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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:
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"Dude, lay off the crack pipe." - Souris Hong-Porretta, gamesmith
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Daily Blah for... Friday, October 06, 2006
Hair Today
It's a topsy-turvy world, dear Blah readers. The only constant is change. Small famine-filled countries are preparing to explode nuclear weapons, Republicans are chasing after Congressional pages, and Mayor Gavin Newsom has stopped wearing hair gel and has started looking like Hugh Grant. Forget about the Big One -- this truly is a San Francisco earthquake of seismic proportions. One that begat intense speculation about the impact of the new girlfriend, and whether Kimberly had instituted some sort of marketing deal with Brylcreem that just expired.
But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Newsom was co-opting the look of the old-school politician, the one that hasn't changed since the 1950s -- starched shirt, blazer, slick hair. In the age of Mark Foley, this look starts to seem more than a little creepy. And what the electorate wants in a politician -- what image suggests authority and leadership -- is bound to change eventually. We don't ask our elected representatives to wear powdered wigs and breeches any more, as much as we may like that look on the back of our banknotes.
 No, what we crave in politics and politicians, now more than ever, is authenticity. (This, by the way, is why Democrats almost always seem to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory -- they may be by far the saner party, but they're also the ones that come across as the more stiff.) What Newsom is saying is: hey, I have authentic hair. I'm an authentic guy. Believe my bangs, believe me. Or maybe he's just taking a cue from Hugh Grant's popular British PM in "Love Actually."
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