Steve Larsen’s Goodbye to Chris Locke

 A tribute to our friend and leader from Steve Larson, who captures the essence of what it is to experience and be experienced by Chris Locke. So much of Steve’s tribute is so good that I have to put a lot of it right here. (Not everyone knows how he became known as RageBoy…):

Chris gets up and “What the fuck,” he says, not questioning, more like a statement of fact. “I’ve been stuck at IBM for a year with my thumb up my ass and I’m waiting for someone to figure out what the fuck is going on and they’ve got plans I give them all the time and they file them and say “Yeah, Chris, that’s great, then they take me into some fucking egg carton room and tell me what I’ve got to work with, which is nothing, no money no equipment no staff, and then they give me a check and I fucking go home and sit there, where I’ve got better tech stuff anyway than IBM where it took me two solid months to get an internet hookup, and this is what they want me to do, see, they want me to do the internet thinking, and get them into it, but the first fucking thing they tell me is you’ve got no resources and ‘Oh, by the way, don’t talk to anyone about this stuff without clearing it through channels.’ A fucking year. And I sit here and some of what I’m hearing is how to work in the system. Well I say fuck the system — it’s dead it’s stupid it’s non-responsive it’s counter productive it’s fucking socially evil and if we put any more of our goddamn time into propping up these dead- ass morons we deserve what we fucking get.”

The veins are standing out in his neck. “Just fuck ’em and move on. I’m sitting around drawing a fat check off these people and it isn’t enough. I don’t want their money. These are deathly structures with no perceptible pulse except for once in a while you run into somebody lost in the fucking halls and maybe you start to talk about something real and then the guy with the fucking glad-hand comes around and tells you can’t do that, you can’t talk.”

“This is a huge goddamn breakthrough into who knows what and as we sit here IBM is trying to figure out how to put it in a box and make it sit up to beg for airholes and fucking cheese. We’re not going to work in the system because THE SYSTEM DOES NOT WANT US.”

“Go rageboy, go,” Esther Dyson yells out (ed: the moniker would stick).  “THEY DO NOT WANT US AND THEY’RE CRIMINALS BY INSTINCT ANYWAY AND IF WE PUT ONE MORE YEAR INTO FUCKING AROUND WITH THESE DEAD FROM THE FUCKING TOP DOWN PIECES OF MANUAL-BOUND SHIT WE’RE GOING TO MISS THE GODDAMN TRAIN!”

There are whistles and cheers in the crowd. People are standing. One guy is on his table. Paper airplanes and erasers are filling the air.  “Let me tell you — I’m Program Director for Online Community Development and they’re paying me to do nothing and when I say “Hey, I’m getting paid for doing nothing they say, ‘As long as you understand the situation.’

His rant achieved eloquence, as rants occasionally can. Now, speeding toward home on the unspeakable New Jersey Turnpike, peering red-eyed through the cloud of smoke from the unspeakable Locke’s cigarettes, we’re turning over a lot of information, twisting and bending it, shooting into the twilight and the greasy salmon-smear that twilight can be around Newark, the refineries, the lights hung on the outsides of the buildings, seemingly, just like always.

How can I tell you about that conversation/monologue? Mix up a vat of hard information, coffee dregs, healthy contempt, real world pragmatism, mashed Toxico cigarette butts, visionary eloquence, trailing-off-in-the-haze 60s enthusiasms, pure rage, a sense of mission, Thirteen Ways of Saying Fuck It, a highly-tuned bullshit detector with wires and lights and everything, democratic zeal, arcane rock and roll, a dollop of Howl, a cloud of menthol smoke and a driver with his head in and out of the window, trying to breathe, at ninety or so, bearing down on the Hanging Gardens of Newark.

“We absolutely have to fucking burn the Fortune 500 down to the water-line. This is a moral obligation, this is an absolute fucking obligation.” Chris waving his left hand in the air, the smoke from his cigarette eddying around in search of free air to poison.”

That’s exactly how it was to be in the presence of such genius and passion. Chris’ spirit changed worlds. His ideas busted open doors to new lands. His rage brought down the sky. And his barometer was always right on the mark, even when it wasn’t. 

Hush little babies don’t say a word

My next-door neighbor remains dead from COVID, even now. The planet is getting quieter with each passing day. His car doesn’t leave for work or come home. The lawn mower doesn’t rev up. No leaf blowing at the property’s edge. His widow leads a quiet life. She comes and goes at ordinary times. No headlights piercing the dark as they did when he would leave for work so early and come home so late. His mother doesn’t stop over because she died of COVID too. His friends don’t stop by with their V8 pickup truck engines. Even the children stay away. Or maybe they’re sick. How would I know? I don’t. You don’t. 

I know this: The hush grows louder, one lost soul at a time. And for those of us who are tuned to the sound of absence, it is both deafening and heartbreaking.

Kat reads Gonzo Marketing

Was it just me who had forgotten that Chris narrates Gonzo Marketing himself? “Fire! Fire!” I thought some of you OG bloggers might be comforted by this reminder, since the web has become far too quiet. I’m listening to their voice on audible.

Closing time 2: Calling Marek

Marek, where are you? Rageboy/Kat/Chris is busy readying the next platform. From a room far away in a land called hospice, he sleeps and dreams a new space for us, one where we hyperlink just by loving each other, no clicks; it’s all in the eyes. A flip of the heart takes you anywhere you want to go. You’ll see. He’s taking us there. Next stop on the cluetrain — all aboard, motherfuckers. 

Also he’s leaving. I didn’t want to tell you this way. I can’t find you on the bookface. No matter where I look. So I had to come here. Back to where we all started, to tell you. He’s going. He’s ok. Selene is there and Jesse and Lauren, they are there. And I sent chocolate pastry and iced espresso and a cookie through grub hub. I think the nurses ate the sweets. Which is okay. And Margaret and I sent some garland and a holiday rug for his room. They hung it beneath the TV because he likes to yell at Fox News when Tucker Carlson comes on — and Hannity whom he calls “Monkey Man!” 

🆙 

And over on Kat’s FB page there is the most joyous disorganized poetry underway where some think he’s just taken a fall and wishing him a speedy recovery and others have read down the thread far enough to know he’s not going back to Tantra Lake. He’s going home-home. Contact us. The place where all FAQs are finally answered. Maybe it’s beta for now. But he’ll get it all set up. Michael O’Connor Clarke got a head start on it, so I’m thinking it’s all polka dots and ribbon candy. If you see this, check out the 148-and-counting comment-poem under Jesse’s post about Kat’s recent fall. It’s like he stitched it together himself.   

🆙 

But still I have to tell you: He’s leaving us. We inherit his heart and his words and his laugh and a belly full of righteous indignation. His spirit of not settling. Never letting up. But there? On the next platform he rests. Network complete. Wired and wireless. Where everything remote is right in your face. And I don’t think he would mind me live blogging this for you, because there is no other way to tell you. No other place for us to meet. I had to come here. 

🆙 

I hope you see this, dear Marek, and have time to sit quietly or run through the streets screaming like you’re being slashed by the tooth fairy, or like it’s the running of the bulls, and what is chasing you, what is chasing all of us: is loss. A loss so profound it will make our souls bleed. And a presence so complete it will make our heads explode. And all of that at once — but mostly the tears come. 

Where did all the meaning go? Why does he have to leave? Am I a selfish, helpless child or a Viking warrior princess? 

Where do I go next? Are these tears or is my heart weeping blood? I need you to tell me. 

🆙 

Kombinat! Closing Time

This will be quick. Just a quick moment in Internet time... time, ti ti tim e. puff, oof, pow pow.

And I loved you when our love was blessed, And I love you now that there's nothing left but sorrow and a sense of overtime, overtime, overtime...

Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping...

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances And one in their time play many parts...first, .... And then the blogger

Out, out, brief candle! a poor blogger, that struts and frets his hour upon a stage, And then is heard no more. 

It's a tale told by a blogger. You know the rest.

In 2004 I had an idea while looking at what's happening with blogging, but I could not articulate it, and I still can not articulate it after 17 years? I know, I must be stupid, or was I born this way? or grew up this way? 

I named that thing I did not understand: Kombinat!, Conversation Disposal Machine, a human constructed machinery to harvest all the conversations humans have with each other and turn it into profit, but as a byproduct they would dispose of conversations

In essence Conversations in the end became the Waste, unless you could engage more people in the conversation to keep squeezing the profit. 

The conversations did not have to keep getting better, or smarter, or lead towards solving real world problems. The machine only wanted humans to engage endlessly with conversations as conversations that lead to nowhere. It did not matter what the conversations were about, it didn't matter if the same conversation was happening over and over in a loop, it only mattered that people were engaged, talking, chatting, typing, visiting, scrolling, being there, their eyes glued on, for as long as possible. 

Because the Conversation Disposal Machine used it as a raw material to create profit from engagement and not from having meaningful conversations. 

The value was not in Conversations, conversations were a mere byproduct, a raw material from which to make profit and turn it to waste.

For a transactional person it was probably clearly visible what was happening with social media, but for the poets, artists, sensitive people, seeing the world with their hearts it was invisible. It was invisible to me. 

I could not understand why humans would create such a Conversation Disposal Machine like Facebook... well, it does not matter now. I give up. They won, and the place got wrecked, and I just don't care what happens next. Looks life freedom, but it feels like death. It's something in between, I guess... It's Closing Time.

Kombinat Manifesto is No More. It's now a Conversation Disposal Machine at High Operational Excellence.

Go hug someone you love ! 

If you don't have someone you love, find someone to love unconditionally. 

Trust me, it's worth it. 

Peekaboo! Peekaboo! I see you! I love you!

Neighborly

Learned today that our next-door neighbor died of COVID a couple weeks ago. I mistook the clearing out of the driveway and carport as their summer cleaning. But no. It came on quick, his wife said. 102 fever. By morning breathing trouble. That day to the hospital. Seven days on a vent — he never came off. 

This isn’t one of those “I’m sorry” things. This is a strange county with more trump supporters who look sideways at my family than not. But this neighbor was one of those that surprised me. I initially cast stereotypes on him. Braced myself for some nonsense. But he wasn’t who I assumed he was. He was the neighbor who made sure it was ok if his sprinkler got my side of the lawn wet because my dogs might get muddy paws. He was the only neighbor in this god-forsaken, trash-burning-obsessed county who always asked if it was ok to burn. To let him know if the smoke was bothering us. Who offered us the use of his tiller at planting time. So I wrote this:

Light blue pickup

in pieces under a makeshift carport,

Rusted brackets with 

razor-sharp edges from 

the hard Georgia rain,

donor parts for his old mower. 

Garden tools with split wooden handles

lined up by purpose,

More than once 

sliced his calloused palms during spring planting. 

Tetanus breeds like squirrels scatter,

Pulling sweet beans from twisted vines that traverse his chain-link fence. 

Three years my neighbor to the East. 

His sun-seared farmer’s tan, stained work shirt,

downturned gaze 

I mistook for bigotry. 

 

Assumptions skew reality. 

Nurturing neighbors like plants,

with quiet concern,

he grieved the loss 

of last summer’s crop 

succumbed to midnight marauders. 

But this spring. 

This spring was rich soil, 

predators deterred,

Afternoon showers ushering tomatoes, peppers, beans skyward. 

And this summer. 

A harvest cut short.  

Crops giving way to 

deep-rooted weeds,

Sprouting fever, chills, choking, gasping. 

Gone, the pickup, 

Gone, the mower,

Gone the tiller and tools. 

Ashes to ashes

vent to vent,

Moonlight mischief

lights a path home. 

And who will tend 

To his garden now? 

Here We Go Again ...right?

Shall we resume?

It appears the very first post here was October 21, 2001. 74 views. By none other than Jeneane. She who we should panegyrize. Not only do I mean that with utmost sincerity, but I finally found a reason to use that word.

From Autumn of 2001, closing in on 20 years and one show-stopper of a pandemic later, we regroup, say hello, suggest this group blog gain some renewed vitality and see what happens.

Older and wiser? Well, yeah. Wizened? Some of us.

The world as we knew it then changed just before October of 2001. The world as we know it now changed with the pandemic and perhaps, we shall soon see, with politics. A good time to refuel this blog.

Let's have at it.Who's next?

There's a New Sheriff In Town! Actually Two.

Something happened yesterday, August 12, 2020.  Just like some classic old Western movie, where there are bad guys riding around town, making trouble, breaking things, stealing horses, dumping good guys on their faces in the mud, or shooting them in the back, all looks lost,  the frightened country folk are slamming their doors, and latching their locks, looking hopeless, but then (queue new happy, hopeful music)  a new sheriff rides into town, giving the inhabitants a sense of much needed relief -- and everything changes. 

The speeches Joe Biden and especially Kamala Harris gave yesterday on a rainy day -- to nobody, in an empty room -- but to everybody, across the globe, in a very full room of slightly hopeless folks in every country, changed everything. 

There's a new sheriff in town and I feel so optimistic for the first time, in a long time.  Two great new sheriffs and everything just changed. It's fun to see two amazing leaders take the globe and change the way it's spinning, like two top basketball players, twirling a ball on one finger, ready to play. 

What if we just blogged together again?

A long long time ago, we used to blog for everything.

It was what we had, we would type in a brief thought and send it out. Maybe a sentence, maybe more. If we wanted to write a longer thing we'd us our blogs for that too. We kept a blogroll and clicked on the people in it daily to catch up.

For a more through back and forth we had group blogs, like this one. I had a nice video chat with some of the people from here, and some others, the other day, and realised I missed this.

Blogging took off and permeated everything and got more complex and more simple, and somehow ended up in four sites full fo screenshots of the other three.

Now I am still encouraging people to have their own websites and do fun things with them, but that can feel like a lot of tinkering.

So, I'm back here, trying again. Thinking in public. Join me?

please. click. give.

It's not exactly like riding a bicycle. You do forget. You forget how to find the path to the center of the labyrinth. You forget how to post. At least I did. But it is a little like riding a bike, or skating. Who said that success was measured by the algorithm fall down seven times but get up eight times? Does that make any sense at all?

Pray for absent friends. And if anyone runs into Brian Moffatt, tell him to give us a shout.

https://plus.google.com/100154176751682822430/posts/WXPndovJs3J

On Schedule

As in the original directions, here I am again, 6 years later.  The ephemeral vibrations of mystic harmonic convergences (gotcha! you though it would be something else, one specific word, following mystic, right?) resulted in a reflexive, somewhat Calvinist urge or need to come here and post.

One must never veer from those directions.

Gonzo goes to Washington, no dogs on the roof of that vehicle.  Korean pop music playing a bit too loudly, food diaries and recipes appearing at random, yet often enough to seem on a regular schedule.  A cat joins the engagement.

And so goes it.

I was hoping that when I clicked over here today, after about, oh, five years of dicking around elsewhere, I would see that Marek, J. Maybe Elvis, had been over here writing the world right.

But he's not here.

It's okay. He'll come back. We'll all be back.

If you think that this blog will ever die, get unmade, forgotten, or abandoned, then you don't know us. Blogger, you're hosting us for life. You win.

last book's a charm

clues to gonzo marketing...a list apart.

trend setter

We're going Closed Source. It's super secure, low risk, and controlled. And Quality's built in.

---

Gonzo 2.0

Yes, Gonzo 2.0. - Nothing new because Gonzo Marketing was always about that.

As you see this YouTube, don't you think Poetry? The Solution is Poetry. And maybe Poetry 2.0 - whatever, whatever, whatever.... props, just props but useful props, no?

When did you forget that this is your world?

And yes, Web 2.0, Poetry 2.0 - we are no longer "writing ourselves into existence". - We are now teaching the Machines how to write Existence so we can write ourselves into Being... That's what this is all about. You want to know who you are? Ask the machine!

We are teaching the Machines to write Structures from which our Being is generated. We are no longer The Web. Separation of content and structure. We are not our Blogs any more. There are no more blogs! There is no more information!

There is no more you! There is no more there there! What is is Your Voice as a Network of Conversations generated by the Machines we teach to regenerate us, our Being of the Conversation of the Web. - There! you want to know how you are? Ask the Machines to regenerate the You as You of The Web. Ask the machines!

Does that Blow your Mind? Don't worry. It will only blow your Mind if it blows the Mind of the Web of Conversations where Your Mind really is anyway.

There is no you unless you are connected. You show up as You only in the Web of Us. The machines generate the structures of conversations. We teach The Machines how to do that. The machines teach us who we are by knowing who we are connected to... Cool. Let's do some more of that. Yiippii. Bada Bing! Tudum Tudum!

YouTube link via FortyMedia

Birch Point Resort, Hayward, Wisconsin

Sandy’s 65th birthday was approaching and she was planning a party. The people at Birch Point Resort in Hayward spoiled those plans and appear to have cheated her out of a substantial sum of money. To find out more about Sandy's situation, click here. To add the power of the almighty word of mouth to balance out the tourist industry astro-turf, link-up and shine the light of conversation on these shady practices.

wow--i never really envisioned this.

it has to really suck to be a bulldog bitch on the rag  -- in spider man boxers especially.

Tags: bitches+in+heat

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someone didn't get the memo...

Laptop for sale.

Pictures of laptop for sale

New flickr guidelines say: DON'T Sell stuff (including yourself) Flickr is for personal use only. If you sell products or services through your photostream, we will terminate your account.

of course, if you send them to ebay to bid, i guess it's okay. I don't know--we may need an update to the guidelines...

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1000tags going wild...

the big thang tonight--1000tags.com is offering a free tag if you post and link. Thank you, I'll take one!

Taking Care of Business

Although my name and bio currently appear on the site, I am no longer associated with The Content Factor. As I've indicated previously, information relative to my business can be found on my current sites: www.jsessum.com and www.sessum.com, and the number of blogs and other publications I write for.

Thank you. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming...

(Disclosure++: I may delete this post when the requested information is removed from that site.)

 

  Technorati Tags : The+Content+Factor, Content+Factor, JeneaneSessum, Sessum, Atlanta, Atlanta+Copywriting, Discontent // Powered By Qumana

Why is this space blank and seeming not editable?

Yes, let us know the answer to this question, oh wise one.

Uh, is there a wise one? Is there an answer to this question?

Is the earth still sorta kinda round?

People like me (and who knows, maybe even you, too) wanna know.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

home sweet home

FOUR YEARS AGO TODAY, A RABBIT WAS BORN.

SO WAS A DONKEY, SEVEN BEAVERS AND A GAME HEN.

CHANCES ARE GOOD THAT A FEW HUNDRED RODENTS WERE BORN AT UNDERGROUND ATLANTA ALONE.

ONLY SOME OF THEM MATTERED. ALL OF THEM ARE RELATED TO THIS.

THIS MATTERED.
THIS MATTERS STILL.

happy birthday RGE.
my home.

marekj.com

marekj is back. This time as himself which hasn't happend in a long time. I believe I stopped writing as marekj on the web about in the spring of 2002. Here we are now then 3 years later.

I am doing now this thing called Software Development Life Cycle Process as Human Cooperation Game Modelling. Workability Design of Such Games and Their Implementations. Business Process Distinction Context Modelling for Software Design as Core Business Structure. You know: the usual stuff from me.

I also started a blog I call BlindSpot which has nothig to do with Driving on a Highway of course. There will be a mixtrue of technical stuff, software testing, gonzo marketing etc... etc...

Stop by and say hello. Thanks.

Technorati Tags: agiletesting, marekj

mystic bourgeoisie

mystic bourgeoisie

To Troll or Not to Troll, That Is the Question by John C Mahler

The uninfluential columnists should be defined here. These are people whom you've never heard of, but whom other uninfluential A-list distopianist columnists all know. I reckon there are about 500 of them. He (or she) influences other like-minded columnists, creating a groupthink form of critical mass, just like atomic fission, as they bounce off each other with repetitive cross-links: trackback links, self-congratulatory links, confirmations, and praise-for-their-genius links. BOOM! You get a formidable explosion—an A-bomb of groupthink. You could get radiation sickness if you happen to be in the area. Except for PC Magazine, nobody is in the area, so nobody outside the groupthink community really cares about any of this. These explosions are generally self-contained and harmless to the environment.

Once in a while one of these crackpot ideas may sneak into the public consciousness and become huge because it was a good idea, although I cannot think of one.

The "folksonomy" notion is the columnists' last hope of invention, although it's a rewrite of the prebubble "semantic Web" technology at best. And it too is doomed to failure. The utopianism and idealism that exist in the online societies ignore the real problem with Trolls, metaTrolls, überTrolls, folksonomies, and the like. This is because they honestly think that most people are goodhearted. The online world, because of its anonymity, encourages bad behavior. "You suck!" is a common post, and it would be the number-one Troll if Trolling ever became popular. Then would come the Trolls about "Online Casino!" One site promoting folksonomies is the darling of the columnists: Flickr.com—an excellent photo-sharing site where being in perpetual beta is a marketing tool. The same people who hate Java and Flash love Flickr, which epitomizes everything good and bad about Java and Flash. Okay, whatever.

Flickr promotes the use of Trolls to add dimensions to photos so you or I could look things up by, uh, the folksonomy. You know, like "dead dog," for example. But when you look into it, someone will post 100 pictures and Troll them all "Yosemite," and that will be the end of it. I see no depth or real usefulness beyond the old-fashioned "title!" It's hard to express how jazzed some people are over the potential of all this. I'm certain someone somewhere will write a book on how this new old thing will change the world for the benefit of everyone. It may even catch on for a month. When you look into it later, you'll find it all deteriorated into spam and "you suck" posts, and then we'll do it again with a new name and a new group of boosters telling us what a great idea Trolling is.


Apparently it's lost on all of them that the term "Trolling," in popular parlance, refers to the worst form of public graffiti. These people don't get out much, it seems.

FORRESTER REPORTS THAT EVERYONE HAS A BLOG

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEDIA ADVISORY

Cambridge, Mass., April 25, 2005...According to new findings by Forrester Research, Inc. (NASDAQ: FORR), every human being and business around the globe now has a weblog -- or blog for short -- a type of frequently-updated, chronological online diary that gives insight into the passions of the writer on topics ranging from technology to quilting.

"When I first invented the Internet, I never dreamed that one day each one of us would have our own little piece of real estate," said former Vice President, Al Gore. "But when I saw that even Howard Dean could make a home in cyberspace, well I knew then that Tipper and I had succeeded, that my work as an Internet strategist was complete."

For information on the next wave of online pandemonium, visit podstreet

###

A blinding flash of obvious

What if I made myself as a business entity. What if I could completely became a corporation. I substitute myself for corporation. This would be a new type of citizen possibility. Equal.

What if each person in America incorporated themselves? What if each person would create a corporate structure in which their worldly affairs could dwell and play out. This I haven't thought before.

Who can help me with this project? I wan to cease to exist as a human being and become a corporation. I will speak new language. Instead of going to get a haircut I will visit an accountant every month to style my image.

I simply love this idea. Wanna steal it? Run with it? Who wants to join this project?

Talk to me at http://kombinat.us/blogger