Andy Chase

…America went off the track somewhere - back around the time of the Civil War, or pretty soon afterwards. Instead of going ahead and developing along the line in which the country started out, it got shunted off in another direction - and now we look around and see we’ve gone places we didn’t mean to go. Suddenly we realize that America has turned into something ugly—and vicious—and corroded at the heart of its power with easy wealth and graft and special privilege…. And the worst of it is the intellectual dishonesty which all this corruption has bred. People are afraid to think straight—afraid to face themselves—afraid to look at things and see them as they are.

We’ve become a nation of advertising men, all hiding behind catch phrases like ‘prosperity,’ and ‘the American way.’ And the real things like freedom, and equal opportunity, and the integrity and worth of the individual—things that have belonged to the American dream since the beginning—they have become just words too. The substance has gone out of them—they’re not real anymore… -Thomas Wolfe

Surely the United States has enough land that they could set up a new territory with:

• No taxes
• No public services or governmental agencies
• Nothing but private, for-profit health insurance companies
• No financial or workplace regulations
• Lots and lots of gun stores

That way all the crazy “Amurrca’s turning into a Socialist/Communist/Nazi country” chicken littles could move there and shut up.

I know that all I did in California was bitch and moan about the lack of seasons and weather, but I have had an assfull of this April. More snow on the way tomorrow, whee!

If you've never thought much about banjo beyond that scene in the beginning of Deliverance, you might be surprised to discover that there's quite an active community of banjo enthusiasts to be found online.

You might also be surprised to discover that there are talented banjo players out there who play music in styles other than Foggy Mountain Breakdown or Dueling Banjos.

etherfarm: whither whatever

Nearly two years after I wrote this, journalists are for some reason still scratching their heads over why the unwashed masses enjoy maintaining weblogs.

The latest in-depth look at the lives of teenage bloggers? "My So-Called Blog" by Emily Nussbaum of the New York Times.

We've been living in a fugue for the last couple of weeks... the prospect of packing/selling/throwing away all of our earthly possessions (Which are significantly greater in number than the U-haul trailerful we brought out here with us) is sufficiently daunting that we've put it off in favor of laying around, complaining about the heat, and playing Grand Theft Auto instead of doing serious packing. I put in a few hours at work over the last week, but with the move laying so heavily on my mind I don't want to do the hospital the disservice of wasting my time or theirs if I can't concentrate on the more involved tasks at hand; since I'll be continuing my work once we arrive in Massachusetts, some of those tasks can wait.

Kim and I have both been sleeping funny hours... she's been on an overnight schedule lately anyway, but we've both found ourselves sleeping in half shifts, or getting up for an hour or two here and there only to get back into bed. It's probably the weird sleep patterns contributing to that pervasive sense of unreality more than anything .

We finally started packing in earnest yesterday, starting with the books. We have a number of shelves' worth to pack yet, but we filled enough boxes to feel that we have actually accomplished something. As the saying goes, 'Well begun is half done,' and I think we're in good shape with the seven days we have left to pack. Our worst problem at this point will likely be keeping ourselves supplied with empty boxes, but I think we have enough sources that we won't need to pay somebody for them.

Thinking back six years to the last couple of weeks before we left Rochester, New York for the smoggy climes of southern California, I remember a similar malaise but I don't remember it being nearly this strong. I'm not sure why that is, especially since I hate Los Angeles with a burning passion, and I can't wait until the San Fernando Valley is in the rearview mirror for good. I've tried to be civil and politic for a long time; I know plenty of natives and transplants alike who call greater Los Angeles their home, and there are certainly things I'll miss about Los Angeles, but now that we're really, finally getting out of here I want to shout it from the Hollywood sign. I hate this place. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. I hate the smog-brown horizon, I hate the triple digit temperatures, I hate the fact that all $250,000 will get you in the shitty parts of town is a run-down, poorly built two bedroom ranch house from the fifties with no attic, no basement, and a lot the size of a postage stamp, and I hate being looked at like I'm some kind of a-hole when we tell people we're moving to Massachusetts. "Why would you want to move there? It's so coooooooold! It snows all year round up there, doesn't it?" People take it personally, almost as though they're annoyed with you for reminding them that there is a whole, giant country east of Las Vegas and north of Santa Barbara that couldn't care less about their Luxury SUV or their Beverly Hills-adjacent condo... and all the only defense they can muster for Los Angeles is the weather.

I had no similar ill will for Rochester, and that's why I'm puzzled at my greater uneasiness. I guess I can chalk it up to six years' experience in "The Real World," and the added responsibility of making sure all of our animals get back with us safely. When all is said and done I know we'll be fine, but I do wish there was a way to bypass the whole packing, loading, and driving part of of the move.

There’s a bulletin board in the break room at work, upon which people often place little newspaper clippings thought to be of interest to the office population at large… they get changed often, and make for a nice diversion while you’re waiting for the god-awful coffee to brew.

But today the newspaper article (I assume this came from the L.A. Times) was titled something like “What to do When You’re Heading for the Cold”, and it was a whole half-page article about preparing to go outside of Los Angeles to one of those scary places with snow.

Things like, you know, dressing warmly in layers? They spend about three paragraphs telling people in Los Angeles how to dress warmly. Three paragraphs telling grown adults that you need to wear warm clothes when you go out in the cold. The article also recommended taking brief walks at night (When it’s usually a bone-chilling 50 degrees or so in the winter) for a few days before your trip to get yourself “acclimated.”

And then - this was the icing on the cake - they mentioned the risks of hypothermia and frostbite, cautioning that “Even a mild case of frostbite should receive medical attention.”

Do people here really need to be told that? Do people here go up to the mountains and play in the snow until the skin of their fingertips actually crystalizes from the cold, and just go back in for cocoa wondering why they can’t feel anything in their fingers? Serves them right if that’s actually the case.

What these arguments remind me of is guys who hem and haw when it comes to neutering their male pets because they somehow find it threatening to their own masculinity.(Wow, another Apple-related post, and I don’t even own one yet. I’m not becoming a fanatic, I promise.)

Reaction to the new iMac has been predictably split between high praise and snide derision… but the reasons tech journalists use to pan the new design are (for the most part) really petty.

David Coursey is all bent out of shape because Apple gave Time magazine the scoop instead of him. He spends another paragraph wringing his hands over the compact form factor; his argument goes something like:

I don’t need my hardware wrapped up in a neat little package. I just put my big manly tower under my desk. Therefore, there’s no market for a computer designed like this.

Similar articles I’ve read elsewhere (sorry, none of them were memorable enough to track down; otherwise I’d provide links) take a similar tone, smugly criticizing the new form factor.

Nobody will take the new iMac seriously; what do you expect from a computer that looks like a desk lamp?! [Insert nerdly sarcastic snort here]

One article went so far as to quote somebody whose big concern was

“Think of your desk lamp and how many times you have knocked it over”

It doesn’t really look like a desklamp, you know; both lamps and the new iMac have articulated arms, yes, but that’s really about it. It’s very small for a full-featured desktop system, but we’re still talking a base that’s 10 1/2 inches in circumference and densely packed with electronic components; that’s a lot bigger than any desklamp I’ve seen. The “Think of how many times you’ve knocked your desk lamp over” analogy just doesn’t work. If you’ve got problems with repeatedly knocking stuff off your desk, maybe you should work on that before you buy any computer at all.

What these arguments remind me of is guys who hem and haw when it comes to neutering their male pets because they somehow find it threatening to their own masculinity;

“But my peers won’t think I’m 31337 if I don’t have a big huge box full of noisy fans under my desk! Therefore the new iMac sucks!”

I can appreciate and even agree with the criticisms about the lack of expandability, but that doesn’t make the iMac a bad machine. Feh.

How big of an a-hole do you have to be to drive onto a Christmas tree lot with your big SUV and have the attendant tie it to the top when you're ready to go?Ok. When I saw somebody doing this last year I laughed and shrugged it off as a random incident, bound to happen in a place as saturated with SUVs as Los Angeles.

But this year I've seen it happen three more times (most recently this afternoon), and it's not funny any more.

Now, it's a given that about 99% of the people who buy SUVs in Los Angeles aren't going to actually use them for all the stuff they show in the commercials;

"But if I drive on gravel or dirt I might pit the paint!"

"But if I drive through a stream I might get mud un the undercarriage!"

But for the love of God, if you drive a Sport UTILITY Vehicle with ALL THAT CARGO ROOM and you buy a Christmas Tree from the corner lot, DON'T TIE IT TO THE TOP OF YOUR FORD GODDAMN EXPEDITION!!!! THAT'S WHAT THAT BIG EMPTY SPACE IN THE BACK OF YOUR GODDAMN 5 MPG "MINIVANS ARE BELOW ME AND I'VE GOT MORE MONEY FALLING OUT OF MY ASS THAN I KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH" STATUS SYMBOL IS FOR!!!!

How big of an a-hole do you have to be to drive onto a Christmas tree lot with your big Jeep/Ford/Chevy/Honda/Toyota* SUV and have the attendant tie it to the top when you're ready to go?

I mean, if you didn't buy the damn thing so you can at least use the cargo space, what did you buy it for? Where do you draw the line for what you'll deign to allow in the back of your SUV? Lumber? Nooooo, you might get a splinter in the upholstery. Potting soil? Nooooo, the bag might burst and get dirt everywhere! A big screen TV? Nooooo, a staple from the carton might snag the carpet!

What the hell is wrong with people? It's shit like this that gives Los Angeles (and California in general) its flaky reputation.

* Lincoln/Cadillac/Lexus/BMW SUV owners are excluded from the list because the act of buying a "Luxury SUV" is in itself an act of supreme assholery, and I'm sure no self-respecting Luxury SUV owner would ever let anything so crude as a Christmas tree see the inside of their vehicle; it might get pitch on the Corinthian Leather!