About a year ago, when national treasure Merlin Mann took a brief hiatus from his blog, 43 Folders, he recruited a selection of substitutes to post in his absence. Much to my amazement, I was one of his recruits (due no doubt to Merlin’s love of the Meat Puppets and not anything he might have encountered in these pages). Time permitted the completion of only two pieces, and I fear neither revealed much in the way of useful tips and tricks for his life-hacking hungry readers. I was more interested in poking fun at the whole idea of “productivity strategy” than I was in actually being “productive.”
Summer is never the easiest time of year for my brother Damon. Living as he does out in the middle of the desert with nothing but generator power and water from a shared well, it can be a challenge to keep himself cool. But even during the coolest time of the year, it’s tough trying to get him to offer me any back story on the televison program he produced during the 90s for Access Tucson’s public access cable station. Though I’ve asked him to contribute to my series of excerpts from his show, so far the only response I’ve gotten from him is a terse “just keep ‘em coming.”