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 | Floralis Generica in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Photo: Daniel Culveyhouse |
The end of 2007 and the first quarter of 2008 were perhaps some of the most transcendent months of my life. Not because they were loaded with swashbuckling action, but because it was the phase where I became a free spirit and a libertine. I will recap these events over the next week, and it will surely reveal that...
I have awakened.
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | See the 1 comment | comment here)
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 | Above Buenos Aires |
I had planned to explore the city for one week, then visit a distant location in Argentina during the second week to compare the two regions. I have decided that there is just so much to do in Argentina's capital, that I will just stay here for my entire vacation. Yes, it is massive. It is larger than New York City, at least 5 times the area and 1.5 times the population. I am warming up to this city more each day, and to help you to find a soft spot for Buenos Aires too, I will blog about the city for months.
Have you ever noticed how we seem to suppress megacities such as Buenos Aires in our imagination, denying the fact that they are in reality much larger than we assumed? Most people tend to judge a city's size by its skyscraper count and clustering— that is, the size of its financial district. This almost always leads to a clouded perception of a city, since many external forces affect building count, not just the total number of residents in the city.
Buenos Aires, for example, does not really have a packed financial district like my fair city, San Francisco. One look at San Francisco's dense skyline and it's obvious that we are a huge bustling city, right? WRONG! Our population is less than one million, and we are jammed like sardines into just 47 square miles. Buenos Aires is forty times the size of our city, but yet it might not appear so just by inspecting its downtown area. Honestly, there's not much there.
Buenos Aires, much like San Francisco, is a district-rich city, where the mood, fashion, nightlife, and everything else changes from one neighborhood to another. All in good time, I will take you through a tour of the city, one area at a time. But for now, I'll leave you with two photos. The first is a photo of one of my favorite districts called La Boca. Needless to say, I'll visit the neighborhood at least one more time! The second is the huge law school of the University of Buenos Aires.
 | A Vivid Street in La Boca |
 | Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Sociale |
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | No comments yet | comment here)
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Yes, I know, I'm so bad. I haven't posted anything in months, selfishly keeping all of my writing discreet and unpublished. It turns out that the works I have written lately just do not belong on this blog, and if you read a few of these unrelentingly geeky papers, you would thank me. They cover human efficiency issues, crazy government experiments, and the like. No, you really don't want to be bored with that nonsense.
So rather than go back and sort out the material I should post, and what I shouldn't, I have finally done what I set out to do long ago: I have splintered my blog into three separate websites. Best of all, this Xanga blog will host the theme of HONESTY. I am clutching everything I assumed about the world, and everything I have been programmed by society to believe, and throwing it all out the window. My first project will take me to Argentina for two weeks, but I will still write and publish while I am there.
There are many topics in today's world that people choose not to write about— America's wretched excess, the world's epidemic drug problem, overpopulation, the self-destructive gay lifestyles all around me, and worst of all our destruction of nature. Also difficult to find is real evaluation of the human predicament, which from my perspective, is becoming increasingly disturbing. Yes, the subjects are taboo and will spark waves of debate, but guess who will start covering them, and who will bust the subjects wide open on Xanga? You guessed right.
This so-called Xanga, a mirage of masks and facades, of inaccurate autobiographies of their authors, has always been a place where one must read between the lines.
Well, Xanga is about to receive an infusion of honesty, thought-provoking debate, and fortitude.
Prepare yourself.
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | No comments yet | comment here)
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Work has pulled me away from my passions, but the way that I've lived my summer suggests to me that I am not controlling my job the way that I should be. I did not devote enough time to myself, and in a departure from the usual, I just didn't take any risks over the summer. I wasn't renting and flying planes, I wasn't traveling, and I wasn't writing. And once I start down the path of overcommitment in the office, it is tougher and tougher to claw my way back out into the world.
That missing ingredient— taking risks— is something that I discovered to be a defining part of my character over the past ten years. It should come as no surprise that what befits me perfectly is the West Coast's dizzying scene of high tech startups. They are fast, crazy, and risky, and though relatively few of them have a happy ending, it's the prospect of ultra success that drives us. I had to traverse four startup companies before I found a little of my own success. Having seen the many faces of startup survival, the time is ripening for me to join my fifth one. Yes, there is substantial risk involved in me leaving a great job with a great company to chase another rainbow. But just like all the other paradigms that we must journey through in life, each of my tenures is more fruitful than the last, and I enter each one more wiseness and emboldened than before.
I am often asked, how is it that technology has become so lucrative and alluring, and why do so many Californians want to get rich off of technology anyway? There are plenty of honorable reasons why people are exhilarated by this industry. Chiefly, technology gives rise to endless possibilities that did not exist previously (such as nanotechnology), and in technology, there is no limit to what we can accomplish. We software engineers know this more than anyone, and we constantly make discoveries that amaze even ourselves. Secondly, high tech startups are SEXY. Sometimes, college grads will look for work in startups, just to be part of a new company full of young co-workers that's already a household name.
To be perfectly honest about the darker side of business, I think that many reasons why being part of these companies is so desirable lie in greed and envy. Investors who inject money into a little tech company to keep it alive, with a short and quick exit strategy in mind, often do not have much respect for the technology itself. It is greed, or the prospect of taking millions and turning it into tens of millions, that attracts the wealthy to this business. What often attracts aspiring workers to fast startups is the prospect of striking it rich, much like the allure of the California Gold Rush over 150 years ago. This can be aggravated by viewing with envy those who already succeeded in this game and now live in a $2,000,000 home in the most affluent part of town. The thought of just standing in the right place at the right time and becoming an instant millionaire, just enthralls people, especially the young women and men of Generation Y.
How People Get Rich within Startups
Believe it or not, most citizens of the world don't quite understand just how the lucky few manage to strike it rich. Here's a quick hack job of an explanation: Joe Blow has a very innovative idea, whips up a little money, finds a business partner, and co-founds a new startup. They sell part of the company to investors, usually called venture capitalists, in return for some quick cash, so they can hire a team of thinkers and leaders to manage them. One of these crazy techie guys is John Doe. They all get a small piece of the company too, usually through stock options. As the idea grows, so does the team, and Joe Blow and his company needs even more cash. Once a second or third round of funding happens, much of the company has already been sold to its lenders.
Realizing that the company cannot continue in this state, its board always aims for a quick exit, usually in the form of an acquisition. They drum up interest from a larger corporation, and seizing the opportunity, the big corporation buys the startup. If the big company is publicly-traded, presto, the old startup options are now converted to the new options. Suddenly, Joe Blow is a millionaire, and all those other techies, including that crazy John Doe, make a little money too.
Tragically, in this kind of scenario, the general workforce doesn't make a whole lot of money. It's only a mild base hit. But what if the company found a way to make itself profitable quickly, only requiring two rounds of funding? That would mean that more of the company belongs to the executives and employees, and less to the venture capitalists. That also means that the company now has the chance to grow and go public. Let's say that it does. All those options that everyone owned have much more value now, and many people like John Doe, not just the founders, become millionaires.
Such was the case with Google, and on a smaller scale, companies like Salesforce.com, VMWare, and Genentech. As you might guess, there are darker shades to this seemingly sweet deal. This scenario creates a major workplace disparity, between the rich veterans and their newly-hired co-workers who have to work for an average salary, sitting next these millionaires doing roughly the same type of job. Yes, it spawns workplace contention, and human resource staffers are now having to deal with the symptoms that this disparity creates, particularly at Google.
This little tour through high tech only scratches the surface of what our industry is really like, and in the coming months, you'll read much more about the inner workings of a startup company. For within any company you will find stretches of triumph and joy, as well as some cases of shame and disappointment. This is especially the case in my industry. But the stories of these startups are very human, and with all of their risky business, high tech companies are the sign of our times.
Johannes Brahms: Clarinet Sonata in F Minor, Op. 120
1: Allegro appasionato
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | No comments yet | comment here)
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In the summer, San Francisco finds itself out-of-season in the realm of classical music. But nothing can silence the tens of thousands of instruments in the city, owned and played by some of the most talented musicians in the world. A festival of Prokofiev's music awaits me this month, as well as the entire summer season of the San Francisco Opera. So many rock, hip hop, and electronica concerts will also round up the masses over the next few months, but I tend to always wind up in our vibrant sympony and theater scene. It enraptures me to no end, and as I find more and more friends with these same cultural interests, it adds even more meaning to a lifetime passion of mine.
I have studied Sergei Prokofiev's music since I was an adolescent, and of all composers who touched my life, I would have to say this Russian firebrand has always been the most contiguous in my thoughts. Ironically, I never learned to play any of Prokofiev's piano music, but that gap is something I intend to close sometime later in the year. The irony continues once you realize that he did move to San Francisco in 1918 to escape war and unrest in Russia, but he found little success in the United States. If only I had lived in this fair city back in that day, and if only I could have lent him all the moral support he needed to flourish in the States!
He moved to Paris after a brief stay in New York City and Chicago, and there he finished his Piano Concerto #3, which will be performed in concert this coming Friday! Along with this concerto, we will also get to hear the suite from his troubled opera, The Love for Three Oranges, which he wrote in Chicago in 1919. He was not able to premiere this opera until two years later at the Chicago Opera, because the originally scheduled premiere in was cancelled when the music director who commissioned it died suddenly! And of course, no Prokofiev festival would be complete without his suite from Romeo and Juliet, which will polish off next Friday's concert.
One week later, I will be attending Mozart's masterpiece, Don Giovanni. That I have someone to accompany me to this to this enthralling work is an honor beyond words. And finally, as a bonus that also left me speechless, a dear composer friend, John Bilotta, who just finished writing a comic opera called Quantum Mechanic, dedicated his opera to me. 
Connect with your city and all of its music, in your own way. I can only hint to you the rewards you will bring to yourself, and the ways in which you will be enlightened.
Sergei Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet, 10 pieces for piano,
# 10: Romeo and Juliet Before Parting
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | No comments yet | comment here)
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Rebirth
May 4th, 2007 at 06:21 AM (34712 reads)
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My friend... a stroke survivor, through his implacable will to live, and to defy power that only decades ago would have claimed his life, has conquered his world with one hand. He is recovering rapidly, and just a few days ago, he left a message that brought tears to my eyes. He is returning home, and I will be visiting him over the weekend. This is by far the happiest day of my recent years.
Love,
Daniel Culveyhouse
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | See the 2 comments | comment here)
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SF's New Self-Anchored Suspension Bridge |
After an entire year of focusing on work, what is finally saving me from social bludgeoning? My closest friend Kevin suffered a stroke and will remain in a hospital for a long time, and that significantly changed me in several ways, which could explain a renewed social life to a degree. Or it could be what I refer to as "Spring Fire," or this particular time of the year where summer hasn't yet arrived, yet our hormones are already trying to jump right out of our shorts. Men seem to hit a testosterone peak in early summer, but that sexy hormone is a very impatient one, especially among us gay men. Hormones sometimes short-circuit our natural seasonal cycle of urges, pumping us full of something we're not ready for, and then we find ourselves ahead of the hormonal calendar while the rest of the world catches up. Aren't they funny, these unannounced and closely-guarded secrets of gay life? All of my friends seem to agree, but they don't refer to it as Spring Fire like I do; some call it "that tingly feeling of summer approaching."
Tingly? Errrmm, well I can make myself tingly anytime of the year. What's their problem?
Rice and Potatoes
This city in particular has so many events in late spring and summer that our neighborhoods all begin to blossom with action, tourism, and hedonism at just about this same time every year. The merry month of May brings thousands of gay tourists to San Francisco, and even more spill into the city during Gay Pride weekend. Maybe it's because of our many scenes, fetishes, and subcultures, all of which have flourished here for decades. For instance (yeah, sorry to pick on these guys again), admirers of Asian men just can't seem to get enough of this city, and these men— usually white guys in their 20s or 30s— visit season after season, forever chasing their hopeless weakness and the night life that feeds it. Not to mention the drugs and sex that are often inseparable from that particular scene of white guys who fetishize Asian boys.
Just an example, that's all. I, on the other hand, love immersing myself in the many facets of any society, but no matter how hard I try, I think I'll always have a rough time forcing myself into the "bear" scene. For straight readers not savvy to the term, a "bear" is a gay male, often in his 30s or beyond, who embodies masculinity in all its roughness, which usually includes plenty of body hair and a belly. It's awesome that our city hosts all those bear weekends, Dore Alley fair, and more events that bring out all the bears of the world, but you just won't find me bonding much with this kind of crowd.
I'm more the kind who gets bored quickly of the same scene, but maybe it is much easier for me since I'm that free and implacable kind of being. I can peer from a safe distance, showing signs of life only when I want, whenever I feel that the time is right. One year, I might settle with all the local bars in the Castro. The next, I might enjoy house parties in the company of classical music fans. The year after that, Daniel the gym bunny is exploring all the dance clubs of the Bay. The year after that, Asian bars, followed by preppy and mixed bars the next year.
Daniel the Manipulator
Before I close tonight's entry, I thought I would revisit a complaint that a reader confronted me with last week. The entry in question was the one from two months back, where you witnessed a very different and very stern side of my personality. It was entitled Winter Threnody, in two parts. Based on plenty of feedback, nearly everyone, particularly Xangan bloggers, stood at my side. But this isn't what impressed me. The honesty is what I appreciated, whether it was praise or scorn, as I always respect everyone's reaction to what I write. Also, I expect nothing less than total honesty from other bloggers, and on Xanga I always know that I have received the most honest and intelligent feedback that I could ever hope for. You men and women of the blogosphere are so amazing to me, and I value constructive criticism just as much as I do anything else.
The person who complained (who did not even read the entry he was complaining about) argues that I should never have posted that installment, and in a very snide and childish manner, he accused me of manipulating my readers into thinking the same way that I do, as if I were brainwashing all of you. His argument is that I wrote the passage in such a way that it was impossible to disagree with me. I am rather offended that this person would view the rest of you as a bunch of mindless barbarians that kneel before the Dark Lord Daniel and bathe ignorantly in a weekly brainwashing ritual. I have said it before: you bloggers are among the smartest cookies on the planet, and everyday I feel honored to make acquaintance with all of you, for you form a creative community that is already shaping the future of humankind. Needless to say, if ever you feel that I am beguiling you in any way, I am sure you would put me in my place, and I would gladly apologize. Feel more than welcome to post your thoughts and let the world know if I had ever misled you in one way or another.
I express myself freely and in the purest way that I am able. Apparently, that purity is not compatible with everyone's inclinations, and I cannot expect it to be.
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | No comments yet | comment here)
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For Kevin |
Several other friends of his, one of which is his cousin, suggested that we do not visit him until he is well into his rehabilitation, since he can only communicate through a mouse and screen with his left hand. Furthermore, one of his friends that I spoke with recently recommended that I don't even try to send him flowers, but rather just "pray for him" at this point. An atheist should pray for his friend lying helpless in a hospital? Well, Mother Carey's chickens, isn't that an effective measure!
While I agree that I shouldn't visit him in person, I am totally taken aback by this suggestion. It leaves me upset and even undignified— the thought of him lying in bed without me even sending flowers and a note that I am thinking about him.
Tomorrow, I am going to have to speak with a few of these people again about sending him signs of life, this time a little more stern and assertive than before. I have come to learn that this happens rather frequently: friends and relatives erecting an artificial fortress around a loved one who experiences a tragedy such as this. I do forgive them for keeping his best interests (and his sanity) in mind, but sometimes an inner circle of relatives and friends just do not handle situations as they should. It is time for me to punch through that barrier a little, for the noble effort of reaching out to my closest friend.
I have been meditating during this first and most painful phase of my friend's life-altering event. At first I thought that I was meditating to send positive energy his way, but gaining a foothold on reality, I realize that this meditation is more for me than anyone else. A very wise acquaintance mentioned last week that I should cope with this sudden tragedy and the long recovery without compromising my own well-being. It was quite comforting to hear this from another voice other than my own.
On a fresher note, I have made considerable progress in my personal time management, allowing me more time to blog and write technical articles. Expect me to be more prolific now with at least two updates per week, just like old times. :winky:
Charles Koechlin: La Méditation de Purun Bhagat, Op. 159:
Tone poem from The Jungle Book
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | See the 1 comment | comment here)
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Under the direction of Castro Community on Patrol, Friday night was the night of my first patrol service. We couldn't have asked for a better patrol beat that night! Our three-person team patrolled the north side of Market Street to Duboce Park, and though it was an uneventful beat, this is the kind of night perfect for new recruits. We did seem to deter a drug transaction while we stood at Noe and 14th Street, watching a rather sketchy "businessman" wait for customers, his face nearly concealed by a low-drawn baseball cap and a dark hooded sweatshirt. Yes, he probably skitted off to another neighborhood, but honestly it's better if the bastard does that somewhere else.
As we walked down the streets of the Castro, I was amazed at how happy and receptive people were to our patrol service. Nothing but smiles, compliments, and thank-yous from one block to the next. Is that sweet or what? We did also speak to many guys and gals on the street, handing out plenty of safety whistles in the process. People behaved themselves for the most part, and we only had to remind someone once... "Remember, blow it only in an emergency."
I am perfectly fine serving the community once per month, and if we're short-staffed, I'll add a night per month to my beat schedule until we assemble the forces we need to sweep the neighborhood every Thursday night to Sunday night (we currently only have enough for Friday and Saturday night). Needless to say, if you would like to join us, please just send me a message!
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For Kevin |
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | No comments yet | comment here)
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 | CCOP |
I joined the Castro Community on Patrol, an organization of volunteers who coordinate patrols through the Castro area in an effort to deter crime and educate people about safety in our community. I went through my first training session, which was a very eye-opening experience. In just three short hours, I had far more respect for our understaffed and overworked police force than before. We are here because the SFPD simply cannot respond to all crime happening in our district, and they are profoundly grateful for CCOP organizing these beat patrols.
My first patrol happens on the 30th, and by then I'll have all of the standard issue and equipment to join my 3 person team. After my first night, I'll explain much more about the team and how we conduct our operations. Quite a few organizations supplied the cash to make this community service a reality, including the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence! Thanks to them, we have radios, orange vests and shirts, flashlights, clipboards, and whistles.
If that doesn't sound like a big deal, it actually is, because there are approximately 120 of us! We are still too few in number, and we need to grow the volunteer service to well over 200. It's tough to find good volunteers and keep them, because after all we are exposing ourselves to risk by joining the patrols. I guess one can say that we're just flat-out crazy. Or maybe it is that some of us have chests that can deflect bullets. :winky:
If you live in the general vicinity and would like to join our beat patrols, send an email to me, or visit our website at www.castropatrol.org.
Lastly, click here for a Quicktime video about CCOP.
... and no, I won't be wearing my stormtrooper armor.
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | No comments yet | comment here)
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