This may be the last year I send out Christmas cards. I already refuse to apply for a job that requires a resume' on a physical piece of paper. (If they can't accept email or can't access my web site, then I don't want to work for them.) I'm afraid I may have to take the same Draconian stance on Christmas cards. I just dropped over eighty bucks on pretty pictures of Boulder with a generic message stamped inside, and another 20 bucks on postage. Most of the people on my list I haven't seen or spoken with in years--we are just in the card-trading hell which is part of our holiday season. It's as much a part of the Christmas tradition for me to send Cathy Wilson a card for example, as buying a tree. I haven't seen or spoken to Cathy Wilson since 1976, yet we have a perfect one-for-one Xmas card record for twenty years now. Neither one of us apparently, has the will or desire to break the chain. Brace me--I think I'm going to limit my holiday messages from here on to email, and my Christmas "card" will be a web page featuring the requisite smiling photo with the cats and all. (If Cathy Wilson doesn't have email though, I might not have the nerve.).
In the early Sixties we used to ride our bikes past the bomb shelters that the local hardware store was selling in their parking lot. The threat of a nuclear missile hitting Louisville Kentucky was perceived as real enough that people actually dug up their back yards and planted these family-sized live-in coffins. I thought the end of the Cold War brought an end to the threat of nuclear missiles and I was wrong. Last November 16th, on a mountain road that winds through the Sand Hills of Nebraska a truck turned over. Not just any truck; this one was being tracked by satellite and accompanied by two escort vehicles filled with armed guards. (Not that the U. S. Department of Transportation wants to talk about it, except to say that this "off-normal occurrence" left the "cargo intact.") The truck involved in the crash was a "Safe Secure Trailer" (so called) which means it was carrying either a nuclear bomb or bomb parts. The stretch of road was immediately sealed off by authorities. A response team was called in from Albuquerque suggesting to watchdog environmentalists that the accident involved a nuclear warhead. I have seen cities with "Nuclear Free Zone" signs, and part of downtown Louisville is today--meaning you can't take a Safe Secure Trailer with a warhead through the business district. They've gone from bomb shelters to little metal signs and the missiles are closer than ever.
My song writing partner of over twenty years, Christopher Herron Lee, wrote me the following note in a fit of Holiday Despair years ago. I found it so entertaining that I made it my Christmas card. I received several responses that suggested I should seek counseling immediately. With Mr. Lee's permission I share his thoughts with you now:Chris' Christmas Greeting
Happy Holidaze? Every year, millions of dupes indoctrinated by the world's largest and most dangerous afterlife-protection racket unwittingly celebrate the pagan winter solstice festival. They always celebrate it two to four days late, because the "religion" none of them really believe in has told them a whopping lie about December 25th being the birthday of a renegade Hebraic religious leader worshipped around the globe under an erroneous and misleading Greek pseudonym. This preposterous distortion of sundry ancient sacred traditions has been further obscured by the diabolical cult of "St. Nick" (actually OLD Nick) a RED-suited character also known as "Santa" (an obvious anagram of "Satan") whom nobody believes in either anymore. At this time of year, people distribute gifts to those they dislike, everybody goes further in debt, alcoholism skyrockets and relatives rediscover just how much they loathe each other. This ghastly farce terminates on the first day of the New Year, a time traditionally set aside for the National Hangover, during which all may contemplate growing older, time-payment plans on the junk they felt obligated to buy, nuclear war, the heating bill and what to do about the fir needles on the carpet.
Well, they're on to us gang. Seems someone has funded yet another stupid study to determine if (gasp!) corporate employees with internet connections are improperly surfing the Web. You may as well do a study to see if guys read the sports section in the bathroom stalls. There are even applications that can monitor employees' surfing habits and block out unwanted sites. I've worked for myself as a sole proprietor and I've worked for huge corporations as a salaried employee. I discovered that most people spend eight hours a day at their corporate job producing about four hours' worth of work. No operation can operate at 100% capacity 100% of the time, so there's some slack built in. When I worked for myself I simply used the other four hours each day to practice guitar and get into trouble. When I work for a corporation, the problem sometimes becomes just what to do with those four extra hours each day. I have yet to be able to follow the Fortune Magazine-suggested formula for a corporate employee: 50-30-20: (50% of the time you do your job to the best of your ability; 30% of the time you walk around telling everyone how hard you're working; 20% of the time you look for a better job). The truth is, employers shouldn't be alarmed that their people are cruising the web for god-knows what-all on company time. Employers should be aware of the innate inefficiency of most corporate cultures. Creativity in a tiny cubicle under fluorescent lights between the hours of 8am and 6pm? Yeah, right. Employers should pay more attention to an individual's ultimate output, not what they do from minute to minute. If anyone is reading this from work, email me will ya? And if your boss walks up while you're cruising The Angle hit this.
Who died and made Network Solutions King of the Internet? I have three domain names. They cost one hundred dollars apiece to register with InterNIC. Okay fine, no problem. I recently received an email notification that my payment was due or they would disconnect me. Okay, fine, no problem. I called their phone number to conveniently pay by credit card. It's a call to Virginia with no 800 number available. Okay, fine, whatever. Twenty minutes on hold later, I cough up my hundreds and figure the deal is done. Two days later I receive another message from InterNIC saying I haven't paid and that I'm going to be disconnected. I call Virginia again, get put on hold forever again (they don't even have MUSIC for heaven's sake. . . just some annoying woman saying "please hold" every fifteen seconds). I grew to hate that woman. Finally, I got a human on the line and asked if my account could be tracked, then spent another twenty minutes on hold. This is long distance, remember. A gentleman finally answered, pulled up my file and indicated that yes, they had charged my card, but their billing was two weeks behind and I may as well disregard the email messages of imminent termination. "But you may want to call back the first week of January just in case . . ." So, ladies and gentlemen, the Gods of the Web are raking in a hundred bucks per domain name, providing pretty lousy service if you ask me, and are obviously overwhelmed by their task. Please hold while they go public.