We had a successful conference last Saturday. About 100 people were involved. We filled the conference space. After expenses, we have maybe $500 left over. The conference space was donated by the Dominicans. One of the keynote speakers, Ken Hannaford-Ricardi from Voices in the Wilderness, cost us $50 in bus fare out of Chicago plus some in-home hospitality. The other speaker, Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, was free.
I have a difference of opinion with some of the organizers. I say we take our $500 and give it to Voices and the Dominicans... bread on the water and all that. They say we squirrel it away as seed money for the next conference. I say we don't need seed money, $500 is decimal dust, mice nuts. They say we may have to fly the next keynote speaker in and this would pay for airfare.
Shifting referents, I say that it's better to put the money out in the community than it is to bury it in the vineyard waiting for the owner to get back. They say, "Just shut up with that." I say "We keep what we have by giving it away." They say, "Profligate! Wastrel!"
What do you think Mr. and Mrs. Commenting America? Should we keep the pitifully small surplus that our conference yielded, or should we generously share it with those who helped make the conference a success?
9:32:08 AM
Friday, November 08, 2002
A Day in the Life...
"What constitutes a successful identity-oriented marketing strategy? According to Wharton marketing professor Americus Reed II, it consists of three critical links – the consumer, the identity and the brand. If these links are forged, says Reed, who recently completed a research paper on this topic, then they create connections that can lead to advantageous marketing outcomes for companies that are savvy enough to incorporate identity into their marketing strategy." Think RageBoy, think Harley-Davidson.
Chris Locke wrote:
"Who is creating such stories today? Whose voices will draw new listeners the way Druids drew down the moon, the way Greeks drew a wooden horse to the gates of Troy? Tell me, O muse, of those ingenious heroes. Sing to me, goddess, of anger and estrangement. I’m a motherfucker, baby, your mind my sky, your eyes my fire. This world, this life so intricate, delicate, complex. Precious beyond measure. I’m slamming my head against the walls of empire, the habits of power, enraged. Blasting and burning for your love. Imagining the network finally connected. Imagining joy. A wall of horns and drums and dangerous magical noise. I’m bending over my Fender, working the circuits, incendiary, incandescent. Rocking in the free world, serving notice on Babylon. Ain’t in for a dollar, ain’t in for a dime. Ain’t going down for no two-bit dream. Armed only with imagination, I’m back in your spiral arms tonight. Everything has at least two meanings. But one thing girl that I want to say, love is love and not fade away."
And he quoted himself on his blog and then he went into withdrawal, relationship withdrawal I think.
A man with daughters is likely to be a gentle man. I don't know why this is and I don't want to dig into it right now; but it's something I've noticed. Daughters, or maybe just children in general, soften us, make us more vulnerable, coax out an essential sweetness that people may never have seen in us before we became parents.
It's possible that vulnerable people are more sensitive to emotional pain than some of us. And over the last five months, as Chris has cast about seeking solace, his blog postings have often reflected his pain. Lately, it seems like time is beginning to heal some of these wounds. His work has begun to return from the simply obsessed to the seriously deranged and abnormal. That's the way we like it.
1:40:41 PM
The GrrrBoy Interview... Part the Next:
Q: GrrrBoy, before you came on the scene, nobody ever accused Locke of having particularly good taste, or even of using good judgement. A: Let's get to the question, shall we?
Q: Right. Here's my point… A: Just what is your point?
Q: IF you are actually responsible for the tasteless drivel published these days on the Rageboy blog… A: AND the 'zine. Don't forget the 'zine. I sent more hits your way this morning than…
Q: Don't flatter yourself. One mention "Inside Gretchen's Head" sends the hit counter spinning like calendar pages in a B movie. EGR is a lightweight in the referral rankings. But it didn't used to be so. Why - these days - are you intent on crashing what was the building reputation of a fine writer? A: In English please?
Q: The pornography. The fixation on lost relationships and the tasteless hardcore sex. Why are you doing this to Locke? A: Hey. Lighten up ass-wipe. He's paying me to ghost this stuff while he thinks deep business thoughts and follows the conference circuit.
Q: Well, what about this castle-of-boogers quality-time bit this morning? A: I didn't write that. I QUOTED it. Big difference, Mr. Critic.
Q: Let's focus on content here for a minute. A: Look. "If you can't stand the tampons, stay out of the loo." Hairy Ass Truman said that.
Q: "You can be in my blog, if I can be in yours." Mike Golby said that. A: Did you see Jeneane's traffic analysis piece this morning? Those hosers are coming in with traffic counts over 200 on an average day. You have what, like eight visitors on a GOOD day? You better show some respect bozo.
Q: We're getting off track here. Among the early questions I sent Locke… A: Don't haul those out. I was laughing my ass off at your earnest pretensions.
Q: Early in this process, I asked - in dead earnest… A: (hoo boy… open yourself up for the homo-necrophilia comments why doncha?)
Q: I asked,
"From Nabokov's "Lolita" to Frank Zappa's "200 Motels," American art and literature is rife with travel experiences. The world is open to you, but right now you choose to live in Boulder, Colorado (not that far from Estes Park where Nabokov chased butterflies and put the finishing touches on "Lolita"). Looking ahead, do you see a time when you might leave Boulder and take up residence elsewhere? Perhaps a suite in a Montreux hotel? Or raising peacocks and swine deeper in the Rocky Mountains? Is there a place that you have visited that you might like to return to and live some day? (It could be argued that Nabokov was Russian and Zappa was from LA so neither qualifies as American, per se... but the reverse of course is also true.)"
A: Yeah. Me and Locke laughed our asses off over that. "Lolita" for God's sake! "200 Motels." Go see "eight mile." That oughta ripple your core.
Q: Later in my exchange with Locke, I jokingly commented: "I'm thinking of writing a little script that requires a Paypal contribution of US$1.00 before Sandhill Trek readers can view our work. What do you think about that? If as many as 25% of the readers opt in, we would have three or four dollars to split between us!" A: He got pretty intense about that. Don't joke about money with Locke, that's my advice. Pussy, pocket protectors, viagra jokes…. Fine. But everyone has a limit, and that's Locke's. I argued with him for days.
Q: You guys were taking me seriously… A: He wouldn't hear of it. He has me crafting all this money grubbery, makes sure I get the links to his Amazon accounts straight before he let's me hit the ENTER key, but he really seemed concerned that you intended to make money off this playtime thing.
Q: Whatever. I promised the readers that we'd address the Liddy Dole fixation today. A: Did I tell you that not only do I craft the prose for the bugger, but he has me doing all the web work? Scripts, HTML, we have a hidden page counter on the blog that just counts hits from Naropa Institute.
Q: How does this relate to L… A: ...so we got a message from the Dole campaign in - I think it was in August. Locke was spinning Elvis Costello disks about tearing off Barbie's head and like that, and out of the blue we get a message from the vampire's best friend.
Q: Was she asking for blood? A: No. She was after money I think. And you know how Locke gets about money. He turns down the music, mounts the barca-lounger, hauls out his dictation equipment, and next thing you know he has me keying in this really rude message to one of America's hottest mama's, Liddy Dole, a woman I respect and I'm not just saying that because she's like connected and some night on a dark road I could end up drained of all my blood if I diss- her, y'unnerstan.
Q: Certainly. A: So Liddy wants a contribution and Locke is mumbling about bald guys with beards and "where is that at, some kind of compensation thing or displacement or what," and I'm trying to keep a straight face at the some of the outrageous things he's making me write.
Q: So this Internet pornography thing started as a direct slam at Liddy? A: Shit no. It's about money. Always has been. Locke was pissed in the eighties when he missed the 900 number bandwagon. He was slamming his fist in his open palm, walking this way and that, doing his "I coulda been a contendah" number when he had that "Eureka" moment…
Q: Isn't he a little late to the party? I mean, I understood there was a lot of organization in place around that market already? A: Yeah but there's a lot of money in the free lance work too. At least that's what we thought before the most recent cease and desist letter from Liddy.
Q: Can we get a copy… A: Wipe the drool off your face Jimmy Olsen. I gotta go now. I got a job even if you don't. But look… buy me a double mocha latte-cheeno tomorrow at Starbucks and maybe we can get into the real warm wet stuff where Liddy's concerned. I CAN tell you that she's a screamer. And she likes to be on top.
[Quick survey here... anybody besides Norlin really interested in Liddy, or shall we move beyond these matters when we pick up the interview with Chris Locke's ghost writer GrrrBoy?]
11:25:45 AM
Thursday, November 07, 2002
A Message from the Survivors of the Jesus Bunker...
Either Golby, or an agent of Cardinal Ratzinger perpetrating a clever disinformation campaign passed me the following message today via carrion crow. Meanwhile, GrrrBoy continues to spew forth copy at a rate faster than even Golby could type. I'm doing my best to lend it some order, and will have another installment for you tomorrow:
Ah FrankieBoy, another interview, and full of esoterica and e-scatologica too. I'm with Gary here. I have also received word from the Vatican. You have to go the whole hog on this one if only to unmask this dipshit greedhead GrrrBoy for the lying scum he is. We all know the stories, we all know the pain that Chris has been through. But this GrrrBoy crap does not wash. Trust me on this. I know these things. I have been there, done this, that, and the next thing, and I am considered a professional by those who matter.
GrrrBoy is a lying, thieving lowlife hired late one night outside a downtown Barnes & Noble by Locke to keep his myth alive. He was meant as a stop gap but the seedy little grifter is after the money and has you conned. [I am not sure Mike has this right... GrrrBoy seems quite gentlemanly in a Chris Locke kind of way, except when he is mouthing vile insults at Liddy Dole -ed.] He has no respect for art, dignity, or the finer things in life. Screw the space issue. I am an artist and wield a wide brush. This shyster is nothing but a charlatan and pen for hire. I understand the sick and the weird and am comfortable with them. But you are an innocent in these things and we are all here to help you.[Actually, as has been noted elsewhere, I can handle it. I am, after all, a professional. -ed.]
Consider the facts. We all know Chris, driven to eating his Crayolas and vomiting them out in a wild riot of pornographic psychedelia frowned on in circles of stern women, beat his chattering doll to death in the Jesus bunker during an episodic bout of rage and grief at the loss of his one true love. Persona, hell. RageBoy was Locke. You cannot distinguish the two. The plastic doll trundled out at great expense at corporate bun fests these days has a tape recorder jammed in its mouth and regurgitates Industry Standard transcripts. It's a farce and a mockery of the memory of the man we all know and love.
Look, Chris's disappearance was a classic case of suicide by proxy. His ventriloquist's dummy is no more but he can be saved. I still have, on my hard drive, plans drawn up for execution and botched on the night his muse died and he ended up feeling like shark shit. The mission should have succeeded. We'd all be happy campers today had we pulled together on that operation. But we screwed up. Remember the talk of Goodyear blimps and other shit? I had other, bigger plans. The international space station was involved. Everything went awry. It was, of course,Norlin's fault. You'll have to speak to him.[Norlin is a warmongering pig tool of the National Security Agency and except for a shared ride to a concert or two, I shall have nothing further to do with him. -ed.]
He and his Special Forces buddies were down at the local swapping war stories and drinking hard tack when I walked in to brief them. Things turned ugly but after a few sharp smacks to the back of the head, sense prevailed and Eric decided to go through with it. Our plan had to do with large doses of sedatives, fake messages from PorridgeBoy, the moving of bodies, stealth bombers, and re-education programs. It was Norlin who botched the thing. He was listening to that white trash Eminem [Dr. Dre's butt boy. -ed.] and got his signals crossed. The short story is that Locke awoke six days later to find the Jesus bunker had collapsed about his head, disgusting messages left on his voice mail, and several porn magazines with free CDs and vile and sinful graphics packages left by Norlin's Afghan vets.
It was only through my direct intervention and a non-stop flight through to Boulder from Las Palmas [I baled out over the bunker] that Gretchen, Halley, and Schrodinger's Cat were freed from a fate worse than death. They are now safely with me. As far as Locke is concerned, the girl was to blame and it's been downhill since then. Ask those who saw him stumble, crazed and dribbling, led by one Don Juan, into the DI conference in Denver. It took AKMA and Doc several days to bring him down and we owe them[Locke just lay there mumbling, not sleeping, his eyes blank, trying to do unseemly things with himself, mumbling "Hosers, fucknozzles" and other vile and disgusting epithets].
Yes, Frankie, only when our man from Starbucks realizes that the EGR Irregulars are a severely depraved bunch of inhuman misfits of much the same ilk as he, i.e. in dire need of a fix, and he starts delivering the goods again, will he fight his way free of the terrible memories of naked priests, warblogging bumboys in Nazi garb, the terrible braying of donkeys, and be resurrected into the light. Until then, we can only await our next issue of EGR.
Frank, finish this thing once and for all. You have no peer. Strip GrrrBoy naked, flog him like a rented mule, tie him to the mast and flay him until his lips bleed. If anybody can extract a confession from him and find the one true Locke, it is you. We are counting on you. We know you will not fail us. We trust you. Implicitly.
Mike
Witnessed by your 5,000 fellow EGR subscribers.
4:58:32 PM
It's a glorious day!
My sons have a birthday (23!!), Sandhill scored a decent contract, and GrrrBoy keeps feeding me facts regarding his little known and poorly understood ghost writing arrangement with Chris Locke. I couldn't get Locke to produce a single word. I can't get this guy to shut up. Much wheat-from-chaff-sortage going on at my desk, while GrrrBoy grumbles that I gave Golby free reign in the Sandhill Trek blogspace.
Jeneane has a kitty. Turner will soon see Little Turner. Marek is creeping toward his fund raising goals and the legal eagle will be back from vacation soon. And Doc Searls treats us to some of his thoughts regarding differences between blogs and "publications" this morning:
"The journals we call "blogs" and the journals we call "publications" are very different in kind. Blogs are totally native to the world of ends we call the Web. Publications are native to the physical world. They are adapted to the Web, but not native to it. One way they don't adapt is in the permanent nature of their output."
8:27:39 AM
Wednesday, November 06, 2002
... in part two of the GrrrBoy Interview - coming soon!
Recently someone calling himself “GrrrBoy” contacted me by email:
Frank,
You and Chris Locke have been going around and around about a Sandhill Trek Interview since July.Since I have written all of Chris’ stuff for the last three or four years, why don’t you cut to the chase and interview me?
GrrrBoy
I didn’t know what to do.I knew Chris had an alter-ego persona (RageBoy) he projected from time to time.But if I was to credit this claim, then not only would most of the online content from his blog and his ‘zine (EGR) actually belong to this “GrrrBoy,” but also Chris’ work collaborating in the “Cluetrain Manifesto” and his own seminal work “Gonzo Marketing” would actually have been authored by this guy.
I wrote back asking for verification.“Trust me,” was the only response I received.“Trust me, the interview I’ll do with you will be exactly the same as any interview Locke might claim to do… I’ve been ghosting him for years.As near as I can tell he’s more into graphics these days than writing anyway.This is as close as you’re going to get to a RageBoy interview.”
Naturally I ran it by Locke.I emailed him immediately.“Is what this guy claims true?” I asked?
I waited for an answer, but none has so far been forthcoming.I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not to credit this “GrrrBoy.”
*** *** ***
Q:Grrr, can I call you Grrr?
A:I prefer GrrrBoy or Mr. Boy, thank you.
Q:Okay GrrrBoy, how do you feel about the idea that the political assassinations of the sixties, the brutal (and illegal) repression of radicals and activists, the organizationof secret intelligence forces that function outside our framework of lawsand in contradiction of any common ethical or moral foundation that we as a people may claim – these matters are fore-ordained by our reliance on a capitalist market structure in a context of global imperialism that we can do nothing about short of tearing the whole thing down and replacing it with something else?
For all the weed that I've smoked - yo this blunt's for you To all the people I've offended - yeah fuck you too! To all the friends I used to have - yo I miss my past But the rest of you assholes can KISS MY ASS
That’s some Slim Shady stuff right?Why do you call him “the five humper?”
A: Halley made me do it. See, she’s drawn some orthographic inferences regarding the shapes of the letters em and en. Dr. David Weinberger followed this important work with a re-ordering of the entire alphabet based on visual cues. This may signify a shift into a post-modern restructuralist renaissance.
Q: Mr. Boy, I’m still suffering with your assertion that the entire oeuvre of Chris Locke is your work... A: Suffer then sucker. Here’s how it went down… in 1998 Locke was all whining about voice and authenticity of experience and no one would listen to him.So I got him this gig with the Industry Standard… a thousand words at three and a half cents a word.
Locke comes up with brilliancies like:“But the Web isn't television. Individuals have strong opinions. That's largely why they came to the party in the first place. They couldn't care less about bland pages full of sterile corporate happy talk. And forget faux-hip; when suits get cute, everybody reaches for the barf bag.”Welcome to Gonzo Marketing indeed….I counseled him on his voice.
“Chris baby, I know the ‘zine is doing fine.You’ve put out like 50 issues already.But dig, if you aren’t consistent, if you don’t put one face forward to the public, well… forget about the handprint in the sidewalk at Hollywood and Vine.What is this ‘The web isn’t television’ bullshit?Don’t tell these people what it isn’t.Tell them what it is!And later, that bit about strange attractors.Your schlong is the strange attractor in that space.You could play jump rope with that thing.But what do these nimnels know from chaos theory and non-linearity?These are the straights that linear was named for.”
Now in this same article, Locke quotes Weinberger:"The dogs have it right.Customers want to take a good long whiff. But companies so lobotomized that they can't speak in a recognizably human voice build sites that smell like death."
“That’s what I’m talking about Chris,” I tell him.“Dogs sniffing ass. That's some good stuff. Earthy. Try to imitate that if you can.Weinberger just lets it flow and he cuts your chops in your own article.How do I sign up for a subscription to JOHO I wonder?”
Well, Locke gets all down in the mouth and he tells me about some CDs he has maturing and he says if I’m so hot, why don’t I just do his gig and he can sit in the condo in Boulder with his 48 pack of crayolas and do what he enjoys.He hasn’t written a word of his own since.Why, he even has me making appearances for him these days.If you go back to the mid-nineties, you can see all the pictures of Locke are of this short guy in a suit and a neck-tie that hits his belly about four inches above the belt.Now check this out… does this look like Locke or some roadie off a Tom Petty tour bus?
End of Part One... The GrrrBoy Interview
1:30:17 PM
Tuesday, November 05, 2002
The Sandhill Trek Interview Returns!
Tomorrow we feature an interview with GrrrBoy, one of the top 50 business thinkers on the planet and an acknowledged babe magnet in his own right. Herewith, a preview:
A. Right, right, WRONG! Those hosers didn't know what they were talking about anyway. Here's how we worked it out with the Lennon thing. We settled out of court. The Spaniard Anti-Defamation Federation received a tidy sum and I got a nice finder's fee. I spent that money later on a trip to merry-olde and had my picture taken crossing Abbey Road with the rest of the touristas. GrrrBoy is nothing if not a man of the people.
Q. I notice you have a tendency to refer to yourself in the third person at times...
