process(es)
A pattern, in focus: I become disenchanted with a medium once the process is poisoned, either by forces internal or external (more often than not the former, especially when they disguise themselves as imaginary external forces). Music, definitely external: the wrong-headed choice to pursue conservatory training killed any enjoyment I got out of performing and left me with scars I'm still struggling to overcome. Film, more of a combo of both. Loved and love editing a film and writing one, but the process of directing just didn't grab me like I'd hoped it would. Writing, definitely internal though some external factors played a role (read: no one gave a fuck which is an external factor that I allowed to masquerade as an internal one). Comics, I simply didn't enjoy the lengthy process of making one myself (aside from my daily Informalities, of course) and loathed the decades-long process of potential collaborations falling into the abyss of communicative ghosting; comics, as they say, broke my heart (doesn't mean I'm giving up, though). Working on antidotes now: the process of writing these daily pieces is an attempt to get me back to loving what writing offers me (mental exploration of questions, etc) and I'll be damned if I let the well of joy in metalwork be poisoned, especially by my own hand.
why i rarely write about politics
I write to explore questions that are possessed of depths that I want to explore and, at the present, politics / the state of the republic / etc etc is so objectively shit on a surface level that there's nothing for me to explore.
It reeks of it, it pours and seeps out of every vein: fascist authoritarian cankle tumors and toady lickspittles running ripshod over admittedly broken systems and institutions (worst solution to very real problems humanly possible) while feckless, woefully inadequate-to-the-task opposition leaders (a term I use charitably with the current Democratic leadership – and yes, good job on shutting down the government: you should've done it in March; doing it now is the legislative version of a perfect attendance certificate) pretend they're replaying their greatest high school football victory (the 2006 midterms) when the other side's playing some fucked up horror show and the Dems who are more up to and of the moment are sidelined in the name of decorum, seniority, and/or fear of straying too far from the impotent.
None of this means that I don't have opinions or that I won't use my voice or my wallet where I can and where it's of the most benefit to those most in need (any Democrat running in '26 possessed of genuine, heartfelt solutions on how to make the lives of everyone better: my writing skills are yours for free); it means that using what little brainpower I have left writing about it is a waste of whatever time I have left. Case in point.
Police Pull Over Waymo to Check for Drunk Driving
via Futurism:
On Friday night, cops in the Bay Area city of San Bruno who were on the lookout for drunk drivers stopped a car after it made an illegal U-turn at a traffic light — only to realize there was no one in the driver’s seat. There was no smell of booze or someone slurring their words, either. It was a Waymo robotaxi blowing off traffic laws like many a human driver when it’s late out.
“No driver, no hands, no clue,” the police department wrote in a social media post about the incident, per the Chronicle’s reporting.
The self-driving cab, however, didn’t get dinged like you or us. Since there was no one operating the vehicle, the cops couldn’t issue a citation. But they did reach out to Waymo’s parent company Google to let them know about the glitch.
“Our citation books don’t have a box for ‘robot,'” the department said.