I was going to write a post complaining about 2008′s crop of music, but after reviewing a few more year end lists in addition to the first two that prompted my ire (Rolling Stone, NPR) it’s clear that I was just listening to the wrong things.

It’s not entirely my fault — people were getting excited about some pretty boring stuff. I wasted a lot of time on new acts that focused on nostalgic sounds, folksiness or acoustic arrangements. That’s fine — the world needs a way to fill its Starbucks compilation CDs, after all. But I’m only interested in that stuff in small doses, and this year offered a surplus that was so vast as to be off-putting: Bon Iver, The Dodos, She & Him, The Ting Tings, Vampire Weekend and Fleet Foxes were inescapable. It would be naive to pretend that bands can or should avoid being informed by the past, but many of these acts wore their influences (e.g. Paul Simon, the guy who invented reverb) on their sleeves a bit too prominently for my taste. And the rest were just flat-out wussy. I prefer music that makes me feel young, especially now that I’m not anymore.

Other, more established acts released albums that were pretty okay, but less than mindblowing. The Hold Steady treaded water entertainingly; Mates of State inched forward rather than blasting upward; Wolf Parade finally reemerged but failed to match their debut; and Kanye made a great album that no one would be calling great if it were by, say, Imogen Heap. Also the Killers, Death Cab and Coldplay all released albums that I’m told are pretty good, but which I’m content to ignore until their component tracks show up in Rock Band.

There were two albums that both made it to my iPod and seemed to actually possess some vitality: the ones from Girl Talk and Lil Wayne. Not coincidentally, both underscored how doomed the old recording industry system is. On the one hand you’ve got Gregg Gillis, whose work is fresh, engaging, and commercially unreleasable thanks to our intellectual property regime. On the other you’ve got an album that frankly seems just okay*, but which was seized upon in order to anoint a deserving new talent who’d done his reputation-making work on mixtapes and other artists’ releases — although admittedly a huge commercial success, Tha Carter III was a rallying point as much as it was a collection of songs.

Anyway, I’ve now got a formidable list of 2008 albums to acquire: Titus Andronicus, Frightened Rabbit, TV On The Radio, Deerhunter, the Walkmen (sorry Amanda) and Gaslight Anthem (sorry Spencer). That’s a lot of music to get through before the new year, but I’m optimistic that the exercise will leave me feeling cheerier about 2008 and the musical downturn that’ll inevitably be brought on by the coming Democratic administration (less suffering means worse art, or so the theory goes).

* I won’t pretend that I know much about hip hop, but I find it hard to believe that anyone can make it all the way through “A Milli” when wearing headphones. On the other hand, the parts of “Lollipop” that aren’t stupid are genius.

It looks bad on paper. A rap song about the Blagojevich scandal filled with wonky in-jokes? Sure, points for adopting a timely form. But Mark Russell could set up a MySpace page, and that wouldn’t make it okay. Actually, it’d just underscore the outrages that he continues to perpetrate.

But damn if Spencer doesn’t have a knack for this stuff. This isn’t the first such track I’ve heard him cut that runs along these lines. Could anyone write a verse as verbally profane as Blagojevich’s profaning of the public trust? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try:

Alright, enough of this “saying nice things about employers” nonsense. That’s not what the internet is about! It’s about complaining, goddammit. So let’s do some of that.

To wit: the YMCA. Man, I really like the YMCA. I grew up going to one with my family; once I moved into the city I joined the National Capital Y pretty quickly. It’s not the cheapest or best-appointed gym out there, but I find the atmosphere congenial. Everything’s old: from the unused wall nozzles that powered pneumatic equipment back in the day; to the inch-thick layer of paint on the walls; to the patrons themselves, who wander about the locker room naked while endlessly discussing squash (whatever that is). The skeptical, tentative, ever-inconclusive conversations among themerely-fiftyish men offer a glimpse into the bureaucratic lifestyle that’s hard to find anywhere else. It’s not exciting, but it’s an essential part of this city, goddammit.

But they’ve invited my wrath. Two things. First: when I signed up, they corralled me into some sort of reverse direct deposit business. I hate doing these things because I’m paranoid about giving companies the keys to my checking account. And hey, guess what? I got a letter from the Y, and I (somewhat improbably) opened it, and they had decided to help themselves to an extra $25 or $50 or whatever. Times are tough, you know. They were sure I wouldn’t mind. They just took it out from the larger wad of money, I probably wouldn’t even notice, and besides they needed it for cigarettes so they could smoke with the seniors at lunch.

This left me feeling rather cross, and the reaction from the folks at the front desk (“it’s only $25″) only buttressed my righteous indignation. But further indignities laid in wait.

Kickball. They’re hosting kickball again this winter. Not that I remember them ever having done so before, but the signs in the hallway claim they did. Perhaps we have always been at war with kickball; I don’t really know. I do know that this fills the hallways with clots of drunk or soon-to-be-drunk assholes, who whoop and don’t get out of my way even when I say “excuse me” (admittedly through gritted teeth and a facial expression designed to drive the observer to suicide). It’s a bad situation, and if you ask me, pretty disrespectful of the Y’s dues-paying members, all of whom detest the kickballers.

I should say: I know people who play kickball who I like very much. That’s the social scene they found themselves in, and so they play kickball. I can’t fault them for that. Hell, my ancestors owned slaves — we’re all victims of our milieu. Further, I understand perfectly well the need to invent flimsy social pretexts to justify increasingly worrying levels of post-graduation alcohol consumption. But most people don’t conduct their writing workshops or networking events or connoisseurship rituals in the hallway leading to the fifth floor weight room — that’s the key difference, I think. Kickball has got to go.

The combination of the two is especially galling. Kickball’s awash in money — you can tell because the idiots responsible keep trying to sue each other. This is a for-profit enterprise that’s wormed its drunken way into my quasi-charitable dues-based fitness club. And yet on top of the imposition-for-cash, they also need to steal from me? It’s a bit much. The first time I run into people playing flipcup in the locker room I’m going to wind up killing somebody.

Well, past assurances to the contrary, it turns out that I haven’t really been blogging here. I will! Soon! But it’s my first week on the new job, and I’ve been busy. Also, I’ve been tired: I’ve never been very good at waking up in the morning. At EchoDitto I’d come into work at 10 and leave around 6 or 7 or 8 if I needed to get something done. Sunlight operates on a more normal schedule, and while I’ve been managing to wake up without major difficulties, I haven’t yet gotten this “go home/to bed slightly earlier” thing down yet. So I’m a little exhausted.

Things are going well, though. It’s a bit lonesome in my office, but that’ll be fixed as soon as I hire some folks (Here’s the job listing for the first position we’re hiring for, incidentally. I haven’t yet posted the link anywhere else — it’s a Manifest Density exclusive!). And as of yesterday I have an enormous whiteboard to keep me company, which is nice.

I’ve mostly just been getting acclimated: drafting some documents, going to meetings, and finding opportunities to familiarize myself with Sunlight’s technology. You know how first weeks go. Everybody’s been extremely friendly, and it’s really great to have the latitude and time to figure out the right way to solve the problem we’re facing.

I do have one complaint, though:

These bears are part of the winter display in the lobby, and they’re really starting to freak me out.

I haven’t written anything here all week, and didn’t write much for a while beforehand. That’s because I’ve been putting off writing this post.

Today is my last day at EchoDitto. As you might imagine, it’s a bit depressing. Soon I’m going to have to pack up my desk, clean my stuff out of the fridge, and play my last game of foosball as a non-guest. This is, admittedly, all fairly trivial stuff. But I’m the sort of guy who feels wistful about throwing out old CD cases, for god’s sake. Change is hard.

Genuinely, objectively awful: the fact that I have to leave my coworkers. I’ve been incredibly privileged to work with people this kind and smart and funny. I’ve learned a tremendous amount from them: about business, about running projects, about new technologies, and about leading people. And I’ve gotten to do it while working with some pretty cool clients: SEIU, Mother Jones and Greenpeace UK all spring to mind; plus I’ve gotten to contribute, at least peripherally, to efforts on behalf of the Clinton Global Initiative, Seventh Generation and the EFF, among many others.

But it’s time to move on — I’ve felt that way for a little while, to be honest. The sorts of projects you get as a consultant can be a bit homogenous. Billable-hours work can be a drag. And I have to admit: I’m pretty sick of Drupal. I figured that if I was going to keep doing this sort of work, I might go freelance for a bit — even PHP is fun to code when you’re in your pajamas. Or maybe I’d wander the earth fighting injustice. I hadn’t really decided.

Something came up first, though, and I’m extremely excited about it. As of Monday I’ll be working for the Sunlight Foundation, an organization that I’ve long admired. I’ll be heading up the technical side of their latest project — it’s exciting, and daunting, and I can’t wait to get started. It’ll mean a whole new suite of technologies and challenges; a chance to assemble and lead a team of programmers; and an opportunity to build a tool that — if we do it right — could help people understand some of the ways our government works and how they could be improved. And, importantly, it’ll be a chance to learn from a whole new set of brilliant colleagues.

You’ll be hearing much more about this from me soon; for now, suffice it to say that I’d love to hear from any talented developers who might be reading (particularly if they know Python) — thomas.j.lee (at) (google’s popular email service).

It’s going to be strange to leave EchoDitto. Three years ago I asked for advice about whether I should come work here. The best advice I got was from Tripp:

My experience in the tech world is that after awhile it *all* becomes relatively boring. Today’s kewl new becomes tommorow’s has been. Most of the kewl new is hype and remarketing of the old.


So my advice is to focus on the people. How do you feel about the people you currently work with? If you feel good and you think it will stay that way then stick it out.


Good people can make boring work fun, and after awhile ALL work becomes boring. I say this after 27 years in the booming computer field.


So focus on working with good people.

He was right. Six months later I wrote this (while shamelessly trawling for hires):

People use the phrase “it was the best decision I ever made” to describe getting a hair transplant, or buying a boat, or ordering a Cobb salad. So I’d like to avoid joining their idiomatic ranks, but I can’t. It just seems so obvious. These are the smartest, coolest, funniest, most talented people I’ve ever worked with, and the job itself is interesting, varied and rewarding. I look forward to work every day. Okay, every non-hungover day.

I’d be lying if I said I was still quite that giddy on a day-to-day basis. Things have settled down, I’ve gotten older, and the nature of the business — and the internet — has changed. But the part about the people is still true. I’ve met a lot of amazing folks because of EchoDitto. Thanks to all of you for letting me count you among my friends.