Lunamania

Don't think that the last 2 tedious, long, geek posts means I forgot about musical Wednesdays. I've never done this--not for any secret DJ reason, but just because I rarely plan my entire sets -- I'm trying to come up with a playlist for a CD so ended up writing it down last time and thought I'd share. Some are regulars in the Lunamania rotation, others are not, but kind of fun, no? This week's tune is the first track on the list, If You Love Me, Brownstone. Lovely.

Comments are open to share the last song you listened to. Mine was Crazy, Gnarls Barkley. And, you? Sorry, if there's a lag in the comment function. I blame the over active, yet under-effective spam filter to blame.

Dream EZ, 6.07.07 Oakland

If You Love Me, Brownstone
Hold On, En Vogue
I'm So Into You, SWV (the remixes)
Rock the Party, MC Lyte
Hip Hop Junkies, Nice and Smooth
Fast Car, Tracy Chapman
Left My Wallet in El Segundo, Tribe Called Quest
Soul Flower, Pharcyde
Jump 'n Move, Jamalski (no, it wasn't originally from the Happy Feet movie)
Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, Michael Jackson
Brazilian Rhyme, Bozo Meko remix
Do I Do, Stevie Wonder
Girls, Beenie Man
You and Me
Girls Dem Sugar, Beenie Man
Love Song, Joe (dancehall remix)
Sorry, Foxxy Brown reggae breakdown
Big Poppa, Biggie
Close to Me, Mary J. and Common

Posted by at 3:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Although much of my professional work deals with the myriad consequences of global migration of individuals, families, industries, capital, and values, with a small handful of exceptions, I am ill-read on the various Big Thinkers of Globalization. So, I took it as some cosmic sign (or maybe just good product placement by the folks at Cody's Books) when I found Thomas Friedman’s, “The World is Flat,” and “Alternatives to Economic Globalization” next to each other -- a concise pairing of the Pep Rally for Globalization and the Grumblings from its Malcontents. I’ve made it through the first third of Friedman’s book and don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to the end.

I know I’m under-employed and working out more regularly and all, but I don’t know if I am fit enough to suspend reality for 400 more pages. Even if I can, it may result in addiction to heavy psych meds to quiet the voices in my head providing color commentary to wide-eyed passages along the lines of, “I walked into the Infosys campus in Bangalore where I passed a young man who looked like he could do my taxes, a woman who looked like she could build my computer, and a woman who looked like she could write all of the software for it!” What exactly does this mean? If that wasn’t enough of an illustration of his ability to identify mental agility and professional skills with one glance, less than 50 pages later, Friedman let's us know he can also predict SAT scores based on what one looks like-- something along the lines of being surrounded young Indians, “who looked like they had scored perfect 1600s on their SATs.” I’m told that the middle and latter sections of the book deal with the parts of the world that are “less flat,” but I don’t know if I’m up for such an extended suspension of my reality.

To be fair, Friedman’s analytical faults --massive over simplification, sweeping generalizations about not just individuals, but entire countries, and a disturbingly Darwinian approach to history -- are not unique to his neoliberal ilk. If I read it keeping in mind that Friedman’s primary moral queries of himself as he embarked on this book was, “Is this good for America?” and “What’s gonna happen to MY American kid?” then there’s a lot to learn about how to advance a political agenda by telling a great story.

He has that unassuming, “gosh, I started knowing as little as you. We can figure this it out together!” approach that is inviting with any complicated topic. He also lacks that annoying patronizing tone of many political reads--well, at least as directed to the reader if not to the Indian and Chinese call-center folks (who according to Friedman are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to labor for $100 month so Their Countries can assume their proper place as drudge labor in the “inevitable” global economy).

All that means, unlike the “Alternatives to Economic Globalization,” millions of people read this book. Sifting through the “Alternatives" book, I once again realized our side could really benefit from balancing our ever clever exercises in political analysis and “breaking shit down” with some readable writing/story telling (and not of the slam poet variety).

Comments are always open to recommendations for good reads.

Posted by at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Who knew people are so hard core about this book and system? It's not just a "sub-culture" or cult, but a whole personal productivity industry build around implementing GTD. The Already Organized Monkey listened to me rave about this Way of Life that promised transcendental levels of productivity and an ever tranquil state of mind and responded, "So you're just keeping different lists?" (^_^).....

Me: No! Wait, yes! but they are context specific! And tied to projects! Oh and processing, collecting and filing! I need a label maker!

Monkey's ears perked up with "filing": Great! So all those piles in the study will be filed!

At which point I realized, I was talking to an individual who without resorting to a book and with zero dollars shelled to a multimillion dollar industry, has already created files and systems to track everything from car maintenance to new year cards from all friends and family dating 25 years back. I am lame.

Back to the Getting Things Done, I told someone that this book is like Office Max for the head--all those files, label makers, clean desks, paper shredders, and SYSTEMS. They hold out a dream of being organized, efficient and well...just getting things done. Yes! I, too, can be one of those people who wake up, work out while reading the paper, come home to cook a hot breakfast, save the whales, file briefs on behalf of "enemy combatants" wrongly detained at Guantanamo, plan what to make for dinner, feed the cats, walk the dog--all before 7AM!! ok, honestly, I think those kind of people are not right in the head and to be fair, the book promises nothing along the lines of this kind of ridiculous task oriented Hyper Type A "productivity." The "gimmick" here though is David Allen's tapping into the New Age/Zen-ster in each of us. His Jedi Mind tricks are drawn from his martial arts background (for real, he's a black belt in karate) and the appeal of a "mind like water" -- a calm state of being present in the moment and reacting just the appropriate amount to any stimulus. Now, wouldn't that be nice?

Several obsessive weeks later, I conclude this book is more like IKEA. I'm drawn by the hope of a mind evocative of clean and efficient Scandanavian designs, but dude, you have to build it yourself--from scratch, with only a label maker, and some file folders. It looked like this--literally and figuratively.

In an effort to most efficiently implement GTD, I've engaged in spectacularly "productive" hours @computer, home (any GTD geeks will get this) on "actions" that include:
--reading about hacking my Moleskine notebook
--find MS Word GTD templates
--searching forums for Agendus and GTD systems

and not enough time actually Getting Shit Done. Oddly though, having some system in place has made filing kind of fun. I also do have the contours of the various projects in my life outlined right now.

Tony has been a great coach in this process and I plan to pick his brain some more about this whole thing. Contrary to his inner gear geek, his advice was to focus less on the paper v. PDA, what sort of label maker etc and you know--just get it done. I see...

I'm not quite an acolyte at the Temple of David Allen yet, but maybe I'll join those geeky ranks soon. Gentle Reader Concerned for Mental Health of Lunamania asks, "Why would you want that?"
Well, GRCMHL, I think I've been overwhelmed for a while with those proverbial Trees and have no idea that a Forest even exists -- 10 points from Gryffindor for use of lazy allegories! -- but I remember those "oh right" moments when things come into focus. Those epiphanies come after I've really thrown myself into creating some system and putting together the details. They involve some collecting of all relevant knowledge and synthesizing that information by putting it on paper in whatever format makes sense to me.

I realize this is a geek comparison, but it's similar to outlining in the first year of law school. I loved outlining. And while I may not be able to share web templates for photo blogs or coach someone through the merits of ubuntu, in my own homage to geeks everywhere, I looked to share those outlines with anyone who wanted them. Reading and synthesizing through writing outlines was a helpful system/structure for processing all kinds of random factoids and it was only after that process that I came to see the big themes. Of course, this meant that until a week before the exams, I honestly had no idea what a tort, contract, or civil procedure really was. Now that I think about it, I still don't know.

Somehow this entry has morphed from Getting Things Done to law school reminiscing. Well, actually perhaps my long awaited epiphany is to learn that GTD is a process of outlining my life...oh, how sad.

Posted by at 9:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This isn't a personalized track selection per se, but hey how many of us have been over/underwhelmed by the "radio" selections on iTunes? Despite my excessive cataloging of music in my iTunes, I love radio. Recently I've put "Figure out web radio streaming to living room" as a project on my "open loop" list--the GTD weenies will understand...

Insider geek references aside, a few weeks ago, discovered an old skool none of that ridiculous cell phone hook/bass redonkulous/no funnies to the rhyme mixes web radio station. The streaming features short props are from fun and games artists--just heard a shout out from Guru that was accompanied by a fun little scribble. So check out the Flavor Mix under the hip-hop/rap category of iTunes. If you like smooth mixes and that 80's, 90's and select recent hip-hop tracks, you won't be disappointed. Like the tag promises, "1200 Hot Tracks in The Mix in A Day! All Styles From the Old to New." The DJ readers will appreciate the 1200 reference--go Technics. Speaking of which, anyone want to find me a pair? My Numarks are dragging and killing stereo on me.

Posted by at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

That's me and The Monkey. Whoa, I need a haircut and really, wassup with those cheeks? Looks like I'm storing tofu in there for the winter months.

Yes, I am an official pin-up chipmunk, I mean dyke for Pyung Chang in Oakland. Click on the picture for the full review.

The I Can Eat Soondoobu Anytime Monkey and I were introduced to this place years ago by MJ and Lipat. For the longest time, I could never remember the name and would always refer to it as "that wooden tofu house on the corner. You know, it's up Telegraph." Past Ja-gu-ar? Yup, keep driving.

It's totally casual and there's no hint of canned chicken/beef broth that I hates. Although, I often find that the soondoobu could be spicier, it's always bubbling hot--as it should be, and their sides are fresh and plentiful. Unless, of course, they are fermented and in bite sizes. You know what I mean. As the review says, the bin dae duk is excellent too.

9 times out of 10 we run into people we know which gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling. Well, as long as I actually like the people I run into. When that's not the case, I try to hide, but there's no place to hide. So, I just eat and be happy. A bonus star for clean and gender neutral bathrooms.

Hungry. I'm hungry.

Posted by at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Legislation Pushed to Require Minimum Wage for Domestic Workers

Posted by at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)