MarkUpdate 2005
Hello, Everybody!
This was certainly a year of quotable quotes, and they are the theme for this year's MarkUpdate 2005! I will actually cover things that happened during the last half of 2004, but I write it in 2005, and I probably won't have another until 2006, so it is now MarkUpdate 2005! Allow me to kick off the quotable madness with these words from Winston Churchill: "If you're going through hell, keep going." Now, I'm not talking about trench warfare, or even desert storms. I am talking about the various pieces of life that don't meet with your approval, and then proceed to compound themselves upon various other unapproved pieces of your life. You know what I'm talking about... Blah happens to you, blah goes your health, blah goes your car, blah goes your girl, and maybe even your job, and just when you think you can't take anymore, Bush becomes President for a second term and hell actually freezes over—due to global warming— with you in it!! What do you do?? KEEP GOING!! Well, that's what I did. I kept going. And now I'm on the other side of that hellish hill. Bush is still President, but I've managed to deal with that before, and I can do it again-- though this time with more activism. But that is for another letter. There are other more personal things to discuss first. Like my move to SF. Belmont to be exact.
Quick Reference Summary of Topics:
- Move to SF (Belmont) - "Theory of Single People in SF"
- Breakup with Girlfriend - "It'll pass"
- Tough times at work - "Death Spiral"
- Turned 30!* - "I'm 30, and I'm Gonna Throw Up"
- Dating Continues - “Soul Mate Database”
- Gospel Choir "A rare heterosexual white male who sings."
- UDOI - “Unhealthy Diversity of Interests”
- Taco Man - “I Love You, Taco Man!”
- American Music Awards - “Hello, I’m Sarah!”
- Democracy Now - “An independent radio/tv news hour.”
*I’m now 31.
"Theory of Single People in SF"
I'll get to my theory of single people in SF in a moment. First I want to tell you how to find my city of residence, Belmont. This woodsy little gem is about 15 minutes south of San Francisco Airport-- well outside of San Francisco city, but still an easy 1/2 hour drive into that single person's adventure place. Belmont is beautiful, wooded, and goes to bed at 9PM. Sometimes I do the Belmont thing and hang out with my extended family that also lives in Belmont. Other nights I do the bachelor thing and drive to SF, or some other place that stays up until at least 10 PM.
So, my theory of single people in SF the following: In the Bay Area, a person’s interest in dating new people decreases with their distance from downtown SF. A couple of years after graduating from Stanford, I moved into the city because of the absolute dearth of reasonable social outlets for young people in the South Bay. Upon my return to the Bay Area in 2004, however, I was happily dating my girlfriend at the time and had no interest in dating new people. I was happy to continue dating her, so I decided to move into a place in Belmont—minutes from both of our jobs. She, on the other hand, wanted to live in the City, so she moved there. Within a month, I got the news that she wanted to date other people. And so we have it: One point for my theory, zero points for my heart. And now I reside far from the location that would otherwise have indicated my interest in dating.
“It’ll Pass”
And so, as suddenly as she arrived, my girlfriend of a little over a year left me. Like a beautiful butterfly that lands on your nose—and stays for a few minutes, gently moving its wings. Once I got over the fact that something as fantastic as a butterfly had actually landed on my nose, and appeared to have no intention of leaving, I quickly grew attached to that butterfly. Indeed, I interpreted those few magical minutes as a lifelong commitment between myself and the ex-caterpillar. I even believed that the butterfly enjoyed me in return. Perhaps even adored the nose upon which it sat.
I hadn’t proposed to her, but I had decided she was the one for me. And then I learned a lot about love while grappling with its sudden departure. While I can’t claim to have derived a universal definition of love, nor a sure-fire path to its door, I have witnessed its power. Wow. No wonder most of modern music works with the concept. It is potent stuff! I have yet to de-quarantine entire gigabytes of my musical collection for fear of its emotional power over my emotional state.
Fortunately, I had a powerful array of helpers to bring me through that time. Friends and family called me frequently to check in on me. I threw a party to gather friends around me. My childhood stuffed animals came to life and nursed me back to me. Multiple multi-purposed journals recorded my emotional thrashing, mashing, sifting, and sorting. I even got some help from a few unexpected messengers… While sitting outside on a curb and crying, an elderly couple passed by. The woman in that couple couldn’t help but see my wrecked state and she said to me four magical words: “It’ll pass. It’ll pass.” I’m not entirely sure I comprehend all the wisdom of those words, but they helped at the time, and I’ll remember those words for the rest of my life. It’ll pass.
“Death Spiral”
The launch of Akimbo occurred in the background as I continued with my study of love lost. That’s right! Akimbo launched its product in October 2004, after several years of “pre-launch” and “under the radar.” What is Akimbo? Well, you can check us out here: http://www.akimbo.com, but I’ll explain briefly here: We sell a set-top box and service to deliver digital video to your TV over a broadband Internet connection. Like a TiVo, except that we store and deliver our own video, instead of capturing it from existing networks. We’re making a splash in the news, and hope to grow rapidly during the next few years. Keep an eye out for us!
I must note that however glorious that product launch appeared to be, it also provided me with an opportunity to meet my match. The match of my personal limits. After months and months of 15 hour days and weekends devoid of friends and butterflies, my emotions were a wreck. There was a chronic ability for the quantity of work to exceed even my temporarily superhuman efforts to conquer it. I had opportunities to hire assistance, but rarely had the time to spend in the hiring process. My boss called it a “death spiral.” Imagine yourself in a deep hole in the beach as the tide comes in. You have time to scoop water out of the hole—enough to keep your head above water—but what you really need to do is unstick your feet from the sand below so that you can swim out. But that takes time away from scooping water away from your head. Meanwhile, the tide keeps coming in, making it harder and harder to keep up using mere scoops. So you scoop until your mouth is full of water, then hold your breath while you attack the sand at your feet until you either drown or escape and swim out of the hole. Fortunately, I survived! I jumped out of that pit and moved on with my life. Got my enthusiasm back. Death spiral be gone!!
One of the nice side effects of the launch was that I was able to finally catch a moment outside of the office. I actually started spending weekends at home, and occasionally went out on a weekday night with friends. What a concept! Yes, these are the delights of a post-launch company. Once the baby is born, you can’t squeeze in any more prenatal care. So I went home for the weekend. At last. And I started dating again…
“I’m 30, and I’m gonna throw up!”
My 30th birthday party was gonna be huge. Akimbo had launched, I was back into dating, good friends were flying out-- no expense was to be spared on this evening of full-throttle debauchery. Like a bachelor party without the imminent responsibility of marriage. Just the carnage. Well, if carnage is what I sought, carnage is what I got. The morning of my big party, I came down with a debilitating case of stomach flu. Or food poisoning. Something horrible. The friends came over, but I spent the day encouraging them to play Halo 2 while I attempted to focus on the TV from my prone position on the floor. Fortunately, none of the guys got sick, but it put a damper on the festivities. Now I have to have a make-up 30th birthday party. Stay tuned…
“Soul Mate Database”
Yes, I know, it is strange to seek out one’s soul mate through carefully crafted SQL database queries managed by fundamentalist Christians (eHarmony.com). Alas, I simply cannot resist the temptations of sifting through thousands of pre-screened profiles to meet my perfect match. Or perhaps even my imperfectly perfect match. Allow me to introduce some numbers to help illustrate my desire for database assistance… It seems that for every 1500 people that I begin to pursue online, 150 of those result in some form of mutual interest, and of those 15 result in an actual meeting. And of those, one (1) results in more than one date. I’ve probably been on 15 first dates this year, and perhaps that many non-first dates. Without database assistance, I may well have had to visit 1000 bars last year—three each night!! Nope, I’m not a fan of bars—at least when compared to fundamentalist Christian controlled databases. I hope you now see the logic of my ways.
“A rare heterosexual white male who sings”
One cherished outcome of the death spiral and butterfly rejection experiences is that through it all I discovered gospel music. After quarantining most of my music due to overly emotional invocations, I didn’t have much left to feed the musical part of my soul. So I went back to my roots—early in my Fleet Street years I discovered the group “Take 6”, which combined perfectly complex jazzy vocal chords with uplifting spiritual music. I jumped from there to other similar groups, until finally in December 2004 I got the idea that I might be interested in joining a gospel choir. But where does a heterosexual white mail go to sing gospel music? I had no idea, until I stumbled upon the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir (www.oigc.org). I auditioned for the group in February 2005 and, well, what started out as a fantasy adventure has turned into a joyful passion! We have performed for an audience of dignitaries at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, to an audience of recovering drug addicts in Berkeley. We recently performed our 20th annual Christmas concert on Dec. 3 (once again at the Paramount), followed by a show at the San Francisco City Jail. OIGC has become quite an outlet for my interests in vocal performance, community service, and community-based spirituality. My, oh my! I love it!!
“Unhealthy Diversity of Interests”
Back in high school, my friends grew annoyed with my constant running from one extra-curricular event to another. They commented about it so much that they coined a phrase, saying that I had an “Unhealthy Diversity of Interests,” otherwise known as “UDOI.” For better or worse, that part of me is back in force this year. At age 31, however, UDOI seems to have a stronger emphasis on the “U.” I somehow managed to start training for a triathlon and an opera at the same time. Something had to give, and I injured my knee, so I’m back to pure opera preparation, but I’ve still got triathlons on the brain, so watch out, all you IronPeople!!
“I Love You, Taco Man!”
It must have been a lack of performance outlets this year, or some other deeply seated desire for attention. And so, as Halloween approached, I decided to create a Halloween costume that would gather the attention of the masses. Or at least be really fun. After three weeks of construction, $300 of financing, and more toxic chemicals than Dow makes in a minute, I emerged as a human taco, complete with a giant foam taco sauce bottle—ready for as many parties as my costume would survive (four). I quickly realized the popular appeal of a human taco at my first party, when I was instantly approached by six women vying for my taco-attention. The festivities continued on Saturday night, with countless requests for photos, not to mention frequent shrieks of “I LOVE YOU, TACO MAN!!” The costume was a hit, and so I knew I needed to take it to the big leagues. After a small company party, I took the taco costume to the Castro—the mother of all Halloween parties in the Bay Area. The photographing started moments after I emerged from the subway doors, and continued on through the night, peaking at about 3 photos per second. Now I know what Angelina Jolie feels like on the red carpet! Fortunately, the Enquirer has yet to contact me for fact-checking.
“Hello, I’m Sarah!”
The latest news fit for print in Mark Update 2005 is that I recently had an opportunity to work backstage at the American Music Awards! Akimbo was a featured product in the $30,000 “goodie bag” received by celebrity performers at the event, and so my job was to demonstrate the Akimbo product to any star who walked by and wanted to know more. Over the course of three days backstage, I met Sarah McLachlan, the Backstreet Boys, Babyface, and Serena Williams, to name a few. To my surprise, everybody was very friendly in person. Had they known that I was a rising star soon to eclipse their glory (as Taco Man), they might have been more hostile towards me, but I cleverly disguised myself in normal human clothes. Needless to say, they didn’t catch on to my secret.
“An independent radio/tv news hour”
Ok, so now it is time for my shameless plug for my very favorite source of national and international news. I found network news to be too shallow for my liking, so I turn to Amy Goodman, who consistently presents unique perspectives through sharp interviews, stories, and debates featuring national and international figures. Please take a moment to check out her website: Democracy Now (www.democracynow.org). I believe that you may well like what you find. Intelligent news, five days each week, distributed on a variety of formats, including Free Speech TV, channel 9415 of the DISH network (satellite TV), Link TV, channel 375 Direct TV and channel 9410 DISH network, as well as on www.democracynow.org in MP3, OGG, and REAL formats.
Well, this year is coming to a close, and so is this Mark Update. Thank you for getting all the way through it. I am shocked! And I am delighted.
I hope to hear from all of you, my dear friends, at some point down the road. And just in case you’ve lost my contact information, I have included it below.
Until next time we meet or write or call, I wish for you a spectacular, growing, quote-worthy year.
With Love and Peace,
Mark E. Dixon
Mark Dixon
1015 Continentals Way #217
Belmont, CA 94002
mark_dixon4 at yahoo.com
http://www.markedixon.org
And here are the photo highlights! Click on them to see larger versions.
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| 30 Years Old — and celebrating at work!? 2004 | Mark w/ OIGC. San Jose Jazz Festival 2005 |
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| Mark with Topher! Summer 2005 | Mark at Sister's Wedding. Summer 2005 |
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| Taco Man! Halloween 2005 | Taco Man with, um... Angels? Halloween 2005 |
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| Taco Man with Heidi Blue Hair. Halloween 2005 | Mark with Amy Goodman. November 2004 |