Draining Parking Lot Pond
I went to the flea market with friends last weekend and we're talking about movies and stuff, and I had to admit that I haven't been into much horror or sci-fi lately, mostly I've been into pleasant realms. They said what do you mean (which is a natural response) and I said "you know, nice little zones on YouTube where it's just something nice and not too involved, no story, like for instance a guy who loves unclogging drains and culverts and he goes out in his spare time and films it". They said "oh yeah, totally". So for this inaugural post, that's what we got, the first thing that springs to mind. Here's username Post 10 :
This isn't a showstopper by any means but I figure it's a good place to start. I feel like the appeal is pretty obvious here-- he's a guy that loves to unclog drains and culverts. There's no jokes or quips or personality moments, there's not really any intrigue or mystery, it isn't even soothing. He has hundreds of videos like this, and they range in time from 6 seconds long to over an hour. This is not his job, although he has been trained in clearing drains and culverts. He's been doing this for years so now the channel has branched out to other topics as well, but the unclogging playlist remains strong. This still feels like the old weird internet that I love.
I'm sure we've all dealt, either literally or metaphorically, with a bunch of crap that clogs up the system, with unavoidable moments where the system is dealing with more than its designed to process. I love that in all of these videos, he never gets mad at the blockage or the inadequacies of the system, he just calmly goes to work. And if his regular method doesn't work, he has a special trick-- using his rake to grind the blockage into smaller pieces that flush through the system no problem. I do that too, I guess, metaphorically, sometimes. But I don't know if I take as much pleasure in it as he does. That's something worth emulating.
The other big takeaway for me is the idea of doing something kind for the infrastructure. I watched a bunch of these vids, and they don't make me want to go out with a rake and clear a culvert (in fact the About page clearly recommends against doing this, for safety reasons), but it does make me want to do something, even if it's just picking up trash on my street. I don't know if these videos are "art" but that's a pretty noble aspiration for any artwork-- that it should make you want to do something nice for the infrastructure.
Peace everyone.
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As I said, this is the inaugural post on a new project for me. I didn't think about this when I started writing but guess the metaphor is pretty clear that I'm opening up the channel again and getting things flowing again. If you like this sort of thing, and you didn't already subscribe, subscribe! It's free, and it's inspiring to me to see the subscriber numbers go up. There's a paid option too, right now I'm thinking every fourth one will be behind a paywall? Getting paid would rock but I'm so resistant to it because I came of age in the free internet era (pre-streaming). Anyway I'm giving it a try. Signing up for free is completely no problem. :)
Shoutout to Greg Harvester for reminding me of Post 10 recently! Greg has his own email newsletter thing, it's great. It's all photography of his rambles and some small rambles about the photography. That link is here: [http://subscribepage.io/KpeHh1]
and his other internet stuff can be found on this perfect website I made for him: [https://remoteoutposts.com/]
Post 10 “drains and culvert cleaning” playlist is here: [drains and culverts]
More next week!!