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NEW ORLEANS - 27 January, 2005: It's a bit of a pickle: how does one remain a "successful" Web publisher when one has little or no access to the Web? I've managed to get online for less than two hours this entire week. Thanks, Jo Kemper.
Because my job for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) requires ten (10) hours of my day and sleeping 6 - 8 hours is a good thing, my time to get online -- or WRITE -- is at a premium these days. Finding a place to jack-in, while living two districts out from the French Quarter (WiFi Central here,) is a catch-as-catch can proposition. You would think that Matt could feel me on this issue but he hasn't been very supportive thus far.
So I plan this edition facing the fact that it might come late, something that makes my skin veritably crawl, as articles flow in that I'm online barely long enough to catch in my mitt, like a stumbling outfielder, and notice askance that your World's Magazine happens to be having its best January (visitor-wise) in four years.
I wannah scream.
Even those page updates that could be accomplished in five minutes are a challenge because of the bouncing of the WiFi signals I can reasonably reach close to my job -- during my lunch br eak. Vickie (my beloved and long-suffering, world-traveling laptop computer) is going through a schizophrenic time-lapse, bouncing back and forth between having her clock set automatically by the Apple U.S. server and having me do it manually when at home. She keeps forgetting what day it is now and what time it is. I can't blame her.
She remains my poor, uncomplaining darling, even as she enters that period past her prime.
"I'd really appreciate a new battery, Baby," she reminds me.
I'd really enjoy not sleeping on the floor, I rejoin.
"How long will we be living this way?" she asks plaintively.
God knows, dearie, I respond. And he hasn't bothered to tell me yet.
"You really plan to keep us in New Orleans again, Master?"
Open question, Babe. I love the Community Organizer job but I have no love if GENERATOR 21 fades as it is fading now.
"Meaning?"
Don't ask ... Not now. Let me play this hand we've drawn.
When I know, you'll know, too. You always anticipate my thoughts ...
FROM ROD'S PHOTO ALBUM
Besides featuring Patsy Crocker's photos from the inaugural protest in Washington, D.C. in this edition, I was also lucky enough to receive a group of photos from New Orleans' Greg Cowman under the "Subject" header: "When Graphic Designers Are Bored." Those photos grace my GH "album" this week. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did when they arrived.
My favorite from Ms. Crocker is the police line shot featured here because of the bored looked on the face of the Black female officer in the foreground. I can almost imagine the thoughts that must be going through her mind.
Also under the Fun Images heading this week is this page of photos from the Krewe du Vieux parade in New Orleans. More eye-candy for those of you always interested in the Mardi Gras festivities here in the Crescent City.
Esoteric Publisher's Note
LONG-TIME LOYAL READERS KNOW that the most inspirational bit of advice I received when attempting to turn GENERATOR 21 from a hip but prosaic little site that attracted quirky writers into what is now your World's Magazine, as it exists today, came from a Webmaster in Japan. (His name escapes me as I write this -- another sign of Rod's advancing age.) He had the gift of anticipating things and suggesting the gist of what was needed. His site no longer exists but his insight helped to create mine.
He saw how I was trying to reach across the globe and bring "on the ground" and non-U.S.-centric articles to the WWW (World Wide Web) and wrote this to me via e-mail:
"Rod, to achieve what you mean to do, you have to understand what early-adapters are looking for on the 'Net. You have to give them a Kabuki theatre of the mind ... "I have tried to take his words to heart. In the process, I now know, I have created a publication of "heart and stone," as AAMENA JIWAJI so aptly put it.That tells me that you are after both the tough-love and the compassion -- my subject of choice -- in this offering. The "Cathedral of Words" theme that I used for years was all about the stone; the personal touch -- even in my terms of endearment to each of you -- was about the heart.
This year, we mean to morph a bit again.
You will notice it in our choice of interview subjects, if you haven't already, and our choice of writers. (There was a re-shuffling recently, which The Editor tried to finesse.)
We celebrate nine years on the Web, of continuous publication, come March.
I shall have been editor -- with only intermittent breaks -- for all but two months of that time. My own perspective, therefore is a bit skewed.
During that nine-year span, I have taken this publication daily for two stretches of time. I have gone semi-monthly (as while working on my putative book) twice. But we have most often and primarily been a weekly. That has seemed to be the formula that has worked best for me and our writers and contributors, who number in the scores now, over the years.
I have always argued that being a Web publisher is a "young man's game." To be good at it, you not only have to be thoughtful but also committed and persistent as all get out.
When Netscape launched its first browser, I said: "I've been waiting for this all my life."
This is not written -- by any means -- to be like a valedictory. It is merely "penned" to give you my own perspective. After all, I remember when you used to claim that three months was a "Web year."
That is no longer true.
Based on what I see today, I'd say that any site that survives for two years has lived a Web year. That is how much things have stabilized and changed during the last decade.
The challenge now -- as we have become part of the legitimate media array -- is about reach and credibility. Why publish a Web site that only you and your Mom/girlfriend/buddies at the bar read? That's not a niche, that's a waste of bandwidth.
"Citizen Journalism?"
We'll see ...
LONG-TIME READERS ALSO KNOW that for years I wrote a weekly column on Web design. Much of what I had to say then remains true today, four years since my last column. Usability and predictability are the hallmarks of most of the Web sites that are still around and thriving today, including this one. Links are still the core of what makes the World Wide Web (WWW) the compelling medium it is; trying to control what links the user follows is still counter-intuitive. Attempts at "trapping" users on your site are still counterproductive failures.Despite that fact, I continue to get advice from less-experienced people, many of whom actually work with Web pages, about better ways to produce my own.
Most recently, one of those people was Matt, who believed that there must be a simpler way of producing what you see here each week by simply glomming the most recent content into a single folder and letting fly. It works for a site he uploads to for a real estate office, why not your World's Magazine?
I tried, lamely, to explain that there was a essential difference. (I could link to the other site in question, yes, Love, but they have been having problems recently -- Hmmn -- and it would not be instructive for our purposes.) I promised to experiment with the Glom Concept. It took only one page to demonstrate the element that separates the two projects: aesthetics.
There is usually an aesthetic goal in the production of each edition of this publication that simply glomming cannot fulfill. In the final analysis, a "look and feel" developed over years, that requires an additional level of personal testing that the other project has no need for.
LESSON LEARNED: Leave the cookie-cutters to people baking cookies.
A small, independent and outspoken magazine like this one can't reach you every week without the support and patronage of its readership. As our way of thanking those who have committed to keep your World's Magazine here on your desktop through t heir generous donations, we feature their names and cities here in our Roll of Honor.
SUSTAINING PATRONS
CHERYL HILL NATION,
West Fairlee, VT, USADARHL STULTZ,
Largo, FL, USADRAGAN & DRAGANA VICANOVIC,
Belgrade, SERBIAMATT STOWELL,
New Orleans, LA, USATERRY TERRIAN,
Sebastopol, CA, USATIMOTHY MEADOWS,
Anaheim, CA, USA
Supporting PatronsBARBARA ATWELL,
Berkeley, CA, USA
BECKY ALTEMUS,
Houston, TX, USA
IAN CRYSTAL, Ph. D,
New Orleans, LA, USA
LARS KEFFERSTAN,
New York, NY, USA
MEREDITH TUPPER,
Tampa, FL, USA
RIC WILLIAMS,
Austin, TX, USA
STEVE VIVIAN,
New York, NY, USA
STUART ALTMAN, ESQ.,
New York, NY, USAWe encourage you to add your name to this Roll of Honor. GENERATOR 21 cannot continue and thrive without your support. Thanks in advance.
To support G21, please send checks or money orders to:
G21: The World's Magazine
Attn: Rod Amis
1011 Poland
New Orleans, LA 70117-4739
USATo donate by credit or debit card, please go to the Western Union website by following the highlighted link. Should you donate via Western Union, please notify us via e-mail.
Please make all remittances payable to Rod Amis. Again, thanks.
28 January, 2005: Tried, fruitlessly, to get a connection again this afternoon at Monaghan's 13 on Frenchmen Street, around the way from the ACORN offices, and for the second day got noise but no real signal. I'm beginning to think that's not a place to try, though it is the closest haven during the day -- in the one hour of time I have until night that is my own.My frustration level is very high.
I can only hope that tomorrow -- when I only have to be out in the field half a day -- will afford me a chance to go further afield in search of a signal into which to jack in. I'm beginning to feel like a character in a William Gibson novel.
AMONG THE PIECES TO BE READ OFFLINE, waiting in my recent e-mail queue was this neat piece forwarded on by my friend DC in Florida:A few months before I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small Tennessee town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world a few months later.As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mom taught me the word of God, and Dad taught me to obey it. But the stranger? He was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies. If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future!
He took my family to the first major league ball game. He made me laugh, and he made me cry. The stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn't seem to mind. Sometimes, Mom would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing each other to listen to what he had to say, and she would go to her room and read her books. (I wonder now if she ever prayed for the stranger to leave.)
Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home ... not from us, our friends or any visitors. Our longtime visitor, however, got away with four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush. My Dad was a teetotaler who didn't permit alcohol in the home, not even for cooking. But the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (much too freely)! about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing. I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked ... and NEVER asked to leave.
More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you were to walk into my parent's den today you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures. His name? ... We just call him TV.
This Month's Readership Poll
THIS YEAR we're going to try a new kind of G21 Poll suggested by a post from our friend, Baby Boomer guru and G21 alumnus CHUCK NYREN.OUR FIRST POLL QUESTION OF 2005: Please complete the following sentence. "I believe the purpose of human life and consciousness on Earth is..."
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: 28 February, 2005.
RESPONSES PUBLISHED: Our 9th Anniversary Edition on 21 March, 2005.
1 February, 2005: I AM IN THAT DREADED AREA that I try so often to avoid, being off schedule. I can rationalize that it comes of living in New Orleans, of the hectic pace of my days -- ACORN demands fifty-four (54) hours of my week -- and Nick had an emergency job he needed me to work on all day Sunday (my only day off) at the house he is letting me camp in. ALL of my time was, thus, taken away by the needs of others, with the exception of the nights after work, this week.
I have edited most of the articles queued for this edition, during my gaps between commitments (it is 7:30 a.m. as I type this,) but not all and I have not completed this journal entry of my own ... IF I can finish the editing AND this piece AND find a working signal by tomorrow, I hope to launch then. I have already accepted that time demands require that I go back to a looser schedule. Resuming the weekly publication dates right now would only serve to break my back.
My greatest resources right now seem to be pure chutzpah and Matt's beneficence. He drops by often enough to make sure I still eat. My checks from Brainfuse.com, now for two pay periods, are mysteriously failing to materialize here in New Orleans.
It has been raining here since early last evening. Not a good thing for me for two reasons:
LATER: Tonight's hearty after-work repast is comprised of onion slices in two slices of pita bread, garnished with mustard. Between that and the miles of walking every day, I maintain my svelte physique ... I am puzzling out how to get this edition out by tomorrow but no immediate remedies come to mind. I can hope, as always.
- extended periods of rain kick in the aching in my joints, usually the left knee at the very least and;
- knocking on doors for ACORN is no picnic in the rain. I don't yet have the wherewithal to purchase an umbrella, so I try to make do with my "New Orleans raincoat" (donning a large garbage bag to keep my clothes drier.)
If not, then perhaps by the end of the week.
3 February, 2004: My dear friend Dragana who, in her own words, "is always right," appears to have been correct again.
She was quite adamant in her insistence that coming back to New Orleans was not a good idea and that anyone who recommended same -- particularly after my last experience(s) here -- was being Mephistophelian, at best.
At least three points now support her thesis:
That third item is a "tipping point" for Yours Unruly, as you know, Luv. I'll go without food and comfort but any threats or obstacles to producing your World's Magazine are intolerable for me.
- my being Jo'ed (an "only in New Orleans" experience");
- the mysterious disappearance of my Brainfuse paychecks (they shall be issuing new ones) and;
- obstacles to publishing this magazine.
Thus, I awakened this morning thinking that this unique combination of factors is likely the answer to my recent prayer to learn where Providence needs me next. Perhaps the Cosmos is trying to give me the Hint/Clue that my original inclination to keep moving East is a good one.
I shall make the decision by Lent (9 February). I can only pray you have read this by then.
Keep me in your prayers as I keep you in my own.
Thanks for coming back this week.
THINGS I PRAY FOR THIS WEEK
1. My friend, Terry.
2. Receipt of long-overdue payments from various sources.
3. That I don't have "friends" who enjoy their meals more because they know that I am hungry.
"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching ... "
Love,
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 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 Internet 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.
In 2002, he worked as Assistant to the General Manager of a Big Easy company that does restaurants and nightclubs. He did stints as the Resident Philosopher at three separate gin mills in that city in the French Quarter and the Marigny, earning his stripes during two successive Mardi Gras seasons. Oh yeah, Rod's had Day Jobs working construction. Mostly renovations of old New Orleans structures, houses and 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 been the instructor in Editing for Internet Publications at the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Yugoslavia. Our Resident Philosopher is now resuming his hejira. He is in training as a Community Organizer for ACORN and hopes to make positive change for other poor people like himself. Now he needs to find an angel to hire him to do this magazine ... In his spare time, he chases women in the manner that a fly pursues a spider. 
He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.
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