My friend Amy and I

Smokler on March 20, 2002

My friend Amy and I went to see Todd Gitlin speak at the Commonwealth Club on Monday. A student activist in the 1960’s, Gitlin is considered one of the nation’s foremost media and cultural critics and as written maybe a half-dozen books about The Racial Hyposcrisy of Liberal Movements, The Oligopoly of Prime Time T.V. and other such topics that fascinate me. I had read The Whole World is Watching, about 60’s activism and media, in college and found so convoluted that I can only describe the experience as akin to backstroking in a pool of tapioca.

It didn’t improve a whole lot for me. While Gitlin has smoothed out his thoughts with age (or maybe just expresses them better live than in print), I still found his arguments to selective to the point of cowardice. His new book, Media Unlimited, is all about how we’re living a life so overrun with sounds and images, that things like community and thoughtful discourse are slowing erroding away. However since “the media” isn’t going to roll over and play dead because Todd Gitlin says it should, many in the audience wanted to know what Professor Gitlin saw as the counterplan to all this. Precisely what media and how much of it should we consuming then?

Answer: “I don’t prescribe such things.”

My answer: What hooey. Gitlin wants us all to bask in is indignation yet has nothing but that to add to the discussion. He then coats himself with intellecutal teflon by saying “there’s too much media” (which we all know), then refusing to offer an answer to “then what?” That isn’t criticism. It’s fact finding in service of itself. And for someone of Todd Gitlin’s stature, we both expected more. Even if it was only twelve bucks.

My buddy Dave Thomas (no

Smokler on March 18, 2002

My buddy Dave Thomas (no not the dead Wendy’s Guy) just got his first feature-length film, All Night Thing into the Johns Hopkins Film Festival. I’m so fucking excited! Dave is one of my closest friends and several years ago, we were passing drafts of the script back and forth over bad diner pancakes. Last Thanksgiving, I took the train down from New York to catch the debut screening, a very sweet, charming look at a single night on a college campus.

I’m giving the Kevin three-thumbs-up-not-just-because-I’ve-seem-the-filmmaker-hammered seal of approval. I highly recommend needling Dave for a video tape copy. You won’t be sorry.

Ten Things I Learned at

Smokler on March 15, 2002

Ten Things I Learned at South By Southwest 2002

1. The web is alive and well, thank you. No one si getting rich but that’s like saying all the gold is gone from Sutter’s Mill so therefore the shovel is now obsolete.

Hogwash. The web is a tool–powerful, complicated, and highly capable of enabling wonder and mystery. I spent the week around hundreds of people whose creativity hasn’t been limited by lack of funding or a short attention span media but simply by how big they can dream and how quickly they can type.

2. Passion is contagious. Excitment feeds off itself. Every third conversation I had this week sparked another idea. Every other got me all electric about someone else’s project. I landed back home completely high on web juice, ready to write, conceptualize and pitch in all around the place.

3. You often have more impact than you think. I began going to SXSW in 1999 when Central Booking was a cut-rate hobby site I dabbled in while trying to finish graduate school. During that first conference, I took in a panel on online journaling which, years later, resulted in CB becoming a community of readers. On that panel, I had a very pleasent chat with a woman named Sarah who introduced me to Blogger and the medium of weblogging. Three years and as many redesigns later, I run into Sarah at the festival’s opening event and she recognized me instantly. It took me a little bit longer and a lot of stammering but soon we were talking like old friends. Or maybe brand new ones.

4. I should buy a digital camera. Everybody’s doing it.

5. People relish the opportunity to act silly, especially in the loose embrace of new friends. Sounds a little clinical but it’s the best way I can explain why I spent a substantial part of this conference playing kickball, singing karaoke, and trying to sober up a drunken monkey.

6. You can go back to where you once lived and it may not have changed all that much. You almost certainly have.

7. A perfect airline flight resembles a short trip on a bus: You board, read a newspaper and have arrived when you look up. Exiting should be as painless as entry and effortless like hopping to the curb. It helps if no one’s sitting within six rows of you.

8. What is real is your story. Tell it.

9. Webheads read. Lots. They dig books. Some of them had even heard of Central Booking. Now more have.

10. Community is a rare and precious gift today. When used with grace, the web is a tremendous community builder, uniting rather than locking us apart. I experienced that more than I thought I could this last week where hundreds of strangers were instantly kind, thoughtful and intrigued by one another. If you’ve found a place like that, real or virtual, stick around. It’s very a special thing.

Thanks everyone.

P.S. I did a similar essay for SXSW 2001. What a difference a year makes.

South by Southwest: The Morning

Smokler on March 13, 2002

South by Southwest: The Morning After…

I’m a little surprised I can still walk erect because I’ve lived harder and fuller the last 4 days than probably in the rest of my adult life. I’ve spend the last week immersed in smart, creative people 18 hours a day with everyone talking new projects, wild ideas and being generally electrified by each other’s company. I’ll throw down my annual 10 Things I Learned at South by Southwest when I get home tomorrow. For now, let me say I feel honored and blessed to have participated in all of this.

Thanks everyone.

A couple dozen new friends

Smokler on March 12, 2002

A couple dozen new friends met, hundreds of thrilling conversations, millions of laughs a few hours too little of sleep and a day left to go. South by Southwest 2002. I feel so lucky to be here, to have met everyone I have, to be building and participating in something called community when so little of it exists in today. I’ve returned in celebration to a city I where I spent three difficult years at a stumble.

I am so alive now I may fly.

What a wonderful night. Big

Smokler on March 11, 2002

What a wonderful night. Big props to everyone who helped make Fray Cafe 2 special. Four solid hours of funny, touching, human storytelling. It’s the best evidence I have that what happens on the web has real life consequences and results that can change your life.