Return of the Overweening Generalist
A bloglet on books, science, culture, on what was "the counterculture", music, and a buncha other schtuff 'n nonsense
Why didn’t I start a Substack sooner? Lemme confess…
‘Round two years ago, I started reading some really terrific Substack folk - especially Ted Gioia’s The Honest Broker. He’s my guru and has no idea he is. Sometimes I’d comment at Ted’s and get all kinds of good response, with people “subscribing” to my non-existent Substack. How does that work? I still don’t know.
Which is what I’ze gonna get to: why didn’t I start this sooner? Some of you have read my old same-named blog at Blogger, some my interminable ramblings around counterculture stuff - especially Robert Anton Wilson - and some of you have actually read an essay by me in a published book or three. I am nothing if not prolix, so why didn’t I Substack earlier? Lemme confess.
1. Why this, why now
This rubric (above: “why this, why now”) was provided by the Stackers to help prompt me. As if I need that! Hookay, I’ll bite: if we’re going down with the ship, I wanna go out screaming my barbaric yawp.
And now: the confession. And it’s maddening and painful and you might read it and go, “WTF is wrong with this guy?” I don’t blame you.
So: today is Maybe Day (as I write this, still.) I thought, “I’ll set up my new Substack on Maybe Day! The site says “it’s easy” and that it’ll “take 15 minutes.” Now: the embarrassing part…
I actually wrote a comment to a post on another Substack today. This very thoughtful person was about the 20th person to tell me, “You should start a Substack.” She added she’d read anything I wrote. So: nice, right? Yep… And I actually tried to explain why I hadn’t started a Substack in my comment. I read my comment out loud to a friend who knows me very well and she laughed a lot listening to it. Because it’s the truth. I’m pathetic! So I’m gonna basically cut ‘n paste from an earlier comment I made on someone else’s Substack. After a brief comment on some other matter, I address why I’m not on Substack (lightly edited for clarity, ‘cuz I was wingin’ a comment, typing like mad; and maybe to add more levity):
>Now: here's the problem: all things having to do with "user name" "password" "two-step authentication" - much less linking to some damned "payment system" - will make me break down and cry. After 15 minutes, I will NOT be set up on Substack to write, but will be writhing on the floor, wailing and gnashing, desperate for my Happy Space and not even close to being "all set up." And it's somehow my fault. Why? Because this stuff is ease-the-pease-a-roonie for everyone else. Like: everyone else, seriously. Something's most definitely very Wrong with me.
>Wait: Do you want us to store that information here, here, or here? What? Just show me where to click so this will all end...it's not ending...next page...more "personal data"...Who would remember the ID code for my password for "this device"...Oh, that's right: there are passwords stored somewhere now. Do I need a password to find them? Where do I begin to look? No, not there. Not there, either...Maybe something to do with one of these icons at the bottom that I never use or pay attention to? The idea of just giving up is startin' to look pretty darned sweet...What if I've sustained some sort of brain damage from having to deal with something loosely linked under the rubric "Internet Security"? Because that's always how I feel: after two hours, I'm ready to call some Hotline for psychological meltdown.
>If something's "only 15 minutes" I know it will take me a grueling four hours, minimum. If at all. Bet on: not at all. Let it ride. Put on my headstone: He Never Got With It, Digitally.
>If I finally succeed after 90 minutes of trying to figure out that they want me to use my camera on my phone (I don't use my camera for anything) to take a pic of a QR code on my laptop screen - what? are we in some sort of dystopian HELL now? WTF? Will Roko's Basilisk be dogging me with a red-hot pea shooter for all this? - and for what, why, (the Russians? Cambridge Analytica Zuckerberg types?) how does Google worm its way in..I thought this was Apple? What's this payment system called Splice or whatever? Never hear of it…probably ends up straight into the bank account of Peter Thiel, who can’t possibly have enough…They want my bank number? Well, if I’m getting paid at some point it makes some sort of academic sense…(Anxiety attack...hyperventilating...) I don't know what or how the Chrome password...it's written down in some stack of papers over there is it still there? or... why? WHY? Why must I do this before that and do I want to "personalize" it? What does that even ENTAIL? Does anyone read the terms and agreements or should I move on to the next step? Wait: what and why is this the next step? What have I just done? Can I undo it? Yes, that's my town on a map...how did I get here? I just wanted to write about James Joyce...Etc, etc, etc.
>It's always been this way for me: the entire workings of the digital world activate some sort of anxiety for me. I mean seriously: it's like I'm missing a gene or something for all this. Wait: Ah! after 20 minutes I realize they want to send a secret code to my phone, which is technically an "iPhone"...which I honestly forgot. (I know: how stoopid can a guy get?) It's certainly not an iPad. To me, it's that annoying thing I'm forced to own in this world, because that's simply the way things are done. It's my "goddamned phone" which I literally forgot is technically an "iPhone.”
>That's how cemented-in my Gutenberg sensibilities are. Going from me and physical books (soooo comfortable!) to these digital gadgets is like the transition from 2D to 3D in Flatland for me: another, mysterious world. And it never gets better. But it's where everyone else lives. I always feel like a Visitor. And that I will need my 3D-land parking validated through some six-factor authentication, notarized by some hacker-looking guy named Chet, with earrings and tattoos who works for Google/Alphabet/Facebook/LinkedIn/Apple/Meta/Netflix/Palantir/Big Bro Inc: ya know, he makes more money in a week than I see in a year and I don't understand ANY of it.
>Other than that, I'm fine.
Yep. That’s all true. If I’m exaggerating it’s only a bit. I do not do well with tryna manipulate all the digital garba…ehhh…gadgets…in this world. I remember when it kicked in: a week or so after I got an email address for the first time in 1995 or so. And it just kept happening. I did not become “acclimated” to the digital environment we’re all in. To this day, I have a rough time doing stuff y’all can like falling off a log. Like finding a file. Like embedding some text. I can’t believe I’ve apparently started a Substack here, and I doubt as I’m writing that any of this will make it to you. I had to have done something wrong. When I first read about The Pauli Effect I thought: That’s me! That’s me ‘n machines! I want to like machines, especially digital gadgets. It has never really worked out for me. Lemme read physical books and write to you; past that I’m floundering, flummoxed, and far from home. So hey: digital technology? I’m sorry. It’s not you (although we never got along), it’s me. And my own idiocy. I suspect there’s something in the DSM-V about my mental malady. (Is there a DSM-VI? I got a frisson in the entry on Acute Anxiety in an earlier edition…) I do wonder about my condition/ineptitude/”sorry-assed cluelessness” (that last item is not in the DSM-V).
A lot of people love to tinker and even “hack” their gadgets to wring the utmost from them. If I try that, I get locked out and have to re-set a password and go through some n-leveled-factor authentication, and by then I’m a wreck and have a tough time finishing my Raisin Bran. Get a load: lots of people LIKE dickering with their digital gadgets. To me: setting up this Substack (if it is indeed set up…I will soon see…I’m harboring strong doubts) was neck and neck with a root canal. Or just, ya know, a really nasty paper cut, that kind where you feel the pain (Oops!) but the blood only appears about 20 seconds later. Oy!
All of which is to say: you best enjoy this blather of a blog or whatever it is, ‘cuz it was pain to set up. I don’t wanna have to go through this again.
I think the real kicker is: I know, deep down, that the good folks at Substack tried to make it as EASY as frikkin’ possible for people to get started. I believe them. They probably did make it super effing simple. For most people. Not moi. I used to think that reading a lot of books as a kid somehow made it more awkward to deal with the digital, but that’s just bullshit: too many examples of fine readers who also sail through all this with ease. I have no excuses, but I also have no…diagnosis.
Okay: enough with this embarrassing and boring confession. If any of you know someone like me, let me know. Misery loves company. If you think you have a line on WTF is wrong with me, let’s hear it. I can take it.
2. What kind of community am I looking to build here?
This too is a Substack prompt: basically the same people who liked the primitive pre-Mottled Rump version of Overweening Generalist. Ideas around the Eight Circuit Brain, music, psychedelic drugs and cannabis, books and book reviews, film, intellectuals, odd histories, archives, “reality” (ha!), science, and RAW. Did I mention books? I will try to not write about all those Big Words that make us so unhappy, to paraphrase Joyce.
3. Frequency Effects
I plan to post anywhere between one and two times per week, so if you get an article that’s truncated and ends in the middle of a sentence or even a word, you’ve been forewarned: it’s the dreaded 1/2 post. IF this occurs, assume the worst. It can only get better from then on.
Imma try to make this Damned Thang look better. Gimme time. You just read what a clueless asshole I am when it comes to this jit.
4. Use an image and “subscribe” buttons
A picture will look nicer when you share the post on your social media (click the image icon in the editor to search for copyright-free photos), and it will give color to your archive as you build it.
[EDIT ME]“Subscribe” buttons (found in your editor under “Buttons'“) will make it easy for new readers to subscribe to your newsletter with one click.[EDIT ME]
5. Ignore our advice
There is no one true way to go about building a Substack. This is your playground, experiment with it. If you’re having fun, your readers will too.
(But trust us on the “subscribe” buttons!)
It's a Maybe Day miracle! So super psyched to have the Overweening Generalist back :)))
Thank you for writing this. I struggled to set up Zelle this morning. I have challenges similar to yours with new technology. Working as a teacher I have to learn to use a lot of computer systems, and as soon as I start to feel comfortable with them, they usually go out of business or the school switches to a new computer system.