Dearest Everyone 3-2-11
Dearest Everyone,
I have been meaning to write to you for some time. So very long. It’s amazing, because I have found that even communicating on the internet inspires feelings of dread and terror. I am experiencing uniphobia. The fear of everything. It’s exhilarating in many ways. Did you know that we are all existing, in a galactic sense, in a perpetual freefall? Gravity may ground us, but we are all hurtling and sinking and expanding at dimensions and speeds that baffle and defy. That you’re even reading this is miracle enough to cut to the core of me. But I have things that need telling and there has to be an archive of events. We are pioneering into the bright new tomorrow armed with computers a trillion^3 fold more complex than anything our forefathers ever hoped to discover. Damn it.
I tried recapping 2010. I did. It was never published because I think it all became too much to relate. I will search for the attempt and return to this train of thought. Yes. I have found it. I will transcribe it verbatim for your benefit;
[Begin Dearest Everyone 2010]
Dearest Everyone,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Everyone treasures and fears the holidays for a number of reasons. For me, more than celebration, the Christmas season is a reminder that the year is almost done and what the hell did I do with it? Coupled with the crippling shame of being too financially irresponsible to contend with gift giving, it is a time of the year I stopped enjoying around the same time I started working at The Wal. One thing that helps the entire process, particularly the question of what I did with the year, is to write a letter that explains many of the things that have happened the previous year. Try to find the principal lessons learned from them and then post it on the internet for posterity. For those of you who continue to cyber-stalk me.
But mostly Merry Christmas. Everything is kind of terrible out there, but I think it’s going to be getting better. When I say things are terrible, I mean that the world is terrible. There is terrible stuff going on. The terrible things make more of the news than the amazing stuff, probably because there is a lot more terrible going on. The thing is, people can do amazing, or terrible things, and I think there’s a pretty even split. Doctor transplants face to mutilated burn victim, lone gunman kills five before turning the gun on himself. What pushes us into the terrible is that nature can suddenly do things. Like ruin cities. Kill thousands. It’s tough to work against nature, and nature never does something awesome. Rather, nature does consistently amazing and baffling things every day, but we have taken them for granted long enough not to put it on the news. Fantastic sunset grips the very soul of teenager considering suicide and returns him to hope. Will not be on the news. Just the ones who kill themselves.
The news isn’t helping anyone is what I’m saying. This has little to do with my year in that I have only influenced the news mildly on a primarily local, with occasional state-wide press. Another year flying a burning para-sail under the radar. It’s just that I read and watch and hear about so much news, and it’s really making me pretty depressed over the whole thing. Infotainment sucks. Where’s Dan Rather? Where’s Connie Chung? I liked the news better when it gave me information and news without the propaganda and fear. I think Rupert Murdoch thinks fear sells news, but the thing is we’re not scared about most of the things they want us to fear. I get most of my relevant news from Facebook. The people I know find the information worth knowing. I know many intelligent good looking people. There’s a little something for you stalkers.
But the year. Yes. Grandma died at the beginning of the year. It was devastating. Just devastating. I still think about her everyday and wonder about the job that I did both taking care of her at the end and being a grandson in general. I am going to write a play about her life that goes into the details about that and maybe that will help. This holiday season was rough without her. I don’t know what happened in January. Ruth and I had our anniversary. Grandma died and we had her service and then Ruth’s Grandmother died and we went to her service. That was January.
February was Valentines and Con of the North. March I was rehearsing Man of La Mancha and Wait Until Dark when I wrote Bagged Lunch. If you know what any of this means then you know that I was working very hard to try and do something amazing. I am really proud of these projects. Particularly Bagged Lunch, which I think is one of the better plays I’ve written, and was masterfully performed. I really enjoyed Man of La Mancha as well. It was a really great show and Patrick creates fantastic work. Shortly thereafter I changed my advisor to him and we’ve been trying to get me a degree with varying degree ever since. I also won something that will allow me to audition for the Irene Ryan Scholarship. I recently found out that Irene Ryan is granny from Beverley Hillbillies. So. Imagine that.
I’m not sure what happened in April. I may have been attempting to summon a world ending storm. Still no luck on that one. Church of Q stuff. I’ve been working on developing a cult for a while now. I’m at the research and courting Gods portion of the process. I plan on completing The Book of Q this next year, and it will be a work of fiction, but none of this stopped Hubbard from getting a really great cult off the ground. Unidenominational Future-Church to Save the World. I think it’s a more compelling argument for a religion than Battlefield Earth, and the line between cult and faith is all a matter of followers. Everyone needs a hobby and a faith.
Likewise May eludes me.
[End Dearest Everyone 2010]
And that was just where I had to end. I wrote that in December. Still not entirely sure where May went. June I turned 30. July we went to Folk Fest. August I produced Grimaldi’s Chicken for the Fringe Festival. September I moved in with Grandma Mary and began work with the cast and crew of Footloose. October I believe Janet and John and I flew in a plane while I leaned out the open door with a camera. Thanks to Kirk and Saarens we were able to realize the dream of Friday Night Swordfights. November Footloose did great and then I went underground. December is a point in my life I started writing this first failed attempt at gathering it all together. Christmas was strange.
But that is not all of what happened. That is not even a fraction. That’s just the things I consider worth mentioning. There were other things. Romantic things. Nerdy things. Dangerous things. Sad things. Hilarious things. But I can’t remember all of them. No one will. They are gone and the future looms delicious. So, to bring us up to speed, I did not get the Hillbilly money. I went to Ames, Iowa, and was cut in the first round. EB/AB and JL/JT did us proud at semi-finals, and the real reward was returning home to be told that theater is over at BSU. There was a protest. We protested that shit. And Garrison Keillor mentioned it when he was in town.
Today we got $300,000 in insurance so we can take over the basement of Brigid’s Cross to turn it into a studio. There have been a lot of roadblocks and trials and tribulations and negotiations and contractual bargaining and all manner of board resolution and here is where the rubber meets the road and we start pioneering into the digital future. Begin to assemble the archive. Because in the end history is all just an archive, and we now have the power to be a part of our shared history. We can create a digital culture together and it will be like none other before it. You can have a program that could be watched by millions. You could create a program that could be viewed by your ancestors. Not great grandchildren or even great great grandchildren, but their great great great grandchildren. You could address them with your thoughts, or hopes, or recipes, or batting tips, or dating advice. Or you could just show them the things you enjoy, like fishing, or sports, or games, or hobbies.
We need so much help. So very much help. I get a lot of people asking me if they can help, and I just want you to know that I am calling, through space and time, for your help. We need powerful people whose ideas are as strong as their wills. We need pioneers. To the pioneers and the braves I send this fervent plea; UpStream TV needs you. Because things are only going to keep getting weirder, and I want to get it all on the record. Up front and personal. We don’t need the news networks anymore. I can tell you the news every night, if that is something you want. I can promise to talk you down every night after telling you the worst and the best of what humanity is doing to one another. Dennis Wieman does a great job, but the Republicans are out to end Lakeland. This is our Lakeland. We are the guardians of the sacred waters.
This is the year we have to start winning it back. This is the time and this is the place for men and women of intelligence to take a stand against fear and divisiveness and create the town on the hill. I challenge you to challenge yourself. Because if we let the cynics, the critics, the hypocrites, and the bureaucrats tell us it can’t be done, then it won’t, and our world will only be as good as the worst of us believe it can be. That part of your character must be subdued and your inner warrior summoned. The Digital Revolution will be televised, and it needs your support.
Beyond this the goals continue to be The World Renewal Initiative, Global Peace and Prosperity, and Freedom and Justice for All. Gods Bless.
Regards,
Jeremiah
I have been meaning to write to you for some time. So very long. It’s amazing, because I have found that even communicating on the internet inspires feelings of dread and terror. I am experiencing uniphobia. The fear of everything. It’s exhilarating in many ways. Did you know that we are all existing, in a galactic sense, in a perpetual freefall? Gravity may ground us, but we are all hurtling and sinking and expanding at dimensions and speeds that baffle and defy. That you’re even reading this is miracle enough to cut to the core of me. But I have things that need telling and there has to be an archive of events. We are pioneering into the bright new tomorrow armed with computers a trillion^3 fold more complex than anything our forefathers ever hoped to discover. Damn it.
I tried recapping 2010. I did. It was never published because I think it all became too much to relate. I will search for the attempt and return to this train of thought. Yes. I have found it. I will transcribe it verbatim for your benefit;
[Begin Dearest Everyone 2010]
Dearest Everyone,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Everyone treasures and fears the holidays for a number of reasons. For me, more than celebration, the Christmas season is a reminder that the year is almost done and what the hell did I do with it? Coupled with the crippling shame of being too financially irresponsible to contend with gift giving, it is a time of the year I stopped enjoying around the same time I started working at The Wal. One thing that helps the entire process, particularly the question of what I did with the year, is to write a letter that explains many of the things that have happened the previous year. Try to find the principal lessons learned from them and then post it on the internet for posterity. For those of you who continue to cyber-stalk me.
But mostly Merry Christmas. Everything is kind of terrible out there, but I think it’s going to be getting better. When I say things are terrible, I mean that the world is terrible. There is terrible stuff going on. The terrible things make more of the news than the amazing stuff, probably because there is a lot more terrible going on. The thing is, people can do amazing, or terrible things, and I think there’s a pretty even split. Doctor transplants face to mutilated burn victim, lone gunman kills five before turning the gun on himself. What pushes us into the terrible is that nature can suddenly do things. Like ruin cities. Kill thousands. It’s tough to work against nature, and nature never does something awesome. Rather, nature does consistently amazing and baffling things every day, but we have taken them for granted long enough not to put it on the news. Fantastic sunset grips the very soul of teenager considering suicide and returns him to hope. Will not be on the news. Just the ones who kill themselves.
The news isn’t helping anyone is what I’m saying. This has little to do with my year in that I have only influenced the news mildly on a primarily local, with occasional state-wide press. Another year flying a burning para-sail under the radar. It’s just that I read and watch and hear about so much news, and it’s really making me pretty depressed over the whole thing. Infotainment sucks. Where’s Dan Rather? Where’s Connie Chung? I liked the news better when it gave me information and news without the propaganda and fear. I think Rupert Murdoch thinks fear sells news, but the thing is we’re not scared about most of the things they want us to fear. I get most of my relevant news from Facebook. The people I know find the information worth knowing. I know many intelligent good looking people. There’s a little something for you stalkers.
But the year. Yes. Grandma died at the beginning of the year. It was devastating. Just devastating. I still think about her everyday and wonder about the job that I did both taking care of her at the end and being a grandson in general. I am going to write a play about her life that goes into the details about that and maybe that will help. This holiday season was rough without her. I don’t know what happened in January. Ruth and I had our anniversary. Grandma died and we had her service and then Ruth’s Grandmother died and we went to her service. That was January.
February was Valentines and Con of the North. March I was rehearsing Man of La Mancha and Wait Until Dark when I wrote Bagged Lunch. If you know what any of this means then you know that I was working very hard to try and do something amazing. I am really proud of these projects. Particularly Bagged Lunch, which I think is one of the better plays I’ve written, and was masterfully performed. I really enjoyed Man of La Mancha as well. It was a really great show and Patrick creates fantastic work. Shortly thereafter I changed my advisor to him and we’ve been trying to get me a degree with varying degree ever since. I also won something that will allow me to audition for the Irene Ryan Scholarship. I recently found out that Irene Ryan is granny from Beverley Hillbillies. So. Imagine that.
I’m not sure what happened in April. I may have been attempting to summon a world ending storm. Still no luck on that one. Church of Q stuff. I’ve been working on developing a cult for a while now. I’m at the research and courting Gods portion of the process. I plan on completing The Book of Q this next year, and it will be a work of fiction, but none of this stopped Hubbard from getting a really great cult off the ground. Unidenominational Future-Church to Save the World. I think it’s a more compelling argument for a religion than Battlefield Earth, and the line between cult and faith is all a matter of followers. Everyone needs a hobby and a faith.
Likewise May eludes me.
[End Dearest Everyone 2010]
And that was just where I had to end. I wrote that in December. Still not entirely sure where May went. June I turned 30. July we went to Folk Fest. August I produced Grimaldi’s Chicken for the Fringe Festival. September I moved in with Grandma Mary and began work with the cast and crew of Footloose. October I believe Janet and John and I flew in a plane while I leaned out the open door with a camera. Thanks to Kirk and Saarens we were able to realize the dream of Friday Night Swordfights. November Footloose did great and then I went underground. December is a point in my life I started writing this first failed attempt at gathering it all together. Christmas was strange.
But that is not all of what happened. That is not even a fraction. That’s just the things I consider worth mentioning. There were other things. Romantic things. Nerdy things. Dangerous things. Sad things. Hilarious things. But I can’t remember all of them. No one will. They are gone and the future looms delicious. So, to bring us up to speed, I did not get the Hillbilly money. I went to Ames, Iowa, and was cut in the first round. EB/AB and JL/JT did us proud at semi-finals, and the real reward was returning home to be told that theater is over at BSU. There was a protest. We protested that shit. And Garrison Keillor mentioned it when he was in town.
Today we got $300,000 in insurance so we can take over the basement of Brigid’s Cross to turn it into a studio. There have been a lot of roadblocks and trials and tribulations and negotiations and contractual bargaining and all manner of board resolution and here is where the rubber meets the road and we start pioneering into the digital future. Begin to assemble the archive. Because in the end history is all just an archive, and we now have the power to be a part of our shared history. We can create a digital culture together and it will be like none other before it. You can have a program that could be watched by millions. You could create a program that could be viewed by your ancestors. Not great grandchildren or even great great grandchildren, but their great great great grandchildren. You could address them with your thoughts, or hopes, or recipes, or batting tips, or dating advice. Or you could just show them the things you enjoy, like fishing, or sports, or games, or hobbies.
We need so much help. So very much help. I get a lot of people asking me if they can help, and I just want you to know that I am calling, through space and time, for your help. We need powerful people whose ideas are as strong as their wills. We need pioneers. To the pioneers and the braves I send this fervent plea; UpStream TV needs you. Because things are only going to keep getting weirder, and I want to get it all on the record. Up front and personal. We don’t need the news networks anymore. I can tell you the news every night, if that is something you want. I can promise to talk you down every night after telling you the worst and the best of what humanity is doing to one another. Dennis Wieman does a great job, but the Republicans are out to end Lakeland. This is our Lakeland. We are the guardians of the sacred waters.
This is the year we have to start winning it back. This is the time and this is the place for men and women of intelligence to take a stand against fear and divisiveness and create the town on the hill. I challenge you to challenge yourself. Because if we let the cynics, the critics, the hypocrites, and the bureaucrats tell us it can’t be done, then it won’t, and our world will only be as good as the worst of us believe it can be. That part of your character must be subdued and your inner warrior summoned. The Digital Revolution will be televised, and it needs your support.
Beyond this the goals continue to be The World Renewal Initiative, Global Peace and Prosperity, and Freedom and Justice for All. Gods Bless.
Regards,
Jeremiah
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