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The increasingly inaccurately-named blog of journalist and futurist Chris Taylor. Either the most sporadically brilliant amateur blog, the most brilliantly amateur sporadic blog, or the most amateur sporadic brilliance on the Web since 2001.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
Do you write any other blogs, by chance? Could that have something to do with the fact that Daily Blah isn't always Daily?
Yes -- the Future Boy blog for Business 2.0. And yes. If you want true, editorially-mandated daily coverage from me, that's probably the best place to look.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
Praise for Daily Blah:
"It is fun to watch the author's navel-gazing joy." - Sunday Times (UK)
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"Dude, lay off the crack pipe." - Souris Hong-Porretta, gamesmith
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Daily Blah for... Wednesday, July 09, 2003
Dean There, Done That
For the How Dean is Winning the Web story in this week's Time, I spent one evening last week with a bunch of Dean supporters up in San Rafael. These were people who found each other online, and got together in the kind of numbers you just don't see at political meetings these days. It was a cathartic, democratic experience out of another era. Everybody got to introduce themselves and get exactly what they hated about the current administration off their chest. There were a lot of lovely sensitive types (artists and software engineers), but they were by no means in the majority. These were decent, honest folk who were sick of the direction this country is taking. There were, as I say in the story, even a couple of Republican turncoats (a stockbroker and a venture capitalist).
The release of tension was palpable. This was, you could tell, the first time most attendees had felt able to say really nasty things about Bush in public. It was like a group therapy session. And with Dean's campaign gathering steam, it also felt little like San Francisco in the middle 60's. To quote one of my favorite Hunter S. Thompson quotes:
There was this fantastic, universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail ... We had all the momentum. We were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave ...
The mood was so buoyant, I practically signed up on the spot, and I don't think Dean has a hope in hell of winning. I mean, have you seen this little movie where Rob Reiner introduces Dean? The governor looks short, shifty, uncomfortable, and he has his fists clenched in his pockets the whole time. He may tell truth to power well, but he has all the charisma of Dukakis. I know the Dean supporters I met in Marin don't see this, because they are in love with the man. As I told P. on my return, I loved being part of their catharsis. I just don't want to be around when their hearts get broken.
(And if by some miracle I am proved wrong in November 2004, by the way, I will gladly eat every piece of headgear I own.)
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