Alan’s Kiloblog

When you are in the psychological moment for a particular project, something will beacon you to leave your moment, and expend that certainty and conviction elsewhere.

It is amazing. Is amazing that there is an economy for that sort of thing, but it is true, there are those that sense this. It is amazing how efficient these markets are.

Which is why I’ve decided that these are the following questions to ask, the next time I’m faced with an opportunity that does tie in with my stated agenda.

• This hasn’t worked before, is the first thing to state.
• How exactly will I benefit? Exposure doesn’t count. I get better exposure working on my turf.
• Who pays for it? It had better be all expenses paid, and then some, because I don’t have time to entertain.
• How much of what I’m doing are you aware of? Because, you might have got it into your head that New Orleans needs to be a component of your master plan, but if you haven’t done the research, I’m not going to change my position on matters to suit you.

Hint: If you’re thinking opportunity, be informed that I’m thinking crisis. I checked the Chinese dictionary, the are not the same word.

Historically, I have had a knack for attracting withering disapproval. Today, I’m finding that the trick to avoiding it, when I’ve discovered a source, it to not allow the source any social expectations. No expectations, no disapproval. It is nice to live a life where there are so many good people to which I am beholden, they serve to displace toxins.

Told the story of life in the last 10th of the 20th century in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as it was, for me, Alan Gutierrez, and told it twice, in one day. That was today.

I told it once to someone who knows me as a young urban professional, then later to see if it could be a funny story, or at least not quite so depressing, to a dear heart, a special person.

In that halcyon decade, the venture capitalists had so infused Silicon Valley with cash that there was free money with no takers. I’m sorry we’re full. The VCs would walk the streets of Freemont with slim jims and 100 dollar bills, wedging them into the cracks of the sidewalks, in hopes that they might grow a money tree.

A business model is a business model, by gum, and sure as shooting, it’s better to lose the money than to give the money back.

That’s where Ann Arbor comes in. When every last crevase off 101 was funded, they went looking beyond the Valley, to places as far off as Michigan.

In this heyday, I drifted from one crack pot company to the next. Although I did not know it then, I was making money hand over fist. Furthermore, I’d general find myself in a position where I was working too hard to to shop. The ludicrous toys obtained through Amazon would sit in unopened cardbord boxes next to my desk.

In that time I learned quite a bit about software.

I’d eat ice cream in the dead of winter. It was prozac in a cone. Weekends were dreaded, since I’d be the only one at the office. I’d have the most stunning depressions, usually in parking lots, it would hit me in a wave. I’d boggle at how fast it set in, and I’d boggle at how accusomted I’d become. They would have been leathal, if not for the ice cream.

Stucchi’s, on State Street.

I was not a team player, but I was rarely in a position to learn from team members. This wasn’t the Valley. It was Ann Arbor.

There were cracker jack software developers about, but they were not keeping my company.

Why was that? Because, I steered clear of competence. My career was based on a simple premise.

Don’t ask. Don’t tell.

After JazzFest I was in Mid-City. I had flashbacks. I never liked Mid-City, but I didn’t realize it. I loved New Orleans. I didn’t like Mid-City. Mid-City is a slice of Ann Arbor in New Orleans.

Then again, I might not dislike Ann Arbor. As long as we’re having revalations.

Saw someone I at JazzFest 2004 at JazzFest, but took a while to place the face. She was gone. Passed by the place where she stayed when I met her. Wandered into their yard. Asked for her by first and last name. Asked if I could wait for her. Thinking I was in New Orleans, I sat, waited, expected to chat with people. The woman I sat next starts off by asking, so are you stalking her?

This is a sensibility.

All men are inheriently preditors. All violence in the world stems from testosterone. All violence in the world can be abated if one of the parties would step down.

Thus, if you are attacked, don’t fight. That will only make it worse.

That is a sensibility.

Thus, when I’m asked if I’m a stalker, ha, ha, I’m supposed to take it in stride, because, you know, so many men are, and you can never be to sure.

She arrives. We get a drink at Liuzza’s. We’re getting on like gang busters. We return to the party. She introduces me to the host. She says, this is Alan, he’s stalking me.

My jaw drops.

I turn to her and say. I don’t find that the least bit funny. Now what am I supposed to do. I don’t have anything to say after that.

You see, it’s so common that men are stalkers, and if a man goes to the trouble to seek you out, that is stalker behavior. Oh, it’s normal too, but it’s big comedy for these people to pretend that it is a preditory and criminal activity, and for them it’s funny, because for them it’s a truth, because all the world’s ills are testosterone laden.

It is in part in part true enough, that people like this get more than their fair share of stalkers, because the self-respecting man steers clear of this sort of non-sense. More than once in Ann Arbor I’d heard women complain that Ann Arbor men were either bitter or passive. When you express intrest in a woman, and are met with the threat of establishing a criminal precident, you tread lightly. Quite lightly. You can hear someone telling someone else, someone told me he was a stalker, I don’t know who, or where, or in what context, but it was said.

And I’ve said it before, in Ann Arbor, you are stuck having to come accross as not a stalker, as opposed to having to come accross as fun, witty, or considerate.

It has been months upon months since I’d suffered a situtation that was so deliberately awkward. It was culture shock. I was stunned. I imagine that if I was born and raised in New Orleans, I’d say I’d never been so insulted in all my life. I spent so much time in Ann Arbor, however, that the insult is familiar.

It’s been months, though. The people I’ve met in New Orleans understand. They understand that when you only know one person at a party, you are going to feel uncomforatble. That if they are that one person, they are supposed to make you feel welcome with polite introductions. I’ve grown accustomed to graciousness. This sort of introduction is unimaginably rude.

Spent the rest of my time with this woman was spent barking at her, like Biff the dog barks at the postman. Got her to apologize, which she did sincerely, but couldn’t stop telling her what was wrong with her kind of people. It wasn’t until she’d gone that I realized how much that introduction humiliated me, and that I was barking at that sensibility.

The night I met that woman at JazzFest 2004, a man was shot in the head during a robbery. I was walking up on him when the police pulled up. This night, at this party, someone mused that knowing the victim, which they all did, he probably mouthed off to his murderers.

That stuck in my craw, too. I barked and barked.

What a sentiment. He should have followed procedure. Not that he deserved to be murdered, mind you, but you don’t mouth off.

Where is the outrage and thirst for justice? What is wrong with these people? Is blaming him their excuse for not accepting the burden of outrage?

I’m a stalker? No. It is simply that you are all prey by default.

How can you harbor these sentiments in a city as murderous as New Orleans? It makes sense to me in Ann Arbor, where violence is distant and abstract.

This I understand. That it is so much easier for these people to be judgement of the person before them, than it is to be judgemental of abstractions of people.

Which is fundimentally why I do not like these people. They are horrible friends. They will not take your side. In part moral relativism. In part because it means they see taking sides is an escalation. They might be a part of a confrontation. Except that they are so pathetic, they won’t take your side when you tell of someone they will never meet.

They won’t tell you to take a stand. They only validate you when you fall.

Getting back into my failure patterns, part of the reason I created the Kiloblog, to announce and explore why I fail. I fail, by the way. I’m of the impression that my failures are the result of some simple, identifiable flaw. I intendto trace the flood of failure its headwaters.

My life, these days, has a lot of people in it. More data. Easier to debug.

At some point I’d had four failure points. Owning up, where I’m too eager to apologize, to beg forgiveness. Currying favor, seeking the approval of those who disapprove. Proving Myself, where I begin each relationship by subjecting myself to a test. Too Little, Too Late, which is how I precieve that which others might consider an accomplishment.

The first two have since been reduced to throwing good people after bad. Good people are quiet on my mind compared to bad people. Bad people tend to have the defining characteristic of disapproving of me in some way. Disliking me is not a problem for me. Attacking is not a problem. The natural respose is to disengage. Disapproval is a form of engagement.

Owning Up, comes from surronding myself with the disapproving. Accept their disapproval, and then you accept the shortcomings that the disapproval implies. This must also be at the root of my dislike for honesty. The disapproving expect honesty. Honesty means owning up to ones pathetic nature. I’ll be honest with you. Yes, I’m fat. Yes, I’m unfocused. Yes, I’m lazy. Yes, I offend people. Yes, I’m ashamed.

It is all in this pool. Distrust of the honest. Which gets me in trouble, when I beg of a girl to lie to me. Don’t tell me the truth. Truth is cheap. Use your imagination. If you love me, decieve me.

To state it plainly. People that are honest with their emotions are using honesty as an excuse to express themselves without concern for those close to them, or as a cover for the intended harm that emotional honesty inflicts.

Currying Favor, comes from surrounding myself with the disapproving. Obviously, I’ve tasked myself with entering into their good graces. I am a lickspittle.

As ugly as this is, the true failure comes from throwing good people after bad.

Good people are those who do not disapprove. They reflect a handsome image when engage with them, although I’m not likely to look directly at them to see. Bad people are outlined above. Good people are a wellspring of inspriation. Bad people are a vortex of muddle.

In throwing good people after bad, I take the approval of the good people in my life, and use it as evidence to convince the disapproving bad people of my worth.

I fail.

Before I move onto a realm of failure in it’s own right, I’d like to explore the economics of this failure pattern. Why do I expend the support of the approving on the disapproving?

Fear. Yummy, fear. Fear of the disapproving. That they will bear witness against me. That they will spread their disapproval, or worse, cause people dislike me.

Apprently, I believe that the existance of disapproval is a liability, and approval exists to mitigate that liability. My life is focused on disapproval and it’s irradication. Although, I’m conciously aware that dislike, distrust, and disapproval cannot be avoided, I’m still opposed to it, at my own expense.

Perhaps, at some level, I understand that any sort of success brings a coterie of disapproving. If it is only because you can now been seen as a gentrifying force. An evil yuppie. Thus, I keep myself in poverty, for fear of offending anyone.

Who can disapprove when they get something for nothing?

Proving Myself, is a transitional failure point. It has much to do with Currying Favor, but it goes one step further. Every step of the way, I talk about what I will do, not about what I’ve done. Every relationship begins with a promise and is perpetuated by a promise, but make no efforts to obtain recognition.

The final failure point is Too Little, Too Late. Always striving to be original. There can be no precident. I dismiss what I accomplish. I don’t see it as an accomplishment at all.

I sell for a living. I’m afraid that the readers of my blog are going to be put off by that. Ultimately, they will. The folks that I know are people that are uncomfortable with doing at all well. I sense this. I sense that is one of my failure points, to fail so that I do not offend.

Is it that simple? Are there two types of people in the world, leaders and followers, alphas and beta, and you simply take on one roll or another? Why can’t we all be rich? Because there is some larger social programming that says that we will annoint a handful with riches, and hover around them.

It’s not really possible is it? Lately, I’ve come to find that I’m writing less, and thinking less of The Long Tail. The volume of my posts has shrunk. I’m without a digitial camera. I’m flat broke, so broke, it’s not funny. Ha! I’m in post K New Orleans, but that’s merely a little crufty. The opportunity is better in this New Orleans than in the one I left in 2004. There is a wider need for software design.

I’m wrestling with how to go about moving forward in this community.

A new Mac is not that far off. There is nothing to do this week. It’s Mardi Gras. Everyone is very busy. Next week however, a lot of small businesses ought to be feeling flush.
Need to talk plainly to you, Long Tail. When I don’t communicate enough, I start to get confessional. When I get back around to writing, it’s a beseaching.

There’s no need is there? I must admit, I’m awfully confused. One of the things that I’ve noted lately is that there is a path of least resistance that I almost never follow, thus it is a path of great resistance, however, the source of the resistance is myself.

Case in point, I’m having a heck of a time with the dead Mac. It means that I can’t program for a living. I might be able to program for the future, but not for the here and now. No more contract programming. For the time being, no more programming Java and XML, nor hacking Thunderbird, or any of that fun stuff.

This is a pity. I can’t stand to continue to watch the mass adoption of dynamic HTML pass me by. This is an area in which I’ve dabbled since 1996. The acceptance is killing me. The jingoism is killing me. This is another in a series of missed boats.

I don’t have it in me right now to get all punchy, to write about things in the happy snappy buzzword laden way that gets the links going in the blogosphere. My life is contracting after two months of expansion. There are no new people, really. I’m waiting for people to wind down from Mardi Gras before things can resume.

When someting fails, in this case a Mac, it removes possiblities. The one remaining programming project that I have is way, way to annoying now. I’ll finish it, but it will be very challenging to do so. I won’t be able to trust my Mac thereafter. Contract programming is finished.

Then, I have to ask myself, if there is a way to support myself through a more social endeavor, why should I program computers? What is the appeal? Is there an appeal?

I don’t think so. I’m not seeing it. It has never come off. I’m not a bad programmer, but I’m not a terribly practical programmer. There is a failure point there, but I’m not sure which. The one thing that occurs to me as I awake this morning, is that I’m Proving Myself through programming, which would explain why it’s not working out for me.

Proving Myself is a failure point that I’ve not blogged yet. In fact, I’ve not blogged many of my failure points, only the crux in Good People After Bad.

Back from my morning walk. This morning I did not buy coffee. I’m already wired for some reason.

In the ebb and flow, this is a low point. I am feeling defeated. The dead Mac. There will not be a new Mac. There won’t. Not for programming. The next Mac, okay, there will be a new Mac, it won’t be funded by programming, it will be funded by web design. I’m going to keep on putting together web sites. I’m going to be delivering on web sites, at an awesome price. It’s so unbloggable.

It’s so very unbloggable. It comes down to this idea that I have that I must do, not talk, or I must do in order to talk. I don’t think I program to make money. I program to prove myself. Which is reason enough not to do it. It’s all wonky. Cart before the horse.

Defeat. Will I ever get around to completing all the Java stuff that I undertook so long ago. If I wanted to field an entry into the world of Web 2.0, would I write it myself in Java and XSLT, or would I contract it out to someone?

What gets me, is this time of great panic. It is quite unappreciated by my neighbors here. Running on empty is a way of life in New Orleans. Why should I worry more than the next person? This worry, at the crux, is the worry that I’m too worried to find new work. That I’m going radiate uncertainty and blow the sale.

Why am I blogging this? Long, ungangly, stream of consciousness? Because it’s time to find a new story, one that works, and the old one has no ending. It’s simply pecking away at code and never finishing. Programming is a hobby for me. It doesn’t work as a profession. In fact…

When I’m done with all this anxiety, I’ll say that my life focus on programming is too narrow to be successful. Which has something to do with rethinking how I approach life.

My life has changed so drastically, by moving here, to New Orleans. There is no way that I’m going to be able to conduct myself in New Orleans as I did in Ann Arbor. For one thing, I’m not going to suffer cronic depressions, nor I am going to be able to seclude myself, since those French Doors are open to my courtyard, and my courtyard opens out to Esplanade, and I’m bang in the Lower Quarter and Faubourg Marigny. This is an exceedingly disruptive place in which to find myself. It wrecks havoc on the mild autism I’ve developed from years of interacting with the world through mailing lists.

Petulantly, I must ask, what has programming given me? Little in the way of financial success. The formula for contract programming is laughable. First I have to sell the software. Then I have to write the software. Then I have to give the software away. Insanity! What a pathetic business model! What am I thinking?

In Ann Arbor, I was thinking that I’d rather get a bartending job, than fun my day to day with contract programming. Regular old programming, as a hobby, still has plenty of appeal, too. The other point here is that there are only so many hours that I want to look at a computer, or that I should look at a computer, whether I want to or not. There is no way to write something for myself, or something that is open source, and still have time for contract programming.

The Ann Arbor life had some Zen to it. Sitting at my desk, with white Winter sunlight washing over my workspace, I’d wait patiently for the next task to complete, whether that was a compile, or some such. It was a peaceful existance. I felt good for making progress. It was nice to know that I could sort through systems, figure them out quickly, patch code as well as write original code. There were a great many interests. More than I probably could pursue, but I was intent to walk away with a handful of accomplishments.

Katrina changed all that, I suppose. I’m living here in New Orleans, and despite being nearly flat broke, I’m not at all depressed. I’m anxious as all get out. I’m trying to find a way to give myself the rationale necessary to push on, through all this typing write here, but I’m not too terribly uncertain about the future.

The dead Mac has made some decisions for me.

Back from a jaunt for coffee. Spoke with some friends at the coffee shop. I am so happy to be here. This is a great city. There is so much to learn from the people here.

Well, I’m pretty much done with contact programming. There is some remorse. It will move me away from programming. If programming was a matter of proving myself, I can think of better ways to prove myself, that have a better bottom line. In fact, that may well be the way I go about proving myself, through the bottom line.

Think New Orleans is about writing, face time, and sitting down with people, getting them to contribute, even if I have to stand over their shoulder. It’s a matter of bridging two worlds. No more contract programming. None. Let it end. Then, maybe, I can return to programming for the sake of programming, or maybe I’ll learn Spanish instead.