How am I going to reinvent this blog process?

I'm in a rut. Work gets mondo busy, so that's where most of my free time for doing this sort of "updating everyone with my life" goes. But around midsummer last year, I switched jobs in my company, and it became "work work work", with very little in the creative process to inspire me to write about it on a public blog.

One thing that DID happen last Xmas was a gift from my mother: A Nikon D200 digital SLR, with all the basic trimmings. This gift re-awakened the more artistic side of me, and has allowed me to get back into the photographical swing of things like I never could do before digital imaging.

(Background: Before 1997, I worked in the NYC/CT area as a freelance photographer/videographer/cinematographer, and worked on indie projects, corporate production houses, and basically spent 3 years thoroughly hating the career path I elected to study. But, photography was my mainstay through it all. When I relocated to Baltimore in '97, I lost access to all of the photo houses I relied on for my development work, and with lack of access to a darkroom or even a good photo house that would take orders on how to process various sets of film, the "photo bug" in me basically withered away.

(That bug is back.)

So, I've got a flick.com page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/turgenev) that I'm currently reorganizing into a series of galleries of my work over the last 7 months. I wanted to incorporate my blog work here into that. Some discussions I've had with Magenta Sequins have led me in the direction of creating an online discussion group on my photo work; horribly egotistical in one sense, but it gives me a sounding board for some of my pieces, and would open the door for discussion with others on the creative process.

My biggest stumbling block is the lack of serious interaction between flickr and myspace (myspace's photo hosting is still fairly primitive). I left blogger.com because of its lack of interaction with other websites, and now I find myself in a similar snafu.

So, what's the best way to do this? How can I best incorporate online photo hosting, while maintaining a presence on a popular common ground for viewers, and at the same time maintain a web log discussion forum for all things Turgish?

-T.

Well, I was reading Fark.com this morning, and read this little article. Quick summary: A "user submitted" video ridiculing Gore and "Inconvenient Truth", pitched as a homebrew vid, was actually pushed out by a lobbyist working on the Exxon payroll. Link is here:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06215/710851-115.stm

My vein of discussion on this is beyond the left/right take on it, so take your party armbands off and let's talk here. ;)

I'm kinda disturbed by this tactic, which gives me the "get off my goddamn internet" gee-willikers when it comes to corporations, political interest groups, advertisers, marketers, etc. who take what's essentially a good thing - easy to digest streaming video hosting - and twist the intent to a self-serving agenda.

Entities like youtube, google video, imageshack, etc. had the intent of providing accessibility for people who lack the resources and funding for any serious file hosting to get their work out for public consumption. This can be as frivolous as posting images of your kids on kodakphoto.com, or your garage band putting out a video of their covering U2's "Bloody Sunday". Viral emails, in a way, assist these people to "get the word out" - to their friends, neighbors, community or genre. A garage band can, overnight, be the internet sensation, purely by word of mouth.

And this is the core of the internet's highest beliefs: That everyone has an equal voice.

The sinister side of this, however, is that everyone DOES have an equal voice - including the special interest groups who seem focused on new and innovative ways of saturating cyberspace with their voice.

At its core, the story noted above is one fairly creative way of engendering viral slander: Since the poster has the ability to remain anonymous, they can say as they please. And, when caught, they maintain plausible deniability: "I never said I wasn't with a special interest group". There's effectively no "crime" here.

It's the same take, I think, that email spammers have when saturating internet traffic with millions of emails about Viagra, stock trading, getting your college diploma, or the russian virgin bride that's waiting just for you, (ENTERNAMEHERE). That the internet says anyone can join in. That information, when shared freely, is ultimately a "good" thing.

But who protects the general public from those who want to fill your eyes and fox your senses with their brand of noise?

Okay, the preface:

Growing up in NYC meant that, when my friends and I would hang out, we'd usually hit the bars. This meant, when going out to Long Island, taking a car and driving out. And, for the post-18 years for maledom, when hormones are simmering at a slow boil, this meant cruisin' for chicks.

And chicks in cars were aplenty on the L.I.E. I remember fondly driving out to Stonybrook, and pulling up to other cars, and just having fun staring at some of these nubile examples of feminine units.

Fast forward to the 21st Century, on the DC Beltway.

I'm older, I'm more mature (to a degree), and now that I have my car and am comfortable driving it, I'm taking in the sights. I love I-270 just off the 495 merge, around 6-8pm on a sunny summer's early evening - rich yellow sunlight pouring through the trees, trance tunes from my MP3 player, medium to light traffic so it's smooth driving. It's actually a pleasure for this part of my commute.

So I glance over to some of the other drivers. I'm thinking, "Surely, there's gotta be decent looking chicks on 270 at this time of the evening." Hey, I like to shop with my eyes, hardly a crime. So, I let my eyes peek over to the rear view mirror, to see who's behind me.

And I see this.

Imagine what it would be like to have a twitch in your nose, and you feel yourself leading up to a mother of a sneeze, and suddenly the heavens part, cherubim and seraphim begin blasting their holy trumpets, and the Divine Creator YHWH himself gets in front of your face, and in a sudden twist of sadistic humor, God Himself starts saying in a loud voice, "Cows! Think about cows! Moo! Moo!! MOO!!!"

And your sneeze, which was on the cusp of orgasmic release, gets smothered and filtered through your mouth as it tries to utter "WHAT THE FVCK??", and in the end, all you accomplish is letting a little drip of mucus slip from the rim of your nostril as you mutter unintelligible invectives and have a sudden pressure headache in your sinuses.

That's how I felt when I saw that guy driving the car behind me.

C'mon, DC! Where are the frickin' beautiful people?? I've been driving for 3 months, and the best you have to throw me is the Tall Man from "Phantasm"?? Where are all the young, tanned, firm-bodied angels of estrogen that paved the highways in NYC? Why are 40 mildly overweight Russian soccer moms and REALLY FREAKY TALL OLD GUYS the only ones I pass around the Beltway??

Sigh. I'd pine for the old days, but for me, that meant taking the train.

/steps off soapbox

Now, everyone's heard of Alexander the Great. Most everyone's heard of Ghengis Khan. Adolf Hitler, Julius (and Augustus) Caesar, Charlemagne, Jozef Stalin and maybe the various Pharoahs.

Not many people have heard of Tamerlane, however. And what's odd is that I thought it was common knowledge...

I used to read "Weird War Tales", a war-based horror comic from DC, back in the early 80's. One of my favorite stories of all time was one centered around a Russian scientist discovering the body of the great nomad warlord, Tamerlane. The Soviet officer overseeing the dig decried the barbarian's triumph, spat on the remains, and the following night, a ghost horde of dead Turks, commanded by Tamerlane, swept over the Soviet military installation, wiped out the troops stationed there, pinned the officer to the wall... and Tamerlane spat disdainfully in his face to return the insult, and disappeared.

Okay, trite, but for a 8 yr old, this was deep. It was enough to push me to the encyclopedia (y'know, the paper version of the Internet) and look up Tamerlane and do some reading. So, I've always known about this Turkish historical figure, who claimed descendance from Ghengis Khan and allowed Central Asia to mature and even peak under his totalitarian, and amazingly bloody, rule.

The weird thing is that no history lesson I've ever taken has ever discussed his conquests, or even remarked on his existence. And not so surprisingly, I've not found anyone who's even heard of Tamerlane, even as adults.

I mean, everyone's heard of Hitler. And Tamerlane's achievements could put Adolf to shame.

So, my Conqueror of the Week is Tamerlane - Ozymandias, move over. There's something meaner.

A map of Tamerlane's conquests can be found here.

Well, now.

Last activity was October of 2005. I think I need to change that a bit. :) So, here I am, standing up for the first time in over half a year, and shouting, "I have something to say!"

And the deafening voice of the frightened masses shouts back, "OMFG, stfu n00b lololol!!!1"

...it's hardly a perfect world.

Until we make it perfect.

Good seeing y'all again. I'll be organizing my life a bit more here, I hope.

-T.