Goodbye, Myplay
I spent almost all night downloading the last of the music I wanted to keep from my Locker. I crashed to the sound of one of my first playlists, “House of Jazz“, at 5:30 this morning. Myplay is over as of 10:00 Eastern Time this morning, exactly 38 months after we launched it on October 13, 1999. The universe insisted on giving me a hint in the form of the last track I ever downloaded from my locker. “Keep on movin’. Don’t stop, like the hands of time. Clip, clop. Find your own way to stay. The time will come one day. Why do people choose to live their lives this way? Yeah, keep on movin’; don’t stop. no!” What a great track to end it all on.
I slept well and got up to take the train to the city and wrangle Kai’s car from him. We stopped for a minute and had some Chinese food somewhere near Market Street (damned if I can remember the place). I headed south on the 101 in big fat Bay Area traffic, changed my clothes in Sunnyvale, aborted my disco nap, and zoomed up to Emmett’s place to pick him up for the myplay Demolition Party.
Some of the people at the party were people I hadn’t seen in a long, long time. Doug, our former CEO, was there. I hadn’t seen him since the day I got laid off, almost two years ago. Richard, another high up in the company, was there and had hopeful advice for possible increases in hiring in the spring by valley companies. Lots of other people, including Ian, Alfredo, Johnny D, Cedric, Malou (who I hadn’t seen since February 2001), Garethius Maximus (your designs will echo in eternity), Patrick, Andy, Kendall, Scott, Deirdre, Michael, Jim, Ben, Eric, Evan, Joe and Tim, all showed up, along with a few people I’m not certain I remembered on this list. Ah, well. It was so good hanging out with everyone again.
Doug produced a tearjerking movie full of pictures that chronicled our time at myplay and I really enjoyed it. What a fun time to be in the internet music space. I will always think fondly of my days at myplay and consider it the truest measure of the dream work environment. Call me romantic, but I miss those days very much.
Thanks for the memories, myplay. Our adventures will echo in eternity.