getting shit straight

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.

rap music

your attempt at writing a battle rhyme in your notebook - motivated, no doubt, by your viewing of the inspirational biography/fiction film '8 mile' - was unsuccessful. you're not a rapper. indeed, the people in the film '8 mile' are professional actors impersonating real life figures. the lead character, the plucky white guy who has sex standing up with the vacant-looking blonde girl in the factory, is actually a character actor named marshall mathers. his gutsy performance is convincing in all but one respect: we all know white men don't do rap music. marshall, you had us at 'yo'. but if we want fantasy, we'll rent 'spider-man'.

little black book

notebooks are obviously invaluable resources for every kind of literate person. they include blank (or subtly lined) paper on which one can draw, write, tape doodads...the options are basically limitless for writers of courage. naturally we prefer moleskine notebooks, as would any person of sophistication and wit. the moleskine is the notebook of, according to the label on the front, 'pablo picasso, hernando de soto, julius and ethel rosenberg, kublai khan, and amartya sen's "artistic" cousins'. since the working poor occasionally read the world wide web, however, we can't count on our readers to make the same choice. is there no justice?

whatever your choice of notebook style and brand, you have a wealth of opportunity awaiting you as you pour out your innermost being into its pages. but be forewarned! notebooks are hardly simple. they are hardly straightforward. some people write things in inexpensive mechanical pencil, foolishly thinking that they will 'go back and edit later' or some such nonsense. perhaps these people smile cheerfully at others as they tuck their pencils back into their coat pockets or the pencil holders of their courier bags (more about courier bags later). let's get shit straight. when you write things in a notebook in pencil, you smudge all over the place and you make yourself look like a second-class asshole. this is inefficient, because the social capital you expend in your pencil-using assholery will have to be made up later by complicated fashion and conversation maneuvers. save yourself trouble! throw that pencil away. or better yet, give it to a baby. take the lead out first, you monster.

there are other forces at work as well. let's discuss them. let's discuss what exactly it is you write/draw/attach inside your extraordinary new paper power tool.

• notes to yourself: what to buy, phone and ISBN numbers, brief commands like 'call mike!' and 'who was sylvia plath again?'
• drawings of women on the subway
• 'proofs' of deceptively simple mathematical theorems about which you actually know less than nothing
• receipts that you will throw away next time you look at them
• and more

let's implement a simple 'life hack' today, starting small and simple, yet striking immediately at the heart of one of the many things that are wrong with you. are you with us?

look over your notebook. the things you've put in there: the many ways you've uploaded your disorganized, disconnected thoughts into a useful bit-bucket (bits of wisdom, that is!). contemplate them for a moment. are you contemplating? outstanding. now: honestly, who gives a fuck? scribble over them. seriously, just destroy everything you put in there, because none of it is of value. those ideas you're convinced you're going to turn into a novel someday? we had those ideas recently; they're in the air. they're so in the air that some oil baron or internet startup founder in new york city has already hired a team of three ghostwriters to churn out every possible variation on your precious 'idea' using advanced math, probability, alchemy techniques. your idea was shit when you had it, it was shit when you wrote it down, and now someone else - someone who spent his allowance on baseball cards and condoms instead of notebooks - has stolen your intellectual capital like so much land from the indians.

we have nothing to say about your 'still life' drawings, which are actually quite beautiful but don't really impress anyone of substance.

the notebook is going to be amazing someday, awesome. it's going to hack the heck out of your life - should we repeat that phrase for emphasis? hack the heck out of your life! - but until you start having original thoughts and ambitions that involve something more than making it onto 'jeopardy' (admit it: you watched that million-dollar winner and you acted unimpressed, though inside you were seething. you wondered what ken what's-his-name puts in his notebook. we all did), you're better off keeping that shit to yourself.

you're one step closer to fixing what's wrong with you.