What Is Hip: The Name, the Man, the Blog

The Name
“What Is Hip” is a song that will turn your funk all the way on! (WARNING! Video link featuring smoking horns AND Carlos Santana.) But this page is not a tribute to god-like purveyors of East Bay Soul Tower of Power, all those visitors who plug “what is hip” into search engines notwithstanding.

So what is What Is Hip? What Is Hip is the What Is of Hip, formerly known as Hippolyte Lizard, or Hip Liz for short. Once upon a time I needed a nom de net for those pointless battles in Usenet. I thought about it for maybe seven seconds and combined the French / Argentine pirate (“California’s only”!) who raided Monterey one fine autumn day in 1818, with a scaly creature who lies around in the sun a lot. I thought it was a fitting and ridiculous handle that could be twisted several different ways. I liked being called Hip, as if I was (as if). I liked that “Liz” gave me some extra androgynous camouflage. I thought there would be other fun ways to twist it such as Hoplite Lazyrd, Hip LeZard, er, I dunno. I was a dork. Yeah. Good times.

The Man
Light brown/blond, medium length, short sideburns. Six foot one, one hundred eighty pounds. No distinguishing marks or features; tattoo on left shoulder blade. Eyes hazel/green. Wouldn’t have hurt to shave today. Several nose hairs need plucking out. No thanks, I got it.

Born in Berkeley, CA, on the thirteenth anniversary of Hiroshima and the sixty-eighth of the first execution by electric chair. Not quite a 49er: my ancestors didn’t start trickling into California until the 1850s. Parents split up when I was four. Played trumpet (jazz etc), lettered in soccer, Berkeley High School (grad 1976), wasted my early twenties not doing shit. Married at 29, graduated college (BS Electrical Engineering, CSUS) at 30, became a proud father at 30 and at 32. Various techie jobs (all hardware, virtually no software, for those who care), Master’s Degree (Computer Science, CSUS) at 43, owned a couple houses, been a landlord (it sucks). Wife was general contractor on current house nestled in verdant bucolic surroundings.

Presently employed by Infamous Megamultinational Corporation, Cube Farm Division, doing obscure technical things in the service of obscure corporate objectives. Occasional international travel, self-driven, team player, blah blah blah.

Random fact: I’ve dreamed of being a writer since sixteen. Aspire to write historical fiction, alternate history, mystery and any good stories that just draw you along. Have learned that when it comes to writing, wrestling self to ground and kicking self out of way is a lifetime’s work.

More random facts: I can not live without music and love all kinds. Different kinds of music serve different kinds of needs, so get out with your preferential snobbery. Though I tend to alternate socially between shy and reasonably not-shy I am relatively fearless as a musical performer. Voice is bass / baritone, nearly three-octave range on a good day (two and a half more typical), can sight-read pretty well. I don’t particularly like the sound of my own voice but what can you do.

The Blog
Same as every other. A place to write stuff. Post pictures. Interact with all you weird people. Write more stuff. This part is kind of self-explanatory and naturally evolves with the subject. If you still don't get it, you won't.

Revelations

Things have to change around here. I keep wrestling with the blogging concept. This (mis)use of time and energy is not highly regarded by certain people in my life. But I keep not quitting. Quitting just ain't happening. So I figure, all right, something's got to change, so what I'm gonna do is post more, not less. There's never a shortage of material. Just a shortage of "interesting" material. Or at least of time to present it really well. So, screw that, it's only a blog. Let's see what comes out, quick and random.

Doing dishes, I quickly and randomly scanned channels for the TV. Stopped when I saw Tony Bennett singing. PBS had some sort of thing on with him singing with various artists, like Sting and Elton John and k. d. lang. Oh my God I love his voice (lang's too). So that was it for me. I washed dishes and sang "For Once in my Life" with Tony and Stevie Wonder, and so on.

So? Well, here's the deal. Tony B. sounds great, looks great, and he's only six months younger than my dad (well, my dad looks pretty good too). These guys are WWII vets, past 80 years old. To sing so well, there's more than luck involved. He's been doing his bel canto exercises for a long time. I figure, all right, I want to live to be a fine old singing dude, I should be singing bel canto too. So maybe I will. Maybe for '08 I'll do something I've never done in my whole life: Take voice lessons. Hey? I was actually thinking of restarting the martial arts training, but what the hell. What will really save your ass when things go bad outside a biker bar at one o'clock in the morning? Some attempt at shou shu that'll just piss the guy off, or a nice rendition of "Some Enchanted Evening"? Huh? Seriously.

Unlaid Off

I got another job the old-fashioned way: networks and good old boys.

1. Looked on the internal online open job requisitions tool for jobs that weren't total non-starters for me.

2. Took note of the hiring manager and then searched for him in the internal online managerial hierarchy tool to see if there was anyone in his group whom I knew.

3. Also searched everyone who reported to his boss and to his boss’ boss to see if there was anyone in the tree whose name at all sounded familiar.

4. Contacted them and asked what they do (and how they're doin' and what's new and blah blah blah).

5. Wrote the hiring manager with a newly-adjusted CV attached and dropped names of people whom I now knew he knew, sometimes with an “unsolicited” comment coming from them as to how good a fit I’d be.

6. Had a filtering interview in which the manager decided how full of shit everyone was, or wasn’t.

7. Had other interviews, mainly technical, with other people in his team.

Did this with several different groups. Looking for a job was pretty much a full-time job, until finally on the Friday morning before Christmas I got a job offer and took it.

It’s true what they say: It’s not what you know, and it’s not who you know, it’s who you know and then it’s what you know.

I know when a manager has open slots, he or she wants to fill them with good people right away, especially here at the end of the quarter cause when a new quarter hits, the money for those openings can be yanked away faster than a Presbyterian collection plate. My new boss wanted it all done so he could go away for Christmas and not have to worry about it any more. That worked for me. I shift over on the new year. Will find out then whatever it is I now do for a living.

It was a strange coincidence that most of the laid off people I knew best were white males over fifty (or nearing it, in my case). It was clear that if I didn’t grab something by year’s end, I’d likely be done at Infamous Megamulti. It would be very hard to get back in (used to be, people came and went a lot during the cycles). Now the place shrinks without growing so much later, and when it does grow, there’s a strong preference to hire the URM*, experienced or not, when bringing folks in from outside. I really have little against that policy. “Diversity” is a modern corporate value, whether or not it benefits the bottom line, and encouraging women and minorities to enter the technical fields is all good as far as I'm concerned. But I need a job too, so the smarter I am about ducking these layoffs, the better.

And no, no pay raise or any other change. You kidding? No more travel either.

* URM = Under-Represented Minority

Happy St. Stephen's Day

We went to the Christmas Eve service. My mother was visiting, and it was important to me to go find a local one and go with her. We all went to a little old Episcopal church near here, founded in 1856 (that’s truly venerable for these parts), small and wooden and peak-roofed and decorated with Greek Orthodox artwork. It was a little old place with a little old choir made up of little old people and full of celebrants who may or may not have been regulars, very small town stuff. We three men tried to sing bass when the hymnal provided it and just the melody otherwise. My guys, who aren’t church-goers anymore either and were baptized Presbyterian anyway, found the experience sort of new and interesting if not strange. Somehow I got the giggles. Really not supposed to get the giggles in church, especially when you’re old and mature like me, and I got in trouble with my wife for it. But what the hell, it’s Christmas, it’s a joyous time! Too joyous to recite the congregation’s part of the Eucharist in such dour and dreadful tones, but that’s how Episcopalians do it. All my kid had to do was add the tiniest bit of inflection to his voice and I was off giggling again. And then we went up for Communion, and I tried to give instruction but you know how hard that can be when it’s something you learned as a child and just do. So I knelt there with the wafer a little bit and the priest got to my son first, and he didn’t know what to do and didn’t pop that wafer into his mouth soon enough, so it got grabbed and dipped in the wine and he didn’t get to drink from the cup and was all disappointed afterwards and wanted to go back around but I didn’t let him.

Everyone has beliefs and the beliefs of thoughtful people are true for them and due full respect. I don’t tell my sons what to believe, I only tell them what I believe. It doesn’t happen to include a God at this time but my outlook on the universe is sort of mechanistic. Other viewpoints are equally valid, so long as they are arrived at honestly. My kids’ sort of disdain for religion is due to their callow youthfulness, I think, and will mellow with age. Who knows, they may become believers, as they find ways to fill the spaces they discover within themselves. Whatever truly works is good. Meanwhile I suppose I’m a hypocrite for going through the motions at a church service. But at Christmastime I enjoy it. The reasons are buried within my psyche and do not really require a lot of analysis. My boys got exposure to a part of their own culture, both at the family level and in a broader sense. All the observations they had the opportunity to make are theirs to use as they see fit.

In other news, the kid that made me laugh has become a big opera buff. Even put a few classic operas on his Christmas list (and got ‘em). The other one is developing a healthy taste for jazz and for classical music, and insists I read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People now that Christmas is over with. It’s his Bible. He’s sixteen. Kids these days.

Now it’s St. Stephen’s Day (“Bright the stones which bruise thee gleam, sprinkled with thy life-blood's stream”), or Boxing Day in some parts, or, around here, Kid With A Retail Job Has To Work Nine Hours Day while the rest of us kick around wads of wrapping paper and eat leftovers.

Wie treu sind deine Blätter

Paula requested a picture.

As usual the thing is about twice as tall as me. Every year I discover how much stronger my sons have become. Not so long ago I did pretty much all the work of hauling it and setting it up, with assistance that could best be described as willing. Recent years it has almost gone up by itself. Once up, I string the lights, as that takes a combination of tactics, long arms and acrophilia that haven't yet entirely passed along. Then the Miz takes over and the decorating happens.

Why don't I help decorate it? There is no certain answer. I don't mean to leave that part be, but I have increasingly complex reactions to the Christmas season and the Miz has learned not to wait for me to gear up for it. I don't really get into Christmas until a few days beforehand -- yeah, like now. Until then, I am full of emotions, most of them variants of depression, as well as a weave of procrastination and preoccupation that accomplishes nothing helpful, not to mention my increasing disdain for the religion of consumption that is this particular festival's most visible hallmark. But a time comes when all that begins to pass, and the beauty of the tree, its needles green and true, helped along by some seasonal music by Buxtehude, soaks into my soul, along with a sort of peace, and it all finally begins to make a little sense.

New Post if by "Post" we mean "Whine"

This title was directly ripped off from Roy. I changed it a little so as to be guilty of a lesser form of plagiarism. Much worse than George Harrison's when he allegedly borrowed the tune of the Chiffons' "He's So Fine" for his big hit "My Sweet Lord". I think they went overboard on that. I was listening to country the other day and heard what I swore was a country rendition of "Shooting Star" (Bad Company) except they'd made some major changes, it wasn't the same song at all, and I realized, huh, that's a total rip off. Yet so far as I know no one's said a word about it.

I looked up old George on Wiki and I thought it said he was an influential satirist but no, they said sitarist. If I had a sharper wit I'd make something of that, needles to say.

So anyway my employer, a division of IMC that was supposed to lead the corporation into a new marketing space by acting like a start-up, instead acted like a start-up run by a corporation and went through some pseudorandom head cuts and the heads cut included mine. But I still have an office and go to staff because I am still an employee until Jan 2. This is to provide me some benefit for being full-time employed throughout the year, has to do with bonuses and health insurance etc.

It was fun to sit in staff yesterday and hear the boss say we're in pretty good shape, got allocated this many millions of dollars, and though we're headcount constrained we can hire contractors and consultants as needed. Needles to say, I mean needless, I very nearly pointed out that contractors generally cost more than in-house engineers unless of course your staff is expected to keep shrinking. But I said nothing. It's unprofessional to be snarky and besides, the remaining heads need to figure that out for themselves and take steps. Some did so a few months ago and have jobs in other divisions. I now wish I was as smart as them.

My whine is that I am now in my last week. The holiday season effectively shuts everything down, so there will be no more interviews and hiring decisions after this week until I am officially out. So to stay employed, to stay within the inconstant embrace of the mother corporation, the people I've been talking to need to decide to hire me within the next few days. No one's said yet they won't, but no one's said they will either, and Christmas is right around the corner, and I just haven't been able to get my mind into it, and my wife has run the numbers and determined we can't afford for me to be unemployed after all, and it's cold and rainy outside, and when viewed from the outside with the path ahead rapidly crumbling, the world looks very cold indeed. Yes, I have many blessings to count, but I have also often looked at the world through the eyes of my inner homeless person, aware that but for a few lucky chances I'd be at my rightful place under a blue tarp at the river, watching the rain hit the water, and wondering what the hell I was supposed to do.

There are so many ways I could explore that theme.

One of them would require a very rugged typewriter.

I am still trying to produce the Christmas-gift DVD. Never mind the details, I've been working on this thing for months. It overtaxes the old desktop I got maybe five years ago. Finally, I appropriated yesterday the machine my son and I rebuilt last year. Cleared a space on the backroom desk and set it up. It is a Core Duo with a big SATA hard drive and is working out much better. Wish I'd done it months ago. Last night I was up until two trying to get video to render. Still getting errors and errors, but I am getting them faster, and that helps.

My coordination of the Christmas tree pick-up fundraiser is working out, at least. We make a couple grand off of that typically, or used to, to pay for badges and supplies and defray the cost of summer camp etc. But every year, sales are down. People have artificial trees these days and don't need the Boy Scouts to come round after the holidays and take their trees away for a small donation. Those small donations add up but they don't add up like they used to. Maybe next year we'll station scouts at a few tree lots to solicit sign-ups. The grocery store isn't yielding enough customers. We have learned that every shift needs a cute new scout to offset the older cynical scout, and that properly asked, people will make donations even if they don't have a tree. But still.

Tuercas Locas

Haven't posted in awhile. Maybe I'll start again. Having been cursed with interesting times and all.

What gets me right now is evidently some Joe in PA has gotten into trouble for posting a sign at his restaurant requesting patrons order in English. I absolutely cannot believe he'd get into trouble for that. Was this not once a free country? If he wants to restrict his business to folks who aren't put off by such a sign, that's his right. The cawing by various lawyers and government officials that his signs "give a feeling of being unwelcome and being excluded" and "discourages customers of certain backgrounds from eating there" is a load of populist mob-rule hooey. Nor do they violate a city ordinance that prohibits discrimination in public accommodation on the basis of race, ethnicity or sexual orientation, as those have nothing to do with language. Indeed, I'd like to know why anyone would expect to be able to order in Russian or Pashtu or Spanish or Chinese or whatever other languages are most common in his neck of the woods in the first place. Complaint over this is the kind of boneheaded nonsense reminds me our country is proceeding to eat itself alive.

To state the obvious, in case anyone is boneheaded enough to miss it: If he or anyone else wants to run their shop in Hebrew or Farsi or Hmong or French, they absolutely have the right to do so. There are plenty of stores in San Francisco without a speck of English anywhere in sight. Is anyone complaining who's worth listening to? Of course not.

Tree and Leave

As we have done for thirteen years, we went up to Pollock Pines today to cut our tree at a family-owned, minimally maintained tree farm. My son took a hatchet because he felt like chopping things. My other son grabbed a measuring pole, even though we never need one because we always get trees that are longer than the pole. I carried the saw. I watched both the hatchet and the pole – really a length of PVC pipe – swing through the air as we went down the path between the trees. Boys never change.

“You have a battle axe,” I said. “And you a pike.”

“What’s that? Your battle saw?”

“My war saw. It’s a Polish weapon.”

Thirteen or fourteen feet of noble fir for thirty-three bucks. We’re going to need deals like that for awhile now. Last week my division went through its warned-against downsizing and I was among those hit. I am now looking for a job within a shrinking company at a time of year when budgets are short and staffing is static. If I don’t find one in the next two weeks or so, my twelve years four months as an engineer for Infamous Megamultinational Corporation will come to an end.

Seniority? Accomplishment? Capability? If you are familiar with high-tech you know they mean nothing. It is always about cutting headcount to make a number, and selecting whichever head happens to be in this bucket or that box for the bad news.*

Are there other high-tech sorts of jobs in California’s third-largest metropolitan area? Maybe a few. Not more than a few. And there is no shortage of engineer types vying for them. It will be a very interesting year, this one coming up. But meantime we will have a merry holiday season. Got a bunch of walnut and almond for the fireplace, plenty of leftover DiSaronno from the Italy trip, and my wife’s a fabulous cook. The severance package will get us partway though the Spring. Chin up and all that, what.

* - There is always much more to it than that, of course, but I never learned how to be popular on the junior high school playground.