Tim Hackbarth

Good ol' Midwestern boy living in Austin, TX and playing on the Internet all day.

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  • @La Briciola (489 3rd St)
    8 hours ago in San Francisco, CA

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November 04, 09:53 PM
I think most creative people want to express appreciation for being able to take advantage of the work that’s been done by others before us. I didn’t invent the language or mathematics I use. I make little of my own food, none of my own clothes. Everything I do depends on other members of our species and the shoulders that we stand on. And a lot of us want to contribute something back to our species and to add something to the flow. It’s about trying to express something in the only way that most of us know how—because we can’t write Bob Dylan songs or Tom Stoppard plays. We try to use the talents we do have to express our deep feelings, to show our appreciation of all the contributions that came before us, and to add something to that flow. That’s what has driven me.
Steve Jobs
October 12, 05:56 AM

Beirut - Goshen

You’re the face in stone, through the land I own.
You never found it home.
You’re not the girl I used to know.

Download

October 06, 10:36 PM
Casual Work Environment
  • Andrea: helllo dave are ou there?
  • Tim: Is that French?
  • Tim: Oh, NVM. I saw your email. It's drunk :)
  • Andrea: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, i'm very drunk and i'm tryring to fugures our how ot turn off adds'
  • Andrea: i'm taking a vacation from friday-monday
  • Tim: Haha, I'll get your ads.
  • Andrea: dear tim, i love you very mush
  • Dave: Wowza
September 02, 07:20 PM

Palace Brothers - All is Grace

The blessed grace of waking up—of breathing in the sheets. And hello to you, at the window, hello to you.

Download

August 25, 03:47 PM

The problem with the Internet startup craze isn’t that too many people are starting companies; it’s that too many people aren’t sticking with it. That’s somewhat understandable, because there are many moments that are filled with despair and agony, when you have to fire people and cancel things and deal with very difficult situations. That’s when you find out who you are and what your values are.

So when these people sell out, even though they get fabulously rich, they’re gypping themselves out of one of the potentially most rewarding experiences of their unfolding lives. Without it, they may never know their values or how to keep their newfound wealth in perspective.

Steve Jobs - Fortune, Jan 24, 2000
August 07, 12:21 AM

If you need inspiration to drop out of an Ivy League school and move to the middle of nowhere, I’m your man.

Just do me a favor and tell your mom first, okay?

July 18, 09:32 PM

Al Green - I Want To Hold Your Hand

Download

July 15, 11:04 AM
Talk about what you have written, by all means, but do not read from it while the work is in progress. Every gratification procured in this way will slacken your tempo. If this regime is followed, the growing desire to communicate will become in the end a motor for completion.
Walter Benjamin - One Way Street
July 13, 06:56 PM

Iron and Wine - Die

If you haven’t seen Beginners yet, you should.

This song isn’t in the movie. But it’s a good, sad song. And Beginners is a good, sad movie.

Download

June 15, 08:05 PM

We skipped out on the gambling/whores/Prada stores of Las Vegas to go see Hoover Dam last weekend. Here’s a poorly assembled panorama of Peter spelling HOOVER.

May 24, 04:59 PM

My late-20’s will be remembered as the phase of my life where I did boring things in fun places.

May 20, 06:08 PM
One True Thing

Sometimes when I ask people about the majors they picked in college, I get an answer—regardless of the major—akin to “because it’s like, just so fundamental, you know?” The neuroscientist thinks, the brain, the brain! Everything starts with the brain. The writer thinks, where would we be without language, without the ability to communicate our ideas? The investment banker thinks, money runs the world, and he who commands it shapes the entire planet. The environmentalist thinks, none of this would matter if we didn’t have an earth to live on. The designer thinks, everything is designed and design can solve all the world’s problems.

April 28, 12:18 AM
Darwin’s notebooks lie at the tail end of a long and fruitful tradition that peaked in Enlightenment-era Europe, particularly in England: the practice of maintaining a “commonplace” book. Scholars, amateur scientists, aspiring men of letters — just about anyone with intellectual ambition in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was likely to keep a commonplace book. The great minds of the period — Milton, Bacon, Locke — were zealous believers in the memory-enhancing powers of the commonplace book. In its most customary form, “commonplacing,” as it was called, involved transcribing interesting or inspirational passages from one’s reading, assembling a personalized encyclopedia of quotations. There is a distinct self-help quality to the early descriptions of commonplacing’s virtues: maintaining the books enabled one to “lay up a fund of knowledge, from which we may at all times select what is useful in the several pursuits of life.
Where Good Ideas Come From
April 24, 08:49 PM

If you need me, I’ll be in the backyard.

March 11, 04:45 PM
What Should I Do With My Life?

I wanted to be an engineer. My uncle Jack was an engineer, and I love my uncle Jack.

When Uncle Jack’s family visited from Minnesota, he and I would play catch. Sometimes we’d even play a modified, capitalist version of the game 500. Jack would throw a tennis ball (or baseball, as I got older)…

I wrote this for the Real HQ blog.

February 02, 03:13 AM

Slow Club - Let’s Fall Back In Love

And although you are so near
In everything you do
All your doubts and fears I hope some day stop haunting you

Download

January 19, 06:29 PM

Close encounters on my walk to the grocery store…

December 24, 04:26 PM

Everything is One Big Christmas Tree - The Magnetic Fields

Nein, vielleicht ist Alles nicht ein Traum
Ist Alles ein Albtraum? Nicht, nicht!
Alles ist ein großer Tannenbaum
Rotierend im Weltraumgeschichte

In English?

No, maybe not all a dream
Is all a nightmare? No, no!
Everything is a big tree
Rotating in space history

Download

December 21, 04:34 PM
The next real literary “rebels” in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles. Who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Dead on the page. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naive, anachronistic. Maybe that’ll be the point. Maybe that’s why they’ll be the next real rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today’s risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the “Oh how banal.” To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. Who knows.
David Foster Wallace - A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
December 15, 07:09 AM
Matt's Dream

Matt just sent me an email about a dream he had last night. A dream that painted a “perfect picture of our friendship and respective personalities” he said - and I agree.

Here’s Matt describing his dream:

We were both going to Alamo Drafthouse to see Black Swan (a movie I really want to see). We were walking up just as the movie is starting and we see a disheveled man sitting there - waiting for tickets to a shitty movie that won’t be premiering for 2 days. It’s like Twilight or something but he’s been camping out for a week already so he’s obviously crazy in love with the movie.

Anyway, I’m heading inside so I won’t miss any of Black Swan but you start talking to the guy about some bullshit like why he’s so interested in the movie and how this obsession affects his life blah blah blah. I peek inside the theatre and the movie is starting so I begin to act like my usual “have to be on time for everything” self and go back to find you and hopefully drag you inside.

By this point, you’d decided to perform a “social experiment” with the gentleman outside and have lost any and all interest in the movie we were going to see. You’ve discovered he’s not very well off and this movie is one of the few things he enjoys in life. So you, realizing as much as me how stupid the movie is, proceed to offer him money to not watch the film ever.

In the end you pay him several THOUSAND dollars to leave and go home and never see this movie. The whole time I’m dumbfounded that you would waste so much money on something so crazy.

I’m pretty sure I called you a dumbass and then I woke up.

Audio

  • Beirut - Goshen You’re the face in stone, through the land I own.You never found it home.You’re not the girl I used to know. Download
    1 plays
  • Palace Brothers - All is Grace The blessed grace of waking up—of breathing in the sheets. And hello to you, at the window, hello to you. Download
    0 plays
  • Al Green - I Want To Hold Your Hand Download
    0 plays
  • Iron and Wine - Die If you haven’t seen Beginners yet, you should. This song isn’t in the movie. But it’s a good, sad song. And Beginners is a good, sad movie. Download
    0 plays
  • Slow Club - Let’s Fall Back In Love And although you are so nearIn everything you doAll your doubts and fears I hope some day stop haunting you Download
    261 plays
  • Everything is One Big Christmas Tree - The Magnetic Fields Nein, vielleicht ist Alles nicht ein TraumIst Alles ein Albtraum? Nicht, nicht!Alles ist ein großer TannenbaumRotierend im Weltraumgeschichte In English? No, maybe not all a dreamIs all a nightmare? No, no!Everything is a big treeRotating in space history Download
    2 plays
Inspir.es

Updates

  • I just touched snow for the first time this year!
    10 days ago
  • I just tried to use one of those disposable lint rollers on Marley but he wasn't having it. If only I could explain how bad he needs it!
    2 weeks ago
  • I'm looking for a freelance writer to help out with an ongoing, flexible content gig. The writing is fairly encyclopedic, but you can make it interesting. The role is on your own time, anywhere you can write (Austin, Boston, the bathroom, the beach), fun co-workers, and newspaper wages. About 10-15 hours a week... If you or someone you know are into it, email tim@realhq.com.
    3 weeks ago
  • Plug in the iPhone radio adapter and turn up the Saves the Day, it's time for an old school road trip to Iowa.
    5 weeks ago
  • I've gotten two speeding tickets this year and I don't even own a car.
    6 weeks ago
  • Any Austinites have an extra ticket to The National / Local Natives tonight?
    7 weeks ago
  • I was just talking last night about how I've never missed a flight. And then...
    7 weeks ago
  • If any Austinites don't have a home for Thanksgiving yet, let me know. We have quite the Orphan event going on.
    2 months ago
  • Happy belated birthday! (Just posting this here for future reference.)
    2 months ago

Cat / Plane / Wedding

Marfa

Mobile Uploads

Minneapolis / Gayngs

SXSW 2010

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Posts

October 22, 04:50 PM

I worked and read while enjoying an Americano in the Kreuzberg neighborhood of Berlin.

July 08, 12:26 AM

I spent a few days working and relaxing at El Cosmico in Marfa, Texas.

May 26, 09:04 PM

I worked with Dave in front of Samovar Tea Lounge on a cold spring day in San Francisco.

June 20, 08:50 PM

I worked at Mars Cafe in Des Moines at the beginning of my stay with Dane and Andy. I also overheard a girl picking up a guy (and a guy trying his hardest to sabotage his good fortune).

May 19, 05:00 AM

I spent a few days working on Pete’s porch in Chicago.

May 14, 05:00 AM

I worked with Allie at Bob’s Java Hut in Uptown Minneapolis. We drank too much coffee.

April 05, 04:35 AM

I edited an audio interview at Spider House Cafe in Austin on a Sunday afternoon. Matt sat across from me and read Ayn Rand to the chagrin of our server.

January 16, 10:12 PM

I worked outside at Green Muse Cafe in Austin on a warm Saturday in January.

November 04, 06:00 AM

I worked at the Griffith Observatory overlooking the famous Hollywood sign. The reception is spotty, but the view makes up for it.

July 11, 05:00 AM

I worked on Diamondhead Lake in Western Iowa. I also learned how to wakeboard.

June 15, 05:51 AM

I worked on the back porch (in Des Moines) by citronella. And I got organized (and excited) for the upcoming week.

June 08, 09:23 PM

I worked at Java Joes in downtown Des Moines. I also participated in a quid pro quo laptop supervision program, where I watch a laptop for the guy next to me…and he does the same in return an hour later. Thankfully, neither of us needed to use our laptop defense training…

May 22, 05:00 AM

I worked on a ledge outside Principal Park, home of the Iowa Cubs. I also got offered a free ticket to the game by a friendly passerby, but decided I’d rather work.

May 21, 05:00 AM

I worked at Royal Mile. I also ate a Portabella sandwich.

Audio

I Worked Here
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