AZOTUS
“It’s Not What You Think.”Jetlag or TechnoLag?
In early May Mercury went into retrograde just as I moved into my new home.office space. All systems failed…most notably my cellphone.
It is May 27 and no one gets it. You cannot CALL ME.
I have left numerous emails, IMs thorugh AOL and Yahoo and even borrowed my housemate’s landline to leave the simple message: you cannot CALL ME on my cell.
I have even alienated my youngest son, who, born in the technology age, could not wrap his mind around the fact that Me with No cellphone (plus) my ex-wife with no computer but with an Iphone and Yahoo could still communicate…no matter how coarsely…via Yahoo messenger instead of my grabbing pigeons down in San Rafael and starting an 18-month program of training them to kand in Alameda.
The Boy simply did not get it after a half hour. I yelled at him (via IM mind you…which means on some level he got it).
So I had to apologize and self-referentially name myself an “asshat”
Still no one emails me and when ever I go into town (every five days) I get VM from a week ago..like 15 VMs from people I have told in now certain terms that I will not recieve their calls and they shd email or IM me on YAHOOOOOOOOO.
Macsniper on Yahoo
All day long: available
It’s TechnoLag. Conditioning has not yet given way. Sure you Tweet one little line at a time…big wig. Try COMMUNICATING and entiure thought or request or feeling…
My cell just beeped. In moments of weakness it picks up a stray line and records. Two more voicemails. I cannot retrieve them lest I travel a mile into town.
TechnoLag exists…and I am here all day long available online…ypu can even t alk to me and see my face as we do so.
Sighs….
New Azotuscafe studio in Fairfax
Azotus Loft. Brick and redwood beam and planked.
It’s no mystery that I have been mloking for a new place/studio to both replace “The Citadel” and also improve upon it.
My job requires that I feel comfortable with both living space and the “ethos” that surrounds me
“The Natural” Cames to the Bay
Oscar winner Robert Redford does narration for Saving the Bay: The Story of San Francisco Bay, on Wednesday March 25, 2009
It’s rare, okay…never, that I wake up and my first real agenda item of the day is a meeting/session with Robert Redford.
But that was my day yesterday, meeting at Command Productions in Sausalito, along with the Saving the Bay crew (Executive Producer Ron Blatman, Writer and Producer Miles Saunders, Editor Blair Gershkow, Composer Mitchell Covington and myself – Christopher “Mac” MacDonald) and sound engineer extraordinaire Robbie Dickson…oh yeah…and Redford.
An unassuming and pleasant man, The Natural doesn’t show up with an entourage. He drives up in a modest Lexus doning a pull on cap, t-shirt and jeans with leather jacket. I note his tennis shoes are as old and well worn as mine (considerable). His brief case is made of old leather and is probably 25 years old.
He exchanges quick pleasantries, but wants to get into the batting cage and work.
Before he arrived, Blair, Miles and myself were engaged in the usual banter about Spring training and the prospects for the Giants this year. Not great news, but we all agreed that baseball is far more than just winning and losing. There is something healing about the game, which is the real reason that people are so dismembered about Roid use. They keep trying to make it about who lied, covered up blah blah blah. The reality is that baseball has an inherent Zen-like purity that the large majority of fans are afraid we are losing: first to money and greed; second to drug use; worse…to the Dodgers this year if Ramirez stays healthy.
At the end of the narration sessions yesterday, watching Redford fall behind on a few takes 1 and 2 or 0 and 2, then watching him dial it in like The Natural he is and drill the third version up the alley, or under the first baseman’s metaphorical glove, and occassionally just plant one in the seats…clean and neat (like knocking back a shot of Woodford Reserve) then humbly trotting around the bases I saw I was watching a very serious man with an acute eye and directness.
He was there to hit the pitches thrown him from the sound booth (see pictures) and also promote a great four-part documentary on how the San Francisco Bay estuary, once polluted and in serious danger of being filled in, was saved by the courageous activism of a few elderly women in the 60s. Saving the Bay: The Story of San Francisco Bay, is a stunning piece that I feel privileged to be a part of as I have loved and Northern California, the Bay, and Giants baseball since I was a kid and Willie Mays was in center field with the parking lot visible through a chain link fence.
Before baseball season starts again this year, rent or buy The Natural. It’s a quiet film that will endure just as baseball will endure. All true baseball fans know this and enjoy a day at the Yard whether we are on a tear or taking it on the chin. It’s a communal event where you have time to get to know those sitting around you. A “third space” if you are open.
Who is our Roy Hobbs gonna be this year? I dunno. Sure could use one in the number 4 slot so we can move Molina to 5th where he belongs.
God I love baseball. I also love the Bay and encourage all to visit the savingthebay.org site and learn more about our own history and how you can get involved. Please feel free to write me with any comments or questions of interest.
~Mac
P.S. and yes, I did get him to autograph my DVD copy of The Natural…get real!
MLK Predicted a Black President in Less than 40 Years
Amazing. History in the making tomorrow, but let us remember the men and women (both black and white) who were beaten and killed to bring about a new era of Civil Rights.
Saving the Bay
Saving the Bay is an ambitious and expansive four-part PBS series on the saving of the San Francisco Bay estuary. Narrated by acclaimed actor/director Robert Redford, the series recounts how the Bay was transformed from an growing ecological disaster by the most ambitious rural restoration project in American history.
Azotus Consulting is now working with Saving the Bay to promote the four-part documentary on the Internet and run the content on the website.
Marintowns is launched!
Front Page of the New Marintowns.com website.
It’s a constant frustration to find the best shops, restaurants and services in Marin County. Each of the townships (like Ross, Fairkax, San Rafael, San Anselmo, etc.) need and deserve a high-end visual online directory promoting their business.
Marintowns.com is creating these online directories and promoting local businesses, town by town with San Anselmo first!
More can be read on the progress at the Marintowns.wordpress.com blog. If you are a local business, service or shop in San Anselmo or in another township, please bookmark the site, note Mac’s email address (mac@azotuscafe.com) and write him or call 415.785.8672.
The First Postmodern President?
A great deal has been written and discussed (endlessly) about Obama as possibly our first black president. This is good and fair, especially given that in our lifetime (many of us) discrimination has been such a huge issue.
But this morning’s Chronicle article by Debra Saunders on the “Shine” being off the Clintonian Era is telling and reminds me that there is, perhaps, an issue just as deep.
Near eight years of the Bush administration’s wanton waring, raping and pillaging the planet (including it’s own people) has soured a nation of “politics as usual”. 20 years of gridlock in Congress have done the same.
Saunders makes the point that the Clinton’s and their devotees, are no longer “hip” and that becoming an Obama supporter is like Botox…it immediately takes ten years off. All true and well. But the point is that things are so bad that nothing short of a near system PURGE will be good enough.
OBama is the first Postmodern presidential candidate in the most simple of terms. Modernity (the dominant “story” or meta narrative ) has failed us (the current political system) and there must be new ways of doing things that bring people together rather than dividing them by fear.
Obama is not just hip…he’s actually current and his appeal to largely younger and educated voters is proof that he speaks to Postmoderns and is their candidate.
The Daily Mac (baseball & SFGate.com)
Call went out from SFGate.com for their Giants Fan bloggers. I had just complained (below) to Jon Carroll about the passivity and lack of interactivity of the Chronicle. But some bright person had this in the works. The invite is on their main sports page. My blog is HERE.
