This is a great bop with a fantastic music video. A true inspiration to make it and get moving and just go.
So few cuts, just energy.
I listen to this song with ZZ all the damn time. This and the Linda Lindas.
But I wanted to blog it because Deceptacon got covered in the excellent Song Exploder podcast.
This was a really cool experience. I wish I had joined earlier.
Today I did my first shift at the food coop. I actually liked it. It was tough, because being a newbie at things is tough. Not knowing what to do is tough. But learning is fun!
The shift started at 8:30pm and ended at 11. Yikes. I did “case maintenance” which means breaking down a produce case, storing the produce temporarily, washing and cleaning everything in the case and re-assembling it all, then stocking it all.
One thing I learned – tell people what to do. Tell them to put the damn label for the apples they are bagging with the apples so we don’t sit around later wondering what variety they are like apple detectives. I’ll probably do this shift more, but I want to try others and see what it’s like to be a cashier or do repairs.
Over the past weeks I find myself repeatedly saying phrases like “Roman Polanski made some good movies”. In conversations, we keep covering brilliant ideas from people who’ve done despicable actions or who’ve made great creative works and also advanced horrible thoughts.
In that vein, I want to share this wonderful thought from Dynomight about attitudes to take towards people who’ve done Good and Bad.
I think it’s important to get the good from people and appreciate it. But you have to know that the man who helped America get to the Moon was a Nazi who worked people to brutal deaths. I believe I can fly is an incredibly good song. Jefferson, an architect of so many good thoughts, was a slavemaster, slaves built the White House and George Washington fought hard to recover the slaves that escaped him.
It’s uncomfortable, but you also need to know the full story. We need to talk about it. Because pretending the full story isn’t there is bad for us. Pretending the good isn’t there is also bad for us. And thinking people are only one thing is a fundamentally bad idea.
It’s a day with a good idea, based on a bad story. I’m going to take the good idea – practicing gratitude and not celebrate the bad story.
I have SO MUCH to be grateful for. My family is healthy, faces struggles and difficulty with patience and practice and we have enough to give back. We have growth and navigate trouble together – and while we’ve had plenty of trouble to navigate, none of it has drowned us.
My workplace is appreciative of what I do, not abusive, and has a fairly healthy relationship with me. More to come on this, but my main challenges are prioritizing the interesting problems to solve and navigating change.
My personal health is a bounty. I hope for my friends with difficulties life threatening and chronic. I am merely stuck with the realization that I won’t achieve my goal to do 2 one-arm pullups by the end of the year. But I’m so close I think I’ll have it by the end of next year. It took me multiple years to be able to do a pistol squat, but I got there as well.
I’m grateful to have found some of the most wonderful interesting people and to have them be my friends. I’m still a little incredulous that they tolerate my personality, my long silent periods, but show me the same love and joy when we find each other together. They shore me up where I’m weak and I’m grateful when I can similarly help them.
I’m thankful that people are resolving to cooperate locally, support their communities and help each other get through coming tough times. The bonds forged in adversity can be strong and I hope they will link us in better times as well. I’m hoping to do more direct help by feeding hungry people at CHiPS and find more ways to be personally involved.
Well, friends, I just found myself seeking points. I’ve become a Bike Angel.
I love CitiBike – being able to grab a bike whenever for a short trip is just magic.
And then I saw a video about Bike Angels, and it grabbed me. It’s genius.
CitiBike has a clumping problem. Bikes flow like tides across the city, and they clump in popular destinations. Some docks end up with lots of bikes and some end up with very few.
They already have some overhead – the electric bikes need someone to come out and swap fresh batteries for dead ones. Repairs need to happen. They also have vans that pull up to overweight docks and transport them over to underweight docks. That’s not great though, using a motor vehicle to move bikes around. Better if people just did it cheaper on the bikes themselves.
That’s the bike angel program. It gives you points for moving bikes from crowded docks to emptier ones. More extreme docks give you more points. Doing it a lot is a streak and racks up your points. It’s all very silly and the very base rate of it all has a point worth around a dime. But it’s enough to make me OK with walking a little farther when I’ve got the time and riding a little farther to drop off at a dock that needs it.
And then I got a streak. And then I got to triple points. And then I found myself taking a ride between two docks to just not break my streak.
They got me!
If you’ve only got two clamps because you live in an apartment – you can hack them into any length you need.
Shoutout to this cool person I met in the lounge at Heathrow.
We got talking while she was setting up. She explained – wherever she goes she has a full keyboard, 2 monitors and a powerful setup. She always left her laptop plugged in to external monitors at home and she had it plugged into external monitors at work, so why not just carry the tiniest part she needs.
I love it.
But I hope in that chaos we can create something different.
My hope is that it is now clear that you can’t win with a sneer and a rush to triangulate the center.
But anyone who tells us they know exactly what’s coming next is probably selling something.
Am I becoming a GUNSHIP fan? Are they time travelers from an alternate better 80s?
However the next few days turn out, I hope you are ok.