Saturday, November 16, 2002
Ok, so this was pretty damn funny. Not necessarily work safe, but not obscene either. Have fun.
Jim Parisi
San Francisco is a funny town. In the summer it feels like the coldest place in the Northern Hemisphere. The fog rolls over the hill, the sun vacations in warmer climes, and the wind whips up off the bay. The air is a wet, windy, 55 degrees Fahrenheit. It sucks. But in the fall, the sun likes to return. The fog stays away. And if you are lucky, you can have mornings like this from the window of your hotel room.
Jim Parisi
Friday, November 15, 2002
Corner room, top floor, facing Union Square, Westin St. Francis. Nice. Richter expo at the SFMOMA. Nice. Five hours of sleep followed by eight hours of meetings, non-stop. Not so nice. Cancelled flight home to OC, fat guy with a cough in the seat next to me on new flight to LA, one hour in smelly cab. Not so nice. I'm going to bed. Niiiiice.
Jim Parisi
Thursday, November 14, 2002
Hmmm....still having some server troubles. Testing. Testing. Anyone out there?
Jim Parisi
The server was down for a while there. I can't believe how attached I have become to this site, to these little rants of mine. If I don't get the chance to release some of these thoughts I get weird. Obsessive. I keep checking. Is it up yet? Is it up yet? Is it up yet? I'm glad I'm back online and the blockage to my emotional drainage has been purged.
Jim Parisi
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Speaking of November, it's almost that time again. Just a few weeks away. The lights are already going up at minimalls everywhere. Time to spend $200 at Hallmark, sit down for six hours, and fill out the 100 or so Christmas cards I send out every year. My list keeps growing. But for the first time I'm really tempted not to send any. Increasingly Christmas cards seems like a socially forced exercise with very limited results. Does anyone really care about Christmas cards? I know quite a few people who have stopped sending if only for the expense! Besides, most of the people I care about are either reading this blog or receiving my now all too infrequent stories and "Jimbo Updates" via e-mail. (I know, I know. I need to write more). The cards seem like a forced activity, a required act of reciprocation if someone sends you a card, or at best, a guilty but soulless greeting to the old friends and acquaintances that you no longer have the time or energy or inclination to keep in real contact. So few people take the time to write a personal greeting, include a letter, a photo, etc, that received cards get a only casual once over and are tossed onto the mantle only to be tossed into the trash a few days later. So that's my dilemma. Do people love the cards enough for me to keep sending them? Am I the only one who feels this way? Sure, I like the idea of sending a funny Christmas card, but do I like it enough to waste a weekend? Spend a small fortune on stamps? Maybe this year I should just make a point to call all those old friends on my list. Or if I am going to send a card, maybe I should send something with soul this year. Instead of a juvenile little cartoon with farting reindeer, maybe little hand-written note that says, "Hey, you are my friend. And I love you dearly." Might be too radical a movement. A holiday season with real emotions. Perhaps I should stick with farting reindeer instead.
Jim Parisi
I am having trouble working. I can't focus and I desperately need to. It's November, and in Southern California, you probably won't find a better month of weather. Except maybe December. Typically November and December are warm (in the 70's), bright, blue, clear, clean, green and uncrowded. We start getting the occasional rain about now, and it washes away the ever present haze of brown and gray that hangs like a veil to the sky. It rains just enough to turn the hills green again, and the now visible mountains display their fancy new winter clothes. It's a day like that today. And I really don't want to be inside.
Jim Parisi
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
How come I can go to Tower Records and for only $20 pick up a DVD of a movie that cost $150 million to make, with four extra hours of documentary and out-takes, and director's cut footage, but a crappy music CD, made with an older, established technology, produced for a tenth of the investment, with only one decent song out of the twelve, costs me exactly the same amount of money? And record companies wonder why they are losing revenue. The first concern they should have is the unbelievable pile of crap they throw at the audience. Have you ever listened to the tripe they blast out on Star 98.7? Ugh. The industry isn't providing any additional value. They claim that music piracy is killing them. That digital versions of music will crush the industry. That no one will pay for something they can get for free. I think someone needs to introduce those goobers to bottled water. Lots of people are buying that, and virtually everyone can get water for free. Listen kids, give your consumers something they can't get elsewhere. Make it easy for them. Make it worthwhile. Let us purchase any song in your collection for a buck a song. Why don't you let us build our own custom CDs from your site? We download, you burn us a backup to play in the car. I'd pay for that. I don't want half the garbage those coked out junkies you call artists are spitting out anyway. Get on board kids. It's a digital revolution. And it needs a soundtrack.
Jim Parisi
Monday, November 11, 2002
Other than the president, who really wants to go to war with Iraq? Come on kids...let's have a show of hands. Put your hand down, George, you already voted. Is it just me or does it seem like our elected officials don't give a crap about what the people actually want? George, listen up bucko, no one wants this. Quit trying to avenge dear old pop. We voted him out of office too. If you are so hell bent on removing that schmuck, you had better give us some clear evidence as to why. I'm not so thrilled about the idea of my brother getting shipped off to Iraq to fight or kill or die for Exxon.
Jim Parisi
Sunday, November 10, 2002
I suck. In the off chance you had any lingering doubts, allow me to put them finally to rest. Today, while climbing in Joshua Tree with Gary, I was having trouble on the start of a particularly greasy, thin, and seemingly strenuous crack in the rock. After several minutes of grunting and shifting and pulling and slipping and swearing under my breath, Tess, Gary's three-year-old daughter, looks up at her father and says rather matter-of-factly, "He's not very good, is he?" I'm taking shit from toddlers now. I told you I suck.
Jim Parisi
