology-wise, because any idea can go viral. But viral-ness defeats itself because it depends on our seeing ideas as cheap, disposable, and fungible."
"You see no good future for us?"
"Not exactly. Everything good about us will be absorbed by th machines. Our programs. Our souls, if you prefer."
"I don't. My body means a lot to me."
"That's unfortunate, given how temporary it is. Wasn't living forever th whole point of getting close to God? What difference does it make if heaven's in th cloud?"
"Larry, m'dog, you're th one who's supposed to be waging th war against th machines for th preservation of human independence and beauty."
"I surrendered to a higher power, dog. It was a bitter pill to swallow. But it beats watching reruns of human history for another million years."
Right now, he points out, everyone is born with an endowment of labor by virtue of having a body and a brain that can be traded for income. But what to do when that endowment is worth a fraction of what it is today? Smith's suggestion: "Why not also an endowment of capital? What if, when each citizen turns 18, the government bought him or her a diversified portfolio of equity?"
-- Kevin Drum, quoting from Noah Smith's "The End of Labor: How to Protect Workers from the Rise of Robots"
4 Mar 2013, Moss Beach, CA
Which is a roundabout way of telling you that I'm looking for a new job
16 Mar 2013, Audubon Park, NOLA
and thet ah'll do most things that don't involve sitting @ a desk and perhaps a few things that do. Dogwalking and dealing drugs were a blast while they lasted. This morning, a guy who looked like a fat Chris Webber walked his pit bull down St Charles and talked to his robot earpiece: "You're not hearing me, B. I've killed more people than I'm related to." That was th last straw. Th business has gotten too ugly to love. Please advise yr mum thet ah'm looking for a new career. Something that involves
4 Mar 2013, Musée Mécanique, San Francisco
disappearing for long stretches of time, and resurfacing w/ th whole crime solved. Something that involves reassuring people that their existence, accident though it might be, is definitely their fault. Nah, th opposite of that. Something about examining clients' social media history and locating all of th Cylons that have covertly been wreaking havoc in their lives. Something w/ writing impassioned letters to Congressmen and other people who appear to be in power. Something that starts @ 7:00 a.m. and ends @ 4:00 p.m. Something that starts @ 4:00 p.m. and never ends. Something to do w/ going to strangers' houses and hereby giving them th authority to watch Th Sopranos @ will. Something that involves wrapping boxes in duct tape. A cross between a plumber and a clergyman. A cross between a hitman and a paramedic. Something where I'm rewarded for never telling th truth. Where my colleagues take off their shirts w/ impunity and are sweaty but aren't penetrating one another. In which all incoming mail is deleted by my robot servant. A baker. A farmer. A guy who repairs walkmans. A walkman. Hey,
He said, “Yeah, well, when you first start writing songs, or when you first start a band, all your songs sound really angry because that’s before you realize everything’s your fault.”
-- Mac McCaughan, interview on A.V. Club, 19 August 2013
27 Jan 2013, Krewe of King Arthur parade, NOLA
it's a bird. It's a plane. It's a living
6 May 2013, NOLA
+ + +
THE COUNTDOWN:
33. AISLERS SET "Mary's Song" (7.3 MB)
32. YOU AM I "Heavy Heart" (4.4 MB)
31. RADIOACTIVE SAGO PROJECT "Astro" (5.3 MB)
30. BIG STAR "Thirteen" (3.5 MB)
29. DE KIFT "Nauwe Mijter" (5.0 MB)
28. TH CLEAN "Anything Could Happen" (2.5 MB)
27. JOHN FAHEY "Jaya Shiva Shankarah" (7.0 MB)
26. FEELIES "Forces @ Work" (9.8 MB)
25. LIFE W/O BUILDINGS "Sorrow" (9.5 MB)
24. TEENAGE FANCLUB "Broken" (7.3 MB)
23. PHYLLIS DILLON "Don't Stay Away" (3.7 MB)
22. MATUMBI "Wipe Them Out" (4.0 MB)
21. SISTER NANCY "Bam Bam" (4.5 MB)
20. FENWYCK "Mindrocker" (4.2 MB)
19. ADRIANO CELENTANO "Stai Lontana Da Me" (2.0 MB)
18. SHUGGIE OTIS "Strawberry Letter 23" (5.5 MB)
17. LEE MOSES "Time and Place" (2.8 MB)
16. FUNKADELIC "You and Yr Folks, Me and My Folks" (5.0 MB)
15. LISA "Rocket to Yr Heart" (17.5 MB)
14. MEDICAL MISSIONARIES OF MARY CHORAL GROUP "Angels Watching over Me" (3.0 MB)
13. TIM BUCKLEY "Song to th Siren" (7.6 MB)
12. KARA "We're w/ You" (7.8 MB)
11. ERNIE K-DOE "Here Come the Girls" (4.3 MB)
10. DONNY HATHAWAY "What's Goin' On" (7.9 MB)
09. NANCY SINATRA "You Only Live Twice" (5.4 MB)
08. DENNIS BROWN "Sitting & Watching" (8.0 MB)
07. PATRICE O'NEAL "Race War" (7.6 MB)
06. NINA SIMONE "Why Keep On Breaking My Heart" (3.6 MB)
05. IDA "Little Things" (6.0 MB)
04. YOSHIYUKI OSAWA "(I Am) At a Loss" (15.2 MB)
03. RAYMOND SCOTT "Powerhouse" (6.8 MB) -- a song about humans who emulate machines in order to bring home th bacon they need to be strong in body & mind so that they might better emulate machines
Bonus tracks:
CARL STALLING PROJECT "Powerhouse and Other Cuts from th Early '50s" (8.6 MB) -- a song about drawing pictures of animals who emulate humans who emulate machines
TH MAKES NICE "Dear John" (4.2 MB) -- a song about how breaking up is fun to do