To What Do I Give My Valuable Attention?

Setting the Stage:I’m on the bike at the gym, and everyone around me has an iPod. It’s a pretty middle class gym in the desert, and my fellow gymnasts are probably listening to music that gets them in the mood for cardio–disco, maybe, or punk, or rock. I’m listening to a podcast. I am, after all, technically a representative of “the grandma factor,” so the people around me would probably guess it’s NPR I’m listening to.

Nope. It’s the chaotic ramblings of half a dozen middle-aged geeks with absolutely no social skills, who think nothing of talking over teach other, embarrassing each other, insulting each other, and even hanging up on the call. Yes, it’s my new Fave Rave, The Gillmor Gang. I am addicted to it. And it’s just like every addiction — unhealthy. For them, though, not for me.

Example. The call starts with comments about the quality of the sound, and the defiant assertion that it will not get better. Half the people are on their cell phones, on Skype, on speaker, or in the air. Love it or leave it.

It meanders on to the fact that one member, Doc Searls, has had a stay in the hospital. Do we ask how he is feeling? Of course not. We ask “are you dying, Doc, or just trying to get attention.” or words like that. Then we proceed to laugh like high school kids about how if he had been taken ill a week earlier, he would have been able to be in a New York Times story about how blogging causes death.

Scoble calls from an airplane over the Atlantic. He says he is paying $2.00 a minute, and everyone suggests that they talk over him and let him waste his money.” By this time, one of the members of the call, Mike Arrington, has already hung up out of boredom. Or perhaps out of anger.

Because Steve Gillmor has announced that he will not tolerate any more conversations about advertising as a business model for technology products.

As I listen to this call, which is mostly about Twitter and how it is going to make money (as it has been for many months), I am laughing out loud, while everyone around me is sweating. This call always makes me happy.