FRIED CHICKEN, AND TWITTER UNFOLLOW PARTY

I went to Rye last night on a solo date to try their fried chicken and it was bomb.  Our old neighbor Jesse was tending the bar where I sat so that was cool, she's so positive and friendly and we exchanged news of our dogs.  I walked back from The Plaza, watched part of Breathless on Kanopy but got too sleepy and had to shut it down.

I have been puzzlin' alot on what social media is about for me and what I now  recognize as "content management."  For most of us, this is discontent management, the psychology of online traffic being a mix of personal verite, vulnerability, political dismay, anxiety about post-performance, comedy that isn't funny, comedy that can be really funny, garden variety time-killing, and, oh yeah, a sad worldwide OCD dislocation from present surroundings and the smell and sound and of actual people.   

So glad the characters in Breathless did not have I-phones.

At any rate, I went on a Twitter unfollow rampage, unfollowing many political profiles; anyone who hasn't posted in like three years; commercial profiles of things I'm interested in like art films; many musicians I may love but already follow tangibly as a record-buying, concert-going fan.  I decided what I want from Twitter is ideas, pith, direct statements that are unfettered, and well, interesting.  Naked in their original state, like Yoko Ono's tweets, or Danny Barnes' tweets.

I follow a couple of marginalized conservatives like William Kristol and Paul E. Martin.  The way they are positioned relative to the current Medieval GOP is fascinating and as much a a key to unlock the current weirdness as progressivism.  Overall, I want my political information from the occasional print-form deep dive, not a mudbath of digital provocation aimed at triggering my amygdalic rocket fuel.  I have enough of that in my native makeup, thanks.

Artists need a tincture of amygdalic fuel for art--online provocation is a drain.

Anyway, for my part, I set myself a task, inspired in part by Andy J. Pizza's creativity podcast Creative Pep Talk, which is as crispy as the fried chicken at Rye, as cool as Jean Seberg's pixie cut. Dan's Songwriting Fuzzballs: 25 Tweets about the joy and practice of songwriting (to help me remember).  No photos of my lunch.  No retweets of AOC taking down a bully, even though I love that.  

We're in a canopy fire of digital noise, and folks want some clearings, meadows, benches by the trail to sit for a minute.

That's my best take on Twitter at the moment.  I posted my first Fuzzball last night and got one like and no retweets! But the one like was from a writer friend back in Eugene, so that meant alot because writing and music are my favorite intersection.  I'll hold up a cardboard sign there, no problem.

As always, my blog is kinda 90's and needs work, but it's where I put the long-form ramble.