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Rock and Roll forever
Wednesday, March 24 1999
At lunch today, me and the two on-site SQL guys had a good bitch session about work. We're demoralized by the apparently irrational rash of firings, but we're also in a position of considerable power. We are the programmers and without us there is nothing. Beyond that, we cannot rapidly be replaced; at the minimum we're needed to train those who would replace us. Despite our enviable positions in the firm, obviously irrational forces seem to be at work. So among the things we did was pledge solidarity to one another. We've developed strong personal bonds from long hours at work and we're not machines that can be installed and ripped out at the whim of some desperate manager. A loss of any one of us would make all of us vastly less productive.
One straightforward indication of an engineer's job security in my workplace was Eric's experience today at the hands of his boss, Paymon. Eric, you see, went on a ski vacation this weekend and didn't come back until Wednesday, a day later than expected. Paymon gave him a stern talking-to this morning, telling him that he couldn't be trusted to work on his current pet project, and, as punishment, taking that project away from him. But there's no one else to do that particular project, and it's a high priority, so within an hour Eric got the project back. In his talk with Paymon, Eric made many valid points in his own defense:
- Many a "team coach" has held them out as tangible rewards, but had anyone ever received a bonus?
- Had everyone so quickly forgotten the nights and weekend Eric had put in during the crunch back in January? Weren't those hours worth something?
- Had Paymon forgotten that Eric had originally promised to only put in 28 hour weeks when he was hired, even though he's been coming to work at least 30 hours per week and going to school full time as well?
This website generates a good amount of email. Occasionally individual voices pop up like mushrooms and maintain a steady monologue until they tire of being what to them comes to seem like a voice in the wilderness. I guess this guy wanted to get published, so here we go:
I can't help but feel the counter culture has lost the Gus to the over the
counter culture where has the whimsy gone, where is the Gus of yore? he has
been assimilated into the young urban professional collective he has sold out
and joined the herd of sheeple and traded his creative poetic artists soul in
for the "success " he can't stop bitching about sad really oh there was a time
when the Gus had something, something golden something worth struggling for.
it seems the daily ginned has ground away what was unique and interisting
about this journal it really saddens me that you caved in, gave up the fight,
rolled over, if you read your own journal maybe you would see it too, where is
the fun, the adventure, maybe it was your friends who were interesting and now
that there gone you just can't keep up the facade but your life has
degenerated into a stale stagnant bore, yuck Gus yuck I think it's that you
have nothing to reflect on in you limited environment work, girlfriend (your
relationship is doomed to fail you clearly resent her more and more entry to
entry) what a sad disappointment you were for a few shining moments the
embodiment of a generation I hate to think thetas where the scene is heading
please do something before it's to late ditch the bitch go hitch hiking to
Newark something creative maybe you 'vel gotten old archaic stagnant and
settled and dot have the strength to get out in the current again if that's
true why write, for that matter why live another day?
the life that was is no more, why don't you knock up your girlfriend and plant
a garden at least that would give you something to write about.
you know at first I really wanted to form some correspondence with you I was
Impressed I'd never seen any thing like your work and I was touched by the
novelty.
Now I could give a fuck if you bother to respond.
I guess the strain of coming up with novel topics got too much for you, I can
see how keeping your writing fresh day after day would be a challenge, oh well
I think you must have hit your peak I only wish you would have retired this
page before it started to suck.
I dot you will even be able to muster the creative juice to lampoon this like
the old Gus would have this life you've made has sucked the Gus dry and left
an old hollow stale sheath of a writer sorry if this has offended you but I
suspect you don't have enough soul left to get too upset, isn't it time for
you to slip off for some prune juice and a bran muffin you tired old used to
be.
if you want to reply (yeah right) you can do it a
holomos@hotmail.com
not that you can muster the energy to maintain the decency to respond to your
fans
you self important Fuqua so many times you say in your journal
"this is for my readers"you would think you could respond but no you are to
busy whining about the crap you inflict on your self, well screw you pal,
screw you!
judgmental prick.
thanks for your time I hope you dug this rant you pig fucking bastard.
your unsolicited critic
HoLoMoS CoPpErToNe
P.S. your kind will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
have a nice day
In the evening, Kim and I were hanging out, watching Hype, an æsthetically superior documentary of the Grunge phenomenon that "began" in Seattle. This movie actually had Nirvana songs in it, including what was allegedly the first live performance of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Every time I see a documentary of the "Seattle Scene" in the early 90s, I'm reminded of the Big Picture, the true forces behind the "Grunge Revolution" of 1992. As I explained to Kim, Rock and Roll has been around for nearly 50 years now and shows no sign of fading away. I think that's because it is the musical expression of something very fundamental in youthful rebellion, sexuality and violence. But pop music, the fancy house in which Rock and Roll must dwell, is subject to gradual stylistic drift and change. With the passing of the years, pop standards gradually becomes a bastardization of the adolescent-pleasing Rock and Roll sound. People don't notice it; it happens too slowly. Music enthusiasts are like frogs in a pot gradually being heated to a boil. They keep buying the records of their favourite artists while finding them increasingly disappointing. Meanwhile, new bands receiving heavy promotion become increasingly bland until at some point the only real Rock and Roll to be found is in the underground. Conditions are ripe for a revolution. Grunge was such a revolution, probably the biggest Rock and Roll revolution so far, though before that we had such phenomena as the British Invasion of the 60s and the Punk Revolution of the late 70s.
I should point out that when I first heard Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in the Fall of 1991, I was a committed fan of speed metal. I used to listen to Over the Edge, a metal show on WXJM, the student radio station coming from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. I remember when they first played "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on that show, and how I thought the song was lame. Several months passed before I heard other songs on Nevermind (especially "Come as You Are") and I decided Nirvana was cool after all. Those were the days. Nobody knew Grunge was poised to take over the world; in those days Pearl Jam was restricted to Head Banger's Ball for Christ's sake!
Kim was in a mood for romance and thought it would be seductive if she sat around in her black slip wearing no underwear. I jokingly suggested (in a tone that implied she was a forgetful little five year old girl) that she go put her underwear back on. This led to yet another of our many fight. Kim thought I was somehow turned off by her readily-available vagina. This wasn't true at all, even if it is based on a shred of fact: I definitely do have a fetishistic interest in the association between girls and their clothes and am not especially aroused by nudity. I'm interested in the interplay of revealing and concealing, and for the most part Kim does a good job of keeping me happy in this department. But, at the same time, my fetishes are not a big deal, at least, they're not nearly the big deal that Kim thought they were tonight. She thought I was dissing her because I was turned off by her "availability." In truth, though, my mind was on other things. I'm so obsessed with my current pod builder project that it frequently pushes aside all thoughts of sex. That's just the way I am; when I'm in a creative-thinking mode, sex is an unwelcomed distraction.
When Kim and I finally went to bed, I didn't make any moves on Kim, choosing instead to snuggle with her and think about my pod builder and all the cool things I wanted to do to it. Kim shifted, sighed and whined, "It's been two days since we had sex; I'm just not used to this!" Then she launched into a tirade about my fetishes, claiming I had a serious problem if she'd have to go put underwear on just to arouse me. Somehow we ended up actually having sex, during the course of which she sort of played the role of a rape victim, thinking (perhaps) that I'd be turned on more if I had to force myself upon her. But she didn't resist too much; she actually did want to have sex with me, you see.
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