Author: Charles

  • Colombia — All I Can Say Is WAOOW!

    Colombia — All I Can Say Is WAOOW!

    Medellín Is Kinda Blowin’ My Mind

    One gets the sense that if all human activity ceased, this place would revert to a state of nature within years; not centuries, not decades, years. This is, by far, the most verdant, fertile place I’ve ever been, both literally and figuratively.

    Green Medellín

    I’ve been here just over 24 hours and have already had a bunch of wonderful, beautiful, life-affirming experiences; have already met interesting, fun people; have eaten some amazingly fresh fruit (those who know me know I loves me some fruit) and have barely spent any money.

    This city is NOT paradise. Visible signs of poverty are everywhere outside of the rich areas. The Medellín river is nothing short of a massive sewer. Crime is definitely a “thing.”

    Example: Upon arrival, I met this young Dutch dude at the airport who directed me to a bus that saved me a $50 Uber ride… and dropped me a couple miles from my hotel. Having no Colombian cash, I needed a cajero and had to navigate a treacherous set of road crossings with all my baggage, exhausted after a night’s travel. On my way to the ATM, I asked directions, and they were like, “Go that way. It’s safer.” This was in broad daylight at 10 in the morning. I found the ATM which was guarded by armed, very serious looking fellows. The display on the machine helpfully warned as it dispensed cabbage, “Cuidadté! Put your cash and card in your wallet before turning around.”

    Needing a ride to the hotel, I found a line of taxis, and the driver and his friend were salivating, saying, “Give me your phone so I can get directions.” Bro, please. I was born during the day, but it wasn’t yesterday. Pretty sure they were going to rob me or kidnap me or something… so I called Uber. It cost four bucks and felt safer.

    So, yeah, it’s not paradise. A lot of Colombians have parted with, “Cuidaté” which can mean “take care” or “be careful,” and I’ve sensed that “be careful” was moreso the intended meaning.

    But, you know, it’s like that everywhere. People get conned and robbed and murdered every single day back home in NYC. Hell, listen to the voice of experience: I’ve been conned and robbed there more times than I can count.

    Fuck, at this point I’m not exactly an easy target. I get this shit everywhere. Seen it before and clock it everywhere, even on Park Ave. Especially on Park Ave. A dapper dickhead in a $10,000 suit can (and does) rob you a lot more easily and for a lot more than can some taxi driver in Medellín.

    But I’ve digressed, as usual.

    I’m looking out my window and seeing the lights twinkle on the nearby mountainsides as if the stars had fallen to earth, reflecting on the beautiful and intense experiences I’ve already had here. If you want more of a feel for it, listen to my latest podcast episode.

    I’ll be making some videos too so check back.

    Green things just grow like mad in Medellín

    Happy 2026!

    Peace,

    Chuck

  • Experimenting With a Real Camera

    Experimenting With a Real Camera

    A big 35mm lens and no software effects makes a big difference!

    Phone cameras do have their utility and have gotten better over the years, to be fair

    I think I’m the only person in the world who considers the iPhone camera to be Barbie-tier, a neat toy for little girls but not a serious tool for serious photographers. I know a lot of people would disagree with me on this, and that’s fine.

    Not that I’m a serious photographer, but I do appreciate raw images, big images in terms of file size, images that can be enhanced to my taste with tools of my choosing, images that can be printed in a decent size with a decent quality output. (To be honest, most phone cameras nowadays do produce images that look good in print up to a certain size.)

    You’ll never see a “real” photo shoot of any kind done with a phone camera. I work in a design-oriented business that does a lot of shoots; we hire a pro with real gear, not Timmy from Marketing with his Samsung Galaxy 27.

    You’ll never see a serious birder trying to get good shots of rare warbler with a phone; in fact, such people will have ridiculously expensive lenses to capture such thrilling moments.

    The thing that drives me nuts about phone cameras is the automatic enhancement. It’s OK for snapshots and lazy social media sharing, I guess. With Apple, in particular, there is not even a setting (that I can find) that allows you to take raw images. You can save them as compressed .jpgs or whatever that stupid Apple format is that can only be seen on a little iPhone screen, you know, the one where you can play it for a second or put your finger on it to make it glow. Again, it’s a neat little toy for Barbie, but nobody will ever produce classic work with that format, whatever it’s called. I’m not even going to do it the justice of Googling it.

    A 35mm lens lets in more light — period. It’s pretty basic physics so I dusted off my trusty Canon EOS and took a few shots the other day. The light was not ideal, kind of dull for here, but I was going for deep blacks. My own eyes were fascinated by the mirroring effect of the wet black sand when people were walking on it with the last gasps of surf lapping at their ankles. I think the camera captured it pretty well.

    One thing I was NOT expecting was to capture the “vibe” so well, the peace and joy one feels in such moments. In some cases, the shots were completely candid; in others, I asked people if they would mind being in my shot.

    ZERO modification was done to these images. This is exactly how they downloaded from the camera’s SD card. Because of that, the images are very large and might take a while to load so thanks for your patience. Feel free to right click, save, and zoom in. All I ask is that if you use these images or make derivative works, you let me know and cut me in if it’s for commercial purposes.

    In any case, I hope you enjoy them!

    • The joy comes through here
    • This lady was kind enough to model for this shot at El Zonte
    • Beautiful people at Xanadu Beach enjoying the sunset
    • Sunset at Xanadu Beach
    • The stairs from my bungalow down to Xanadu beach.

  • Exclusivity vs. Inclusiveness

    Does a rich man feel lonely in his mansion?

    I’m doing my best to find out!

    A lot of you know that I’m mostly uncomfortable with putting my personal business out there on the Internet; it’s one of the reasons I don’t do “social media.” Yeah, if you go back and look at this blog over the past 20 years, you will find posts where I show my whole ass, but it’s usually in relation to some global event or trend. Right now, i have no idea what’s going on in the world. I came across something about a shooting in Australia or something but didn’t look into it and don’t care, frankly. RIP to the victims, “thoughts and prayers,” whatever…

    Anyway, this is feeling like a public diary entry, and that’s apropos to the topic at hand: the battle between introversion and extroversion, between chillin’ like Bob Dylan on an exclusive private beach or wilin’ out on a public beach with the hoi polloi. What follows is a bit personal but potentially of interest to the general public so here goes:

    I’m posting this from a private beach, the nicest beach I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve seen some nice ones. I’m here 24/7, vibing to the sound of the waves. I put my feet in the moist, black volcanic sand and play in the surf whenever I want, and the water temperature is perfect. I’ve not seen one piece of garbage in the water. The surf is better than I’ve seen anywhere, not a single rock, even a nice, smooth round one that bumps but doesn’t gash you should you catch a wave and eat earth at the end of your ride. A wonderful breakfast arrives as if by magic each morning. There are exotic and lovely flowers and birds. Only a few lucky people share this beach; it’s private, exclusive.

    But that’s the problem. I think I prefer the social beach experience. All those days at Coromuel in La Paz were so… social. I met people, normal people, working people and befriended some of them. There was music. There was food (that I didn’t cook and wasn’t served to me on a schedule). It was free, wide open to the public and inclusive, not fancy or “elite” in any way, but a breathtakingly beautiful beach open to everyone nevertheless.

    The “problem” I’m facing here in El Salvador after one week is that I’m experiencing exclusivity… and not really liking it even though this beach is objectively superior to the private beach at the Ritz in Kapalua — and a hell of a lot less expensive.

    Don’t get me wrong: I’m not complaining, just thinking. My gratitude is boundless. It’s just that this is a new experience for me and one that is both perfectly aligned with the introverted “twin” who is happy to read and write and contemplate his navel for days on end while anathema to the extroverted “twin” who happily presses the flesh with billionaires and hobos alike. It’s tough out here for a Gemini, man. We’re always at home and never at home.

    Intuition informs me that I’m going to make incredible friends here… but how do I meet them? Are they lurking in the few other bungalows and haciendas enjoying this very experience, or do I need to venture out to other, more publicly available beaches? There seem to be plenty within a mile or two.

    The wrath of my own independence bears down as well. I’m not generally susceptible to loneliness, preferring my own company most of the time, yet willing to take others along for the ride or to ride with them. But I’m really feeling the lack of a companion right now, like all of this would be better with a best friend, confidant, and lover. I suppose this is a result of ending a 20+ year partnership recently. Then again, if she were here, she’d be annoying me, killing my buzz, and ruining it for me as usual so… growing pains? A necessary respite from guaranteed company? A chance to reconnect with myself in a profound way? I’ll go with that.

    It has only been a week, but I haven’t made a single friend other than the dueña. This is probably the longest I’ve ever gone in my life without bringing a single person into my orbit. It’s a little strange, but I’ll just go with it for now.

    We’ll end it on a positive note: I have been writing, cooking yummy food, playing my guitar, and flowing nicely at my day job. 24/7 wave action does that to a person, no matter how thick or jovial the crowd.

    Peace,

    Chuck

  • Thoughts on WordPress…

    The last iteration of this blog, chucklinart.com, was hosted on a CockBox VPS where SSH keys were needed. It ran on a homegrown Python-based blogging framework that I coded up myself. The code is still there if you want to check it out or maybe even build on it. I called it “MmEEBlog” (Multimedia for Everyone, Everywhere), and I really think it had a lot of potential. The idea was to cut out all the middlemen — YouTube, Soundcloud, Insta — whatever and allow anyone to just host their own stuff.

    It worked well, and I’m especially proud of some of the object-oriented features I did with regard to relating various objects; you could easily embed a video or audio file in a blog post by selecting it from a drop-down, for example. It was pretty cool until I got a new laptop, wiped the old one, and realized that I had lost my SSH key.

    The site eventually succumbed to bit-rot. Oh well. There was a lot of good stuff there.

    This is, believe it or not, the first version of chucklinart.com that runs on WordPress. I worked with WordPress a lot in the corporate world back in the day. It was a lot different. We were coding custom plugins and themes for some of the biggest global media brands (Time, Fortune, People, Sports Illustrated, etc.) until the company — a great old American powerhouse — got bought out by the Koch brothers and sold for parts.

    So I’m not unfamiliar with WordPress… or so I thought. It has changed a lot. It’s a lot of pointing and clicking now, not so much coding.

    It took me a bit to figure it out. I can still access the code, but it seems totally unnecessary. After spending decades figuring out basic shit like “How do I upload a picture and make it available only to people with only a specific user role?” back in the late ’90s to the OO potential masterpiece that was MmEEBlog of five years ago, all I really want to do now is enjoy the fruits of our nerdy late nights (fellow Gen-X code junkies from the ’90s get me here) without surrendering to corporate a-holes who just want to harvest my data.

    WordPress fit the bill. So here I am. It took a few late nights to get this blog up and running. There will be other late nights, I’m sure, and probably some custom coding at some point, but overall I can recommend WordPress to anyone who wants to set up their own site and not rely on tech-bro billionaires to get their content out there.

    Peace,

    Chuck

  • First Day in El Salvador

    First Day in El Salvador

    You only get one first impression so here it is:

    Upon officially completing my first 24 hours in this lovely little country, I just wanted to record my initial thoughts. As some of you know, I have spent the past five winters in La Paz, Mexico. I have made many great friends in La Paz and regard it as one of my favorite places in the world so it was a tough call to forsake it this year in favor of new adventures. Initially, my plan was to head for Santa Marta, Colombia which I have been told is sort of the La Paz of Colombia: a small city that is a bit off the radar, having a vibrant music, art and culinary scene and surrounded by incredible natural beauty. Santa Marta is also reputed to be a sailing mecca, like La Paz, and sailing is probably the thing I most love to do; either that or making music, anyway… It seemed like a good call. More on my second thoughts later…

    To be quite frank, I’m more or less done with big cities. If I’m going to live in a city, it’s going to be a small, culturally vibrant city where I can visit a friend on the other side of town in 15 minutes. Either that, or I’m going to live in New York, my home. Spending the past two weeks in Denver confirmed that large non-NYC cities are not for me. Denver is a cool city, and people whom I love live there, but I just hate having to hop in a car and drive 20 minutes in traffic to fetch a loaf of bread. The near total lack of pedestrians who are not homeless crackheads turns me off, but absolute dependence on a car for every stupid little thing is just… not my bag.

    If I’m going to be dependent on a car, I’m going to live in the woods and only drive into town once a week for supplies. Yeah, I’m weird. Proudly so. Small, energetic cities like Sevilla, Spain, La Paz, Mexico, Ithaca, NY and many others float my boat. Highwayland is not my native land.

    Anyhoo…

    Santa Marta seemed to fit the bill as a small city with a rich cultural life and proximity to nature, but security concerns kept me away. A lot of Venezuelans live there, and it is close to Venezuela. I’m sure it’s as safe as La Paz in normal times, but it seems that some animosity toward Americans might be present with the USA sinking and seizing boats while threatening to invade the country right next door. Apparently, kidnapping is an issue there in normal times (it is in parts of Mexico too but can be avoided easily), and I’m not crazy about the idea of being kidnapped by some Latin American cult/gang and tortured for more money than I have. Being judged/hated for being a gringo, while understandable, was part of the reason I avoided Mexico this year: There is a lot of (well founded) “gringo go home!” energy in Mexico lately. Who needs that?

    So here I am in El Salvador which a couple of locals have proudly proclaimed as the safest country in the world now. It does feel very, very safe, I must say, especially where I am, in a bungalow on a cliff above a private beach somewhere between El Tunco and El Zonte. All I hear here is the waves and the occasional impossibly loud bird, and the view is fantastic. I feel like some kind of king waking up in the morning and not even having to raise my head from the pillow to enjoy an expansive view of the Pacific, framed by almond and palm branches.

    Last night I slept for ten hours, and I needed it after a 14-hour overnight journey. Sleeping to the sound of surf is the best you can do in life — full-stop, point-blank, period. Aside from a brief disturbance when a coconut thunked on the tin roof, it was a flawless slumber session. The WiFi is good, and I had a highly productive day at work this morning. The dueña of this place, a very sweet lady named Vilma, prepared a delicious breakfast which I ate whilst I worked, overlooking the mighty Pacific in fresh, clean, downright victorious air.

    It is incredibly healthy being so immersed in the natural flow of things. I am planning a side trip this winter to explore points south. (It will be required to leave the country to renew my visa after 90 days anyway.) Peru and Colombia are both of great interest to me for different reasons. At the moment, I am extremely content where I am while looking forward to enjoying the nearby gringo surf beaches, the mountains, the lakes, and even the (shudder) city of San Salvador at some point.

    It feels like my creative energy is supercharged by this environment. If you’re one of my “fans,” you will definitely find some new, inspired work in the 4.0 version of this site. I am equipped with a real camera, tripod, decent recording device, guitar and plenty of books and notebooks and intend to use them to create new music, new videos, new writings and ramblings, perhaps even a drawing or two. It should be pretty good so check back regularly!

    Thanks for reading,

    Chuck

  • MAKE MAD, PASSIONATE LOVE TO LIFE!

    MAKE MAD, PASSIONATE LOVE TO LIFE!

    Chuck Linart 4.0 is LIVE

    This site hit the scene way back in 2006.  That’s right: 2026 represents the 20th anniversary of chucklinart.com!  I’m back for the fourth iteration.  The other three have been obliterated by bit-rot and carelessness.  You can still find some of the stuff on the Wayback Machine.  Unfortunately, a lot of the old multimedia files — music, pictures, and self-hosted videos — are gone with the wind.  Somebody probably downloaded copies, I suppose.  Lucky them.

    Turned up to 11

    This iteration will be different.  In previous versions of this blog/site, I played small ball, ever cognizant of the possible damage inflicted (or assistance rendered) to my reputation or career.

    Those days are over.  My personal life is undergoing a major transformation; it truly feels as though I’m entering a new timeline or parallel universe.  In this universe, I am done shrinking myself to fit in rooms where I don’t even belong, done dimming my light because it causes demons to squint, done trying to make myself understood to people incapable of understanding me or — worse — hellbent on misunderstanding me even with adequate hardware, done turning myself down because lame, irrelevant people prefer elevator music.

    What I am starting to see in this new timeline is that living authentically and fearlessly, speaking my truth, and aligning with kindred souls is the path to a new level of success I’ve not yet achieved, not that I’ve been “unsuccessful” in my life; I’m just entering a new timeline where “success” is defined in terms of beautiful experiences, peace of mind, mutually fulfilling relationships, good health (physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual) and, cheesy though it may sound, bliss/joy/happiness.

    “Follow your bliss.”  I read those words from Joseph  Campbell so many years ago, and now, decades later, I understand them… deeply, ecstatically.

    I am only now, after four-plus decades in this illusory realm, starting to see that time is all we have here and to waste one’s time on people, places, and things that don’t deserve it is the biggest tragedy.  This, for me, is the essence of “mindfulness”:  awareness that living your best life, doing the best possible thing in this moment defines success, not the other materialistic, soul-killing, time-wasting distraction they sell you like bootleg Gucci at the swap meet.  Hell, the bootleg stuff beats the real thing anyway in terms of coolness; it’s all made in China by slaves so why pay $1200 for a pair of sneakers you can get for 50 bucks on the street in Flushing, Queens?  To me, the fakes are way cooler.  At least with the fake shit you’re sticking it to the Man in a small way.  You have to know “the guy” to get the good fakes.  Fuck the Man.  Nobody knows the difference anyway.  If I’m gonna rock brand-name shit, you bet your ass it’s gonna be fake af and cooler than cool, and what tf is cooler than that?

    Oh, ummm… right, unbranded authentic top-grade shit is cooler than cooler than cool, and that’s what I deliver.

    There will be nothing fake about this next chapter.  We’re going hardcore “No Logo.”  Quality speaks for itself.   I fully expect the third act of my life to be to be the most productive and creative yet.  Hope you enjoyed intermission.  Take your seat to see the climax.  The resolution/denoument will probably come in chucklinart.com 6.0 or 7.0, but things are definitely coming to a head here in 4.0.  The curtain is coming up on a whole new act here, not just a scene.

    This will be the best version of chucklinart.com yet.  I intend to top myself and keep topping myself until I draw my final breath.  I intend to inspire you to think, to dream, and to live life to its fullest in pursuit of those dreams.  Feel free to bookmark, and welcome back to all my fans from back in the day (especially those who pre-date chucklinart.com).  If you liked me back then, you’re gonna looooove me now!  I know I do, and there’s not a damn thing wrong with that.  ;-). How can you love anyone or anything if you can’t even love yourself, after all?

    Peace,

    Chuck

  • Why I Maintain Online Presence

    Why I Maintain Online Presence

    What happens when they “Google” you?

    This is funny even to me, but not participating in social media has opened me up to attack in the past.  People have opened up social media accounts in my name, using my pictures, for the purpose of trashing my reputation, knowing that I would never see it because I’m not on those sites.  It’s both sad and hilarious that people love to talk smack about you when you’re not around to defend yourself.

    Participation in those data harvesting, time-sucking social media sites is still off the table for me, but I am going to “defend” myself by putting up my own little billboard on the web.

    For the record:  Anything you see about me or purportedly created by me could be fake if it’s not on this site or linked to by this site.  Additionally, my content is among the most copied and stolen on the entire web and has been for at least 20 years, maybe more.  Hit songs were made, businesses started, inventions patented based on my ideas — and I was never paid a dime which is OK with me since all bank money is fake as  three dollar bill.  Did you know that I invented “the cloud?”  Yeah, I did back when I wanted to share files between my BlackBerry and any other device.  Frankly, my cloud was better; iCloud absolutely sucks.  Google Drive is a bit better.  Can’t wait to ditch this Barbie iPhone and go back to Android even though Android is inferior to BlackBerry 10 which was “uncooled” out of existence by multi-billion-dollar-funded PR fakers who couldn’t compete and wanted to steal your data instead of protect it.  But I digress…  The point is, technology devolves after a certain point.

    If all goes as planned, this site will be the first thing you see when you Google me, and I take full ownership of all content on this site.  It represents me.  Anything else not on this site or linked to by this site is sus’ af.  This is the canonical repository of original and authentic Chuck Linart content.

    I am not the only Charles Linart in the world (though we are rare, indeed), but I am the only Chuck Linart, and chucklinart.com is where you’ll find me.

    Building a “Brand”

    Everyone who meets you irl and takes an interest will look you up.  What they see is your “brand,” the impression you leave.  People are far greater than brands, but the reality is that you only get one chance to make a first impression; that’s your brand.  That’s why I personally believe that everyone should have their own website instead of depending on third-party algorithms.

    Getting in Touch

    There are people out there whose numbers I have lost but whom I remember fondly.  Instead of “sliding into my DMs,” leave a comment here or fill out the comment form.  I’m currently at a perfect level of fame where, as on old Twitter, you can reach out directly, and I might just respond.  Heck, I might even be delighted to hear from you.

    Side note: I do have a Twitter account, but I almost never use it.  I think it’s here.  I’ve been on there since 2007 or something, back when it was still cool, most people didn’t “get it,” you could get traction with a clever hashtag, and if you reached out to Kanye West directly, he might just hit you back. Now I’m basically shadowbanned from what I can tell, which is fine with me.  Why would I want to engage with a bunch of bots, machine or organic?

    Damn, this corporate “social” media world sucks.  Start your own blog.

    If you want to contact me and don’t have my number, try the contact form on this site.  The result might surprise you!

    In Conclusion:

    I maintain an online presence here because fuck Zuckerberg, Elon and the rest of those billionaire tech phonies.  This is me… well, the online version of me, anyhow.  I’m way cooler in meatspace, so they tell me.