22 going on 67
p2pnet news view P2P:- I had another not-fan email waiting for me today.
They arrive, from time to time, and this one accuses me of being, “an old fart” using the internet to pretend to be “something I’m not”.
p2pnet isn’t me. It’s a kind of forum. I may have started it, but it doesn’t really belong to me any more: it belongs to the people who read it and contribute to it, and anyone anywhere who shares with others. I post my thoughts, other people post theirs as comment posts, or articles. Or they just hang around, sometimes emailing me rather than posting.
So how old am I?
Twenty-two. I stopped using drugs and alcohol 22 years ago. That’s when my life opened up, and p2pnet is an essential ingredient.
I admired the late George Carlin. I think he and I probably would have gotten along. His physical age didn’t get in his way, and IMHO, the only people to whom age matters to are those to whom it mattters to (if you see what I mean 
).
Apparently, it’s Barbie’s 50th anniversary. We live on Vancouver Island in BC, Canada, and my daughter (12) is off to Victoria, today, with her grandmother, an avid doll collector, for a kind of Barbie birthday party.
My parents and my wife’s are dead, so Emma doesn’t have a grandmother. But Gladys, a wonderful lady originally from Ireland, ‘adopted’ her when she was about four and they’re now probably closer than any ‘real’ granddaughter and grandmother. They’ll both have a ball at Barbie’s birthday.
Why am I telling you this? Because I’ve just started writing music again after a break of five or six years (I’ll be posting a new song later today) and while Emma and her mother are in Victoria, I’m going to have a lot of fun working on my music — when I finish with p2pnet for the day, of course.
So to my not-fan, I’m 67. If that matters. And as to your suggestion on what I should do with p2pnet, from the look of your email, I’d say you stand an excellent chance of doing that to yourself.
Cheers!
March, 2009
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March 7th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
LOL
“and this one accuses me of being, âan old fartâ using the internet to pretend to be âsomething Iâm notâ.”
Must have been either:
a) someone in the “entertainment” business
b someone in the anti-p2p business
c) someone from Bell
d) a jealous nutcase.
e) one of the 5 you chased away
:p
March 7th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Can’t wait to hear your music Jon, I hope you license some of it under creative commons
March 7th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Hope you pay 30$ and put in on Jango so I can hear it
March 7th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
@ Gubatron: http://www.p2pnet.net/story/18418
Below is the one Iâll be putting up today, when I get around to it.
You are the one –
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Cheers!
March 7th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
i too hope you put it under cc so that people like me can download it and remix it and send it back to you
March 7th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
It is under CC, so help yourself. If you want to hear it now, go to the end of this story – http://www.p2pnet.net/story/18724
Also go here – http://www.p2pnet.net/story/18418
Cheers! And thanks …
March 7th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I sort of laugh at some of the young folks. I don’t mean that in any derogatory way. I mean it in amusement.
You see, these things have a way of coming around full circle. When I was a young feller, I had all the answers…or so I thought. Young, dumb, full of come, as they say, out to change the world. Parents were part of the old way. I figured I knew more but then I hadn’t lived long enough to know what they knew. Later in life it came to me when I looked back in my memory of how things were, I didn’t fool anyone but myself. Most of the time, they knew just what I was up to, whether I told them or not. You see that as often today as it was then.
Young folks somehow tend to think the internet is for whatever age they are. You know, it doesn’t really occur so much that older folks are on the net too. Text doesn’t usually show it except to the perceptive. If you take a look though, a lot of the thoughtful posts and contributions in text are from the older generation. They’ve lived a life, with all the travails and joys that come with that as life is nothing if not full of change, good and bad.
To see one think that because you’re old you have no contribution is merely a refection of one young that has not thought it though. One day though, they get it if they live long enough to arrive.
March 7th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Reader’s write:
Good points. I’m (get this) 35, and my wife is 54. We met when we were co-workers at a previous workplace. The thing is, the “generational” thing doesnt — as has never — made any sense to me. Why? Primarily because all through-out life, I’ve been fortunate enough to come into contact with people of all ages AND different socio-political background and viewpoints.
In the area of Pennsylvania I’m from (which I’ve recently taken to calling “Possum Gulch” as something of an “inside-joke” with others here at p2pnet), there are significant populations of very conservative “Pennsylvania-dutch” type mennonites. There is also a sizable Latino/Hispanic population, many, but not all, relocated from New York, and of Puerto-Rican ancestry. Why do I mention it?
I mention it because having been able to meet people from many different backgrounds and “age-groups” strips away any preconceptions you might have had about them. Once you get to know them *as people* — rather than as whatever cardboard-cutout way you think “people like that are supposed to be”, then you can make real progress.
I also have been fortunate to have had some really-vivid counter-examples in my life: whether it was my Mom who, having rather sternly counseled me against racism when I was a kid, started referring to “ragheads” in the aftermath of 9/11, or my heroin-using half-brother, Mark. During my teenage years in particular, he was extremely into the White-power strain of racism — every conversation seemed to revolve around some combination of: Jews, The Federal Reserve, the Illuminati, or Freemasonry.
So what do we find out about a year ago?
He not only has a girlfriend, but — she’s black!
So, I’d personally say — don’t take it to hard, Jon. The guy in the email obviously has some kind of preconceptions about what kind of person ’should’ be doing something like p2pnet.
Regrettably, there’s a certain sort of half-truth to that type of thinking — or rather, unthinking.
This is especially true in areas where technology and freedom overlap:
A lot of us who read and contribute to p2pnet are really concerned about the threats posed by runaway copyright terms, patent corruption, eavesdropping, attempts to censor the ‘Net, etc. — because we’re also concerned about those issues everywhere else as well.
I like the thing the one guy at the TPB trial said: “We don’t use IRL, because EVERYTHING is “real life”, we use AFK instead.” — very clear understanding by that guy, that the Internet, and new types of community/interaction it allows, are VERY much “real”
Sorry for the digression, there
But let’s say your a teen, or in your early twenties. You’re acutely concerned about these issues, and when you look around, you notice that a significant proportion of the opposition’s talking-heads are from “the older generation”. This could easily lead you to believe that it’s a “generation gap” thing (which incidently, plays straight into the hands of our opponents, because they can just dismiss the whole p2p/free culture/anti-censorship thing as “youthful rebellion.)
See the article about Neil Young (or as he ended up being called, “neil Old”) for a clear example of how that kind of thing can happen.
I dunno, sorry for rambling — I’m weird.
Anyway, I’m out for now. Don’t let it get you down, tho, is all I’m sayin’.
March 7th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Hey Henry:
Pissed off, Yes. Down, No.
Everything I went through to get to where I am today at 11:16 AM Pacific was worth it.
Now, itâs day-by-day, and sometimes minute-by-minute, and when you think about it, no one on Earth has any more than anyone else tha this single moment of time we all, without exception, live in. And share.
Cheers!
March 7th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
“Now, itâs day-by-day, and sometimes minute-by-minute, and when you think about it, no one on Earth has any more than anyone else in this single moment of time we all, without exception, live in.”
Very true.
(Which begs the question: WHY our wannabe corporate overlords feel the “need” to keep raping the public domain with copyright term extensions. (Yeah, this IS one of my big pet peeves, because whether people want to realize it or not, every act of creativity ultimately builds upon — or is at least influenced by — the past. At the most basic level, people learn from one another.
Sorry — I just get passionate about this subject, is all.
March 7th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
geee, old fart is a kind of a (odd) term of of indeerment around these parts.
so yep john you are just an old fart