RE: bronzie's 5 questions for august[1]

These have been making the rounds, so why not?

What is the last item of physical a/v media you bought?

I'm not sure. It has definitely been awhile. My views on intellectual property usually make it so that most of my media purchases are at shows or events where I purchase directly from a creator of some form. However, there are exceptions to that.

I had to go and ask my wife and she mentioned the last few. The most recent media purchase was vol. 2 of the n-o-d-e zine[2]. I have not read through it all yet.

Does your first IRL (non media fantasy) crush know how you felt about them?

I have no idea who would qualify as that person, but it is almost absolutely certain that they did not know. Or at least not from me telling them.

1994 or 2014? Why?

Oh man, 1994 for sure. I would have been just entering middle school. That was a rough time in many ways and I did not have a lot of friends. I had gotten really into music the year before (Iron Maiden, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots) and as things moved forward my love of that 90s rock sounds grew a lot and I really lost myself in that. I, through a neighborhood kid's influence, got into skateboarding around that time. I was never good at it, but I liked it and felt like it played a part in my view of who I was at the time. Around that time I had a nintendo (many people had super nintendo by that time, but I never upgraded and just stuck with the nes all through jr high and high school). Looking back from now, there was also a bunch of great hip hop at the time too... though I did not know it as a kid. I still look back on the zine and cassette culture (oh man did I make a lot of mix tapes for girls I liked but could never quite tell them that I liked them, so the tape was the best I could do) and the associated punk and riot grrl scenes as a great cultural moment. Things seemed possible. In the next few years I would get my first computer (a long outdated 386 I got used at a thrift store) and discover the internet (mostly used for learning to draw Dragonball characters or chat with random people about all kinds of weird topics at the time). I look back on that time period extremely fondly, even if that exact year was a rough year full of transitions for me.

2014 was mostly a nothing year. I rode my bike A LOT. I volunteered at a bike co-op, but did not have many friends left in the area so spent a lot of time alone riding and listening to music. I worked a lot at a job I didn't like. My now wife was still with a man she thought she'd marry and we (she and I) didn't talk much because he knew about our past and that it was mostly distance that made it not work. It would be another year before they'd break up and another two years before I'd visit and convince her to move back to CA and into my studio apartment. Everything got a lot better after that, but that was still in the future in 2014... I mostly just felt tired and alone throughout most of 2014. Pass.

City or Countryside?

I grew up in what could be considered suburbs, I suppose. Though there were pockets of mini-urban areas peppered throughout. We were a short drive to LA and a slightly longer one to San Diego. I have generally felt that all cities are the same. If you've been to one you've been to all. I get that that is a major oversimplification. I guess I just don't like the speed and pace of the city. I don't like how entwined in capitalism cities are. I think cities, particularly big ones, ruined humanity. I am in the process of buying a home that is classified as being in a rural area (in the mountains). If all goes well I will have a garden and some space pretty soon. Trees, quiet, better air, seasons, space. I'm looking forward to it. I have family that farms back east and I always loved visiting their farm as well. At least at the moment, country aligns more with what I want out of life.

If offered either of the following for free, which would you choose - 2020 Apple Silicon Macbook or 1982 Grid Compass 1011

I'd like to say I'd go for the Grid Compass 1011. I have no interest in the Macbook either. I think I would sell either one. I don't really need any more computers. If I were to want anything at this point it would be a solar power rig to power a small disaster system with a lot of knowledge stored on it that could be used offline. But that wasn't the question.

[1] Bronzie's five questions for August.

[2] Node Zine vol. 2 (WWW)