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| g21 #312: The Jungles of the World
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NEW ORLEANS - 12 May, 2002: Prior to any significant change, in fact a change in of itself, comes a period of gestation. I liken it to that quiescent stage between caterpillar and butterfly: the quiet before the next, expansive explosion of color and flight. There is no planning. There is lots of waiting.
My classes in Yugoslavia, for the Novi Sad School of Journalism (NSSJ), have been pushed forward a week because of a snafu in processing the grant. The details would be comical, if not for the anticipation we all feel about commencing this project. It is the first of its kind for distance learning, we believe, and could represent a step in developing a methodology specifically designed for Internet journalists
At the very least, formulating the lectures and getting real-time feedback from the twenty-five young people who've signed up for the course promises to be stimulating.
My dear friends Dragana Vicanovic -- the documentary fim-maker who hosted me in Belgrade along with her husband, Dragan, the editor of Third Eye -- and Rastislav Durman, who refers to Novi Sad as "the perfect city" have both worked closely with NSSJ. I'm grateful to both of them for supporting and encouraging this project.
Meanwhile, I'm back to working construction. I'm working for the Irishman, again, who Matt reminds me I've called the "only honorable man" I've met in New Orleans. It always raises eyebrows when people see a fifty year old man on a construction site. It's a young man's game. My body reminds me of that every night.
I find myself again doing tedious, detail work. The kinds of tasks that drive other people away from the job after a day or two. There have been two different guys working with me already this first week. "Are you bored shitless?" my boss gibed. "No," I said, "it gives me time to think... and worry."
I don't spend a lot of time talking at work. I concentrate on the task in front of me. I find it like a Zen exercise. It gives me time to hack away at the tangled undergrowth in the jungles of my mind.
The Golden Web Award
Long-time readers will have noticed that, along with the new cover design, we are now running fewer features each week. Down from the eight - ten we traditionally offered each week, we now focus on four - five areas. Some articles are running longer, as well. Both moves are functions of extending the "magazine" model we have for this Web space.
Over the years, a number of my fellow Webmasters, many of whom had more popular sites than this one --- with more weekly visitors by far and, thus, larger advertisers --- would tell me they didn't "get" Generator 21. They told me this site wasn't what people on the Web want. Their sites are now ghost sites, as we say. They aren't around anymore. On the other hand, it's become clear that G21 will never be a large site (in terms of readership, if not content) with the millions of pageviews that large Web advertisers --- those remaining after the dot.com implosion --- always require. I could argue that longevity, perserverance and having cultivated tens of thousands of loyal readers, has some kind of "branding" value. But thus far, only Barnes & Noble have bought into that reasoning. They are the one company that has been good to us over the years.
I guess it doesn't hurt that our visitors can actually read.
While we've grown in credibility and respect, the very heterodox nature of this project has been our commercial undoing. Barring a grant for alternative presentation, we don't conform to the "market niche(s)/focus" that advertisers prefer. We don't require all of our writers to write at the eighth grade level or our readers to to speak exclusively in Internetese. Let alone English. From our first days we've subscribed to the translation services you see at the top of each column.
When, as on this past Monday, we receive the recognition of our fellow laborers in the vineyard, it elicits smiles all around. If you've looked at our Awards Pages, it's been quite a while since G21 ws even in nomination. Web awards don't have the cachet they once did. Many of the sites which gave us our past awards aren't around any longer, either.
The best "award" that Generator 21 has gotten, by far, is that you have kept t his site alive while other Web sites have failed and disappeared. What used to be my Web site has become yours. You quite literally own it now because I do not have the wherewithal to financially support the effort. That, in my view, says more about what "people on the Web want" than any paradigms that I or other, more-knowledgeable Webslingers have ever expounded.
IN THIS ISSUE
On Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill appropriating $383 billion for the Pentagon in fiscal 2003. An additional $10 billion, especially earmarked for the war on terrorism, is expected to follow. The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee has already given the nod to the $393 billion for "defence". This appropriation bill represents a 15% increase over the United States' 2002 military budget and the largest increase in military spending by this country in a single year, in inflation-adjusted dollars, since 1966.
One can't help but juxtapose this knee-jerk windfall to militarism against the exploits of a 21 year old college student named Luke Helder, The Smiley Face Bomber. As RAHEEM points out in his column on Helder this week, no amount of Cruise missiles or Star Wars programs will defend America against terrorism of this sort. While we pour money into the Pentagon's dreams of glorious victories, we are being brought to a (c)rude awakening by young men with knives, letters with disease spores and home-made pipe-bombs. It was only scant years ago that a fertilizer bomb ushered in the heartbreak of domestic terrorism. No Strategic Defence Initiative will prevent or meet these kinds of threats. Therein are our feet of clay.
Meanwhile, from "Mad Cow Disease" to the factory farming of poultry, G21 has been committed to coverage on food issues. This week, the debate on dietary choice between SIENNA BLAKE of VeganVoice and THOMAS ("Tabloid") HART continues that thread. We hope you'll find You Are What You Eat informative.
Finally, BOB POWERS takes us to more joyous news -- of the musical variety -- in this week's POWERSSOUND piece, Rick Nelson: Fond Memories.
Enjoy!
HOME
GENERATOR 21 was born in San Francisco.
Though the conception represented a name-change (the second) for an existing Zine, it was a change that bespoke a new mindset and new goals. The primary goal is to generate the kind of (intellectual) energy necessary for life in the 21st century. As a project, this cathedral of words was born in Richmond, California, under the title The Bounty Times. It was under that masthead that we won our first award, a First Amendment Award, from the Contra Costa Press Club. The very same year, columnist and film critic Joe Bob Briggs nominated the publication for Playboy magazine's First Amendment Award. That seems like a century ago today.
I bring up these facts now because, for the first time since abandoning the state of California four years ago, I'm inclined to return.
Like it or not, I have to accept that this publication's formative years in Cali have left their imprint. I have fought the urgings of my friends and lovers to accept that California is the closest thing to "home" I've ever known. But if love and friendship are the only kinds of roots a globetrotter like I can ever have, California is the only home I've ever known, too. In my most recent telephone chat with Barbara, when she suggested that it was time I return to Californai, it had a new resonance for me. That's the first time I've felt that way since leaving.
In past "Glass House" missives, I've listed the many reasons I haven't wanted to return to California. Few, if any, of those have changed.
Lord knows I don't "fit" here in the South at all. And Louisiana? We've covered that ground extensively. No matter what anybody tells you, take it from me, you'll never feel more demeaned -- if you are a Black man with any pride -- than you will in New Orleans, Louisiana. There's a reason Louis Armstrong sought his fortune in Chicago.
That is not saying you won't face racism's ugly specter in California. Far from it. Racism is as American as apple pie and flag-waving. Bigotry and prejudice know no economic or geographical borders.
Nonetheless, the majority of my adult life was spent in Northern California.
I have more friend and intimates in that part of the world than any other. I have more history, both good and ill, there.
Given the right circumstances, I'd first choose to make Manhattan my home. I've been happier there than anywhere in America. The ambiance fits me like a glove. But it sucks to live in Manhattan if you're poor.
There are still places I need to go -- Taxco, for example. And I shall always dream of Rio de Janiero. I still need to go fishing on the Timok river in Zajecar, Yugoslavia, and visit "the perfect city," Novi Sad.
But I must admit that the time has arrived to bring this year-long hejira of mine to an end. The G21 World Tour is over. I no longer need to take all of my refuge in the road. Yes, Lynda, little Rodya has finally grown up. I need to "settle down" in my last years and get the last of this writing done. Until I find that special place where artistic souls are nurtured instead of degraded, I must admit that California is my functional "home." Like Henry James, Henry Miller and James Baldwin, my writing will always be informed by the minds I have touched in my travels; but, also like them, I am and must always accept that I am an American writer. Most particularly, that I am a California writer. What was left in me of the East Coast was long ago stripped away.
Where am I from? Nowhere. Where am I going? To the grave, as are we all.
Where is my heart? First, here on the Web, I guess; secondly, in California. Tony Bennett appears to be right.
THINGS I WANT THIS WEEK
1. To bring My Darling home.
2. Finalizing arrangements with IREX and NSSJ to begin the Internet Journalism course.
3. Keeping the old body in trim for working in 90 degree (Fahrenheit) weather here in New Orleans.
4. A new promotional plan for this publication.
5. More women contributors at G21.
Thanks for coming back this week."Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching..."
Rod
Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was also principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He was a contributing writer for ACCESS magazine, which appeared both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others. Rod was the US reporter for Silicon.com, a division of Network Multimedia Television in London, UK, reaching 3.5 million European readers, until May, 2001.
This year he worked as Assistant to the General Manager of a Big Easy company that does restaurants and nightclubs. (Think: The Boy.) Oh yeah, Rod's Day Job is working construction. Mostly renovations of old New Orleans structures, houses and now a bar. Sometimes he designs Web sites for other people so that he can get his creative juices flowing the way he can't at a staid publication like this one. And he's the instructor in Editing for Internet Publications at the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Yugoslavia. In his spare time, he chases women. 
Rod lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, right now. He wants out so bad he can taste it. He wants to live somewhere civilized when he grows up. Wish him Luck.
He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.
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© 2002, GENERATOR 21.
E-mail your comments. We always like to hear from you. Send your kudos, brickbats and suggestions to rod@g21.net.