Disappeared (transitive verb)

• to cause (someone or something) to disappear:
• to abduct and kill or imprison (someone, such as a political dissident) while withholding information about the person's fate

This morning I wanted to hear jazz guitarist Jim Hall's Wonderboy, an album I've listened to many times on YouTube Music. But the album had been disappeared, a jarring reminder that streamed music isn't something I own.

Now spinning on the turntable is Concierto, a Jim Hall record I own and expect will remain in my collection unless a jazz afficianado breaks in some night and makes off with it.

YouTube Music's disappearing of Wonderboy is a bit like the federal government regularly disappearing people as if Constitutional terms of service have been changed as streaming subscription terms do. The American Gestapo, in unmarked armor and masks, disappear people from homes, the courts, places of business, and more, lost to secret prisons and night flights to who knows where.

Have we grown accustomed to such disappearings because our subscriptions and commerce have conditioned us to owning very little, perhaps not even our lives, liberty, or the pursuits of happiness?

Small rebellion then, my vinyl record, but I don't trust my subscriptions and sure as hell don't trust this maggot federal government. Better to take ownership of our possessions and our lives than give the American Gestapo tacit permission to disappear things, friends, neighbors in the dark of night we've allowed them to create.

Only and a Return

I opened my notebook to see that I was only on page fifty. Not on page fifty, but only there, with sixty-plus pages left to fill. That framing got me wondering, would another notebook give me greater joy? Maybe, but the pen felt good against the grain of the page, the ink shined on it, and I couldn't find anything not to enjoy there.

It reminded that it's a poor worker who blames his tools and I suspected things were going on inside me more than because of the notebook.

I told an artist friend this week that I'm not writing much lately and have let creativity fall by the wayside. My writing is all reflection, therapeutic, not creative.

The notebook has that feel. In four months I've filled only fifty pages, all of it seemingly dull and unworthy. I want creative lightning, but this isn't even electric.

The notebook is an imperfect but good tool I've underutilized such that I feel I've been untrue to myself. A new notebook is unlikely to fix me. Lightning is unlikely to strike. The fix is probably in filling one line with ink then another, gently pushing toward something even if I'm not sure what it might be.

See, there's this rock that needs pushing up this hill.

These words filled the last lines of page fifty-two. No only about it. They felt worthy enough to type and refine. This is slow lightning for sure. It's me returning, if only for a moment, to myself.

Key to the Kingdom

At work, I'm leading another organization, facing questions of budgets, staffing, and programs. I can handle those, but I struggle with really important stuff like how to unlock the bathroom paper towel dispenser.

I've thought about it for weeks, made half-hearted searches for the key, but today put a solid hour into this crucial problem.

The folks who hired me may want to rethink things.

The dispenser's manufacturer doesn't acknowledge ever having made the thing let alone listing a replacement key. The interwebs suggested a bent paperclip. Like that would work.

But it did.

I basked in the glory of the opened dispenser like it was the Arc of the Covenant, took a stack of C-fold towels from atop the medicine cabinet, loaded the dispenser, and monkeyed with the paperclip to lock it. Mission accomplished!

Two C-folds remained on the medicine cabinet. I pulled them down. Something metallic tinkled against the floor.

Yeah, the key.

There seemed two ways to frame this. I did both.

First, I cursed the gods and myself. I'd looked inside the cabinet but not on top. It was there all the time. Damn, damn, and damn.

Then I realized the key had presented itself. A gift. I've hung it inside the cabinet. Mission really accomplished.

Challenges at this new organization keep coming. I can be closed, centered on my anxieties, and cursing the gods. Or I can be open and see what happens. I'd like to say I'll alwasy be open, but it may be enough to intend to pass through anxiety on the way to acceptance.

It's time to wash my hands, pull a towel from the dispenser, and move onto the next challenge, hopefully still smiling about how things get done.

Consumer Choices (for good not evil)

I was a big Starbucks consumer. Beans and drinks. I wanted rewards on the app and frequented it when traveling. It seemed the best coffee ever.

Then a friend said they preferred local shops that invest in the community. They weren't arguing, just stating intent, it struck me.

I don't buy Starbucks anymore. Don't have the app. I buy Salt City Coffee and Recess Coffee here in Syracuse. Traveling, I try local shops. The coffee is usually better than Starbucks. It tastes less corporate.

My choices are helped by Starbucks' union busting and their CEO riding a corporate jet from California to Seattle weekly. I mean really.

But there's more.

Dad ran a small business serving the community. He sponsored my little league teams, banked in town, joined local service clubs, and earned people's trust as a local business owner investing in the common good.

A new Starbucks opened in that town. It employs a few locals, but most of every dollar spent there funds CEO plane rides, union busting, and who knows what else, all of it far from that small community.

I've grown suspicious of mega-corps. Their basic design frames customers as prey. Starbucks' CEO is interested in my consumption not my wellbeing. The owners of Salt City and Recess are my neighbors and, like Dad did, they care about this community and people such as me who invest in them.

Mega-corps also tend toward bad actions due to fear, greed, and subservience. Starbucks busted unions. Target abandoned DEI. Amazon's and Tesla's CEOs undermine Democracy.

Target is feeling consumer backlash. So afraid of the orange maggot, they forgot the power of offended customers.

Amazon's CEO opposes freedom of the press. There went subscriptions.

Tesla sales and stock are rightly getting killed because their CEO is a Nazi.

Full disclosure, I bought a Tesla in 2021. I wanted the best electric car and that was Tesla. I loved it so much I figured I'd be a Tesla guy for life, but I'll never buy again even if they get rid of the guy who gave the Nazi salute. When people and mega-corps show you who they are, believe them. Then make choices.

I've felt hopeless about the orange maggot and his minions. What can I do?

I can choose, that's what.

I choose local coffee. It tastes better. Stuff I bought from Target and Amazon I choose to buy elsewhere or not buy at all, saving money. I'll choose a Rivian vehicle next and feel a cleaner conscience.

I don't have to surrender. They need me much, much more than I need them and my choices matter more than I might think. Yours might too.