getting shit straight

tales of gss in the real world

how is today's digital-american getting shit straight? consider this marvelous story!

while walking home from a rock concert - a local band, because local bands are never talented enough to be popular, and liking unpopular things is, to a certain degree, quite important - we at gss stumbled across an amazing sight: fourteen local people, unattractive and yet unashamed, walking in a circle, carrying around placards. 'what do those wonderful signs say?' we asked aloud, and as if miraculously, they turned toward us. politics! we can't repeat, on this family oriented (and yet with the gay-friendly too!) weblog, certain of the phrases written on the signs, but rest assured they were pretty fucking inappropriate.

was it a party? a college prank? someone mentioned labour laws, someone else mentioned morocco abu-jamal. politics!

we whipped out our moleskines - not yet certain what sort of information would be written in them, just to HAVE THEM OUT - and watched carefully. did the placards herald the arrival of some extraordinary force? the circus? were we to be privy to the plans of a team of highly-trained assassins, communicating with one another entirely via posterboard? no. here is what we ended up writing in our moleskine (the miniature this time, quadrille-lined, only $45.99 ordered direct from a team of mole farmers in senegal):

'who are these people? what? shit is this america? going to last much longer?'

get some sleep. things can only get better.

advanced search capabilities

the next stage in self correction involves reaching out to the internet and making some kind of difference. yes it's a paradox, but also yes it's necessary, powerful. soon you're going to need to make the digital realm in your own image the way you've remade the physical realm. the first thing is search (which is a prerequisite for the second thing, 'destroy').

the ideal search program for someone of your particular interests is the brand new tool, located at STONER.GOOGLE.COM. very straightforward: you've spent so much time and energy perfecting your mind, why waste that energy? all that shit you've gotten straight already, you're going to want to take advantage and extra-self-actualize-ate. (technical. don't worry if you don't understand.)

your digital brain should work the way your (now perfected) flesh brain already functions. try and imagine:

you're at home in your loft, working at your apple macintosh laptop computer. you fire up STONER.GOOGLE.COM. you need to know more about the early days of complicated science. you click on the text field and enter: 'cathode ray tube experiment not rutherford but that other guy'. because this powerful digital mind works the way you work - because it wants what you want and obviously smokes the same thing(s) you smoke - it knows to cull, to prune, to trim. it breathes, it crackles. it's american, and it's fucking beautiful.

here are other search terms you might try:

"the girl i met at the phish concert"

"actor fight club probably gay"

"buying books but not from a big commercial chain"

"balaklava makes you look like a terrorist"

go on and try your own! experimentation is the bedrock of scientific knowledge, as everyone knows.

treasure hunting

out in the woods behind the house there's a tree with peculiar markings on it - they look like hieroglyphs, stylized animal-heads-on-human-bodies. it's unlikely those markings were made by real egyptians, but the longer you tell yourself that, the more amusement you'll be able to give - like the world's most selfless secret santa gift ever - to your friends and colleagues. that tree is the solution to an immensely long puzzle trail designed by bored university students in the first half of the 20th century. no one's yet found the treasure, but when the time comes - and something tells us that time will arrive shortly - the students will probably arrive in a torrent and not a trickle. be ready.

• sweep off your porch
• empty the garage of children's bicycles - why do you need fifteen of them, anyhow? how old are you, twelve?
• stop using giant national geographic world maps as wallpaper. they're visible from the street and those college kids are going to think you're an imbecile
• shave your legs, because the monkey suit itches worst on the back of your calves

the markings don't depict anything, but it's the mere fact of them that's so wonderful. someone took the time to make drawings and carve them into the bark of the tree behind the house. probably the house wasn't there at the time. back then everything was trees, and clear water, and a bright hope for the future. then you suburban types moved in and ruined everything. thanks.

very fast thinking

many new pieces of science are being created every day; among them is the revelation that quick thinking - without the blue-state baggage of 'thinking about thinking' - is far and away the most efficient way of making all decisions. like other science, this is largely true, and yet curiously also mostly false. be wary! science is not a collection of facts or truths: like the bible, it is largely a collection of bullshit, and like the bible it needs your money to survive. the contradictions are part of the complexity.

but the most recent science, about quick thinking, can be applied in many situations in which you need to get shit straight. faced with a choice between four equally attractive males, one of them possibly a relative, who want to go on a date with you? flip a coin. the more authority you're able to wrest from yourself, the more likely you will be to succeed and advance. or, say you're interviewing for a job, and the interviewer asks you, 'why do you want to work here, mark?' is your name not mark? make something up, the first thing that comes to your head. say it convincingly. if it occurs to you at that moment to gesture emphatically, do so. things are hard in the working world, marco, and you're not gonna get this job on the merits, so start using your imagination, or the boyfriend of the CEO's daughter is bound to get the job - and it turns out, just so you know, he's a hard worker and a natural athlete. when he gets dissatisfied with the relationship, and stays in it only so he can keep the job, you're going to be kicking yourself. you had a chance to lie and you wasted it.

that's science. and it's working for you.

your desktop; russian; penile condition

you're probably embarrassed by the startling shitpile that is your desktop. it's covered in the usual detritus - but with a personal touch. book covers you took off of hardcover books you borrowed: did you remember to return those books? do your friends still call you? there's a statue of ganesh. when did you last pray, or share friendly words with that elephant-headed little indian man? and yet you claim, when people complain about the smell or the inaccessible mess, that there's an order to it all.

you're right: there is. but until now you've lacked the analytical tools to really understand that order. the sheer brazen uncromulence of your little world hides the key to understanding the human mind. or yours, anyhow.

think of your pile of refuse and castoffs as a complex topography. there's the important stuff, obviously: your moleskine, your desk lamp, your unopened box of condoms, an empty beer bottle for self defense. the relevance of your detritus (which we'll helpfully abbreviate hereafter as dtrts) falls off precipitously as you move away from the polestar items. deodorant? probably next to the moleskine, WHERE IT BELONGS. subway pass? next to the alarm clock, ITS RIGHTFUL PLACE. the simon and garfunkel cd collection you borrowed from s_____ six months ago? honestly, let's get shit straight: you have no idea where it is. you're never going to find it, and that's not a big deal. you've had a hard time taking s_____ seriously since you found out about his genital condition - it's not that you have a problem with him, exactly, and you're quite understanding about other people's sexual practices, but...ewww. some things are not worth bothering to understand.

we know you got an email from s_____ today, asking if you want to go the museum. make a goddamn note in your moleskine right now: you're not going to the museum with s_____ or ANYONE else. you're smack-dab in the middle of vygotsky's zone of proximal development here, accomplishing things with the help of a website that, unaccompanied, you might never have thought of. s____ and his disgusting warts, or whatever, are going to have to find some other way of getting culture. you're fixing what's wrong with you. we understand. he's just going to have to live with that.

but if his wiener shrivels and falls off, definitely give him a call, because that's going to be AWESOME.

the must-buy item of the 21st century

obviously, you won't get far without your moleskine and your stocking cap. and no one is much good unless he or she can refer back to his or her copy of 'microserfs', the 'silent spring' of the mid 90's. (remember when wired megazine printed the last chapter of the book as an 'excerpt'? remember how glad you were, when you found out what they'd done, that you yourself are not that stupid?) but the must-buy item of the 21st century is jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjlljjjjk////.

seriously now

here at gss we had a special ceremony tonight, during which we burned all our old grateful dead concert tapes. don't call them 'bootlegs' - that implies an oppositional stance from the band as regards taping. the dead were always on your side about that sort of thing, like a gift-giving set of drugged-up uncles. really the all-american band, blending rootsy folk/country vernacular with fine psychedelia and that great post-enlightenment virtue: bloated self-indulgence. wonderful.

but we burned the tapes because frankly, like you, we prefer to occasionally have sex, and the tapes were getting in the way. the drum solos/duets are the musical equivalent of erectile dysfunction: a lot of banging around, no real shape to the thing, then anticlimax.

if you're sensible you'll do the same.

take out your moleskine and ride

some things to consider tomorrow when you write down your daily pre-recap flash-thought-mob download-item priority queue (using a system of different-coloured pens):

• most of the great thinkers in history had blogs
• progress is only a road sign on the side of the road to starbucks for a nice cup of coffee
• you're exactly as good as we think you are, BUT NO LESS good
• actually come to think of it you're not quite that good
• every piece of open-source software you install - no matter how bloated, useless, interface-free, denuded, or similar in function to all the other programs on your computer - makes you at least 5000% more efficient. don't hesitate to install everything.
• treat your friends in a fashion similar to that in which you treat a park bench: lean on them when you're tired. sit on them when it's sunny. paint them when they get ugly, as a service to the entire country.

stay organized, digital america, and we will stand by you in fist-clenched solidarity.

performance anxiety

performance anxiety. everyone gets it. don't be ashamed. this is a definite source of workplace dissatisfaction, disgruntlement, dislocation, dyspepsia. we all get a little broken-down sometimes, and we take it out on our coworkers. everyone does it!

YOUR mistake, on the other hand, was taking it out IN FRONT OF your coworkers.

and now all of them have some kind of anxiety, just like you. on balance, we can't argue with that kind of solidarity-building; empathy is the glue that holds together the model airplane of capitalism.

but for christ's sake, the point has been made. you can put your cock away now.

recapping 2004: don't bother

the 21st-century digital road warrior should resist the urge to recap 2004; nothing good happened last year, at least not to you. indeed, since 1604 there have been only four years that were good through and through: 1979, 1803, 1492, and 1776. take out your notebook and write it down: 'look relentlessly forward, because everything behind is shit.' and give thanks, as 2005 lurches toward the dustbin of recent history in its own time, for free advice.