Brisky Whisky

I met with the Director of Marketing for a local whisky company. I had to admit that honestly, I had never drank whisky before. He asked, "what do you drink?" and I struggled to say rum and coke. "Well then, you drink" he said. Sure. Whatever ... grrr ... I drink buddy old pal.

So at the conclusion of our meeting, he gave me a bottle of Macallan whisky and I have been sipping it over ice -- as it should be consumed (so I was told). I never understand alcohol and I think it has to do with perpsective. I have no moral qualms or whatever with drinking. I just don't like the taste and have never had "an amazing night" in a bar.

I am very task and goal oriented. I start something, know what I want to accomplish and then plow through it so I can move on to something new. This is probably not the best strategy for a realtionship or drinking. Once I am handed a glass, my focus becomes to consume the beverage and I do so quickly. I seem totally incapable of the art of sipping. So then I consume my drink, but I don't go straight from one to the next because I don't like being plastered. But I find myself (slightly tipsy) with no drink in hand, becoming very bored, very quickly. What can I focus on, what can I do? That is what I am wondring now as I sip my whisky -- I must be bored to be writing about this on a Friday night. I have proven my point without realizing it ....

Snow in the City

So today was the first day in the frigid state of New York that Tray and I actually walked about in falling snow. It was a visual suprise to look up toward an outer light from Chipotle and see the flakes -- falling, falling. As we hit the street the flakes began to fly with the wispy wind, angled and hard. They hit the our eyes and chilled with a slight pain. I should have known those soft delicate flakes have attitude in this city.

Above us they seemed to float and flutter, but as they got closer they seemed to dive harshly. This is much like the city. On any given day, one might pause on the verge of two streets and watch the people like pigeons react to the world around them. They give in to their reflexes, guarding their personal space and gliding seamlessly past one another. The big picture seems so ordered as bikes and yellow cabs miss others coat tails by inches. And yet, the reality is a fearful struggle of each and every party to make that blinking walk sign and jump in front of that bike.

Life is such a combination of fearful battles that all take place so ordered and peacefully. Like an angry snow flake that looks so beautiful before it hits you in your most velnerable places. The city, people, the snow -- they are all passing battles that work together and melt away once settled.

We ARE Sorry

Check out this cute site about all of our appologies for allowing Bush to stay in office for another four years: http://www.sorryeverybody.com

Search Marketing Souffle

So this was the first Thanksgiving that I actually spent the event with my boyfriend. I mean I actually did it -- he was there next to me eating turkey and talking about the state of the potato souflle. For so many years I had wanted to overcome the agony of the inquisition. My family knows that I am gay and they also know that I am in a relationship -- every year. Granted, it may not be the same guy, but at the end of the night I have a loving pair of arms to come home to just as they do.

It has actually turned into a huge issue for me, Thanksgiving that is. See I have been tending to the garden so to speak, planting the seeds that need to grow in order to have two boys eat turkey together even though everyone knows that they are choking each others chickens. I came out early. Well, not early really, 18, I suppose, and from day one I wanted my boyfriend to be my girlfriend. Not in a sexual sense, but that normailzed warm fuzzy family way of being just awkward enough to feel that you have accomplished something by bringing everyone around a common table of understanding. Maybe not understanding, a common undertaking to create ritual together.

I feel that ritual is what is missing from most of modern society. In distiguishing between conformity and indioviduality, many of us have sacrificed some common current of humanity for the right to wear our clothes a certain or say what we wish, whether anyone is listening or not.

Thanksgiving is a restoration of ritual for many families that have no other opportunity to do so otherwise. Thanksgiving seems to be about listening for half of the people and the bandstand for the other half that wish to fill those awkward silences with words. Even if the same people say the same things every year, it is the chance to do so and the chance to acquiese to tender words of wisdom.

I often feel offended when in a crowd of people the conversation migrates to caeers. Often the crowd is gay friends and they all want to talk and ask about Tray's job. Tray is the Editor of the local gay smut rag that he has polished into a civil parade of photos and text that actually as a bit if bite to it. Often in this arena I am never asked about what I do. That infuriates me. I actually like my job and feel that I should have the chance to tell the world that I do Search Marketing.

Tray tells me that people don't know what that means and I think that on some level I know that and enjoy the ambiguity of it all. Maybe search marketing is what everyone ultimately has to come ot terms with. Maybe all human existence really is only one big search, and well, I market that.

It sounds like some diaboloical plan and ultimately it may be. Tell me what you are searching for my dear and we will then promote your journey and attract valid customers like viscid honey before flies. Isn' the search not only what gets us out of bed in the morning, yet intrigues us to discover what other are waking for as well. It is like real life personals -- marketing the search and making others take notice because you are willing to share and bare that which you do not have, that which you acknowledge makes you feel incomplete. Oh yeah, well anyway I work with clients to get their sites to the top of Google, Yahoo, yadda, yadda, yadda. But I never say search engine marketing and most people dont have the guts to ask. Maybe that is why no one asks me in the first place, they can just sense my eagerness to become instantly and ridiculously mysterious.

Now at family events the tables turn. We talk about websites, but not so much about the magazine with naked men in the back waiting for you call their picture from 1992. There is no mystery there, however hard one may try. So at the table among my friends and family I finally sat with Traystar and I did feel content to be with him, simply enjoying the reprocessed bits of conversation from every year before. Even though I am search marketer and he is the editor of gay nightlife in Atlanta, we simply shared in silly ritual. My search marketing had taken place, I had brought my family and the boy, the embodiement of my search, together at last ... what am I to do now? Search is only intrguing when incomplete, I guess am officially unemployed and will simply be satisfied in sharing that souffle.

A reflection on BlogOn 2004:Bridging online creation and offline behavior

So somehow I managed to fly to San Francisco for Blogon 2004. I really had no idea of what to expect. My mind was torn between the idealism of truly savvy intellectuals of a social revolution and a room packed with computer geeks. As with most things in life, it was a hybrid of my mental preconceptions.

What seems interesting to me of what is being called "social media" are the people behind the scenes of these sites and technology. Some are outgoing and charismatic. Others are soft spoken and quiet. Some come from a scientific background. Some seek solely opportunity to invest. Others were from "the streets" - they saw a problem in society and are seeking to fix it. For a myriad of reasons, the people comprising the crowd rallied around this fledgling market and concept.

I suppose the question I have framed is what is the impetus for the industry? If you look on existing social network sites, you typically see smiling faces and hands joined together in unity. We know intuitively that humans long for connection. As business, this sector is seeking to partially fulfill that need. If someone with no friends, a hermit if you will, creates tools for social networking would they be more or less effective than someone with thousands of connections? It appears to me that someone skilled in a particular area often needs not to observe their pattern of success. Particularly in creating networks of friends in the real world - there are those who gregarioulsy captivate others and expend the time and effort to build relationships and those who don't. Some are simply incapable of bonding with others under societal protocal and behavioral norms. Other are capable, but don't wish to make this aspect of their life a priority.

So who will mastermind the arena of social media? Will it be those who have an abundance of friends and systematically transfer their skill into electronic venues? Or will it be those who know exactly why they can't or won't continually build connections? Most people skilled at something don't scrutinize their success. More often in frustration and failure do people analytically disect processes. Is there any corelation between social nuances of the offline world and online domains that are created? Everything starts as an idea in one's head that is shaped by their perceptions.

BlogOn Here We Come