Johnny Virgil’s timeline in “The Shaming Of The True”

So, I was listening to Kevin Gilbert‘s brilliant rock opera “The Shaming Of The True” for about the 500th time, and had an idea — I should write down the IRL timeline of the main character, Johnny Virgil. I figured it would be a very short blurb of text to share out to Facebook or something, but it wound up becoming  rather long and involved, so it migrated to my blog. This is purely based upon my own experiences, growing up during the same period as Kevin (his birthday is just a couple of months after mine).

Feel free to add and corrections or comments down below.
Enjoy my ramblings…

Johnny Virgil’s estimated timeline.

Assumptions:

Assume that this tale is semi-autobiographical. So, based upon Kevin’s birthday (11-20-1966), Johnny would be in high school in the early 1980s.
 
Parade
Assuming this is Johnny in his early teens (high school), probably around 1981-82. Full of bravado, honing his guitar chops, and listening to some iconic artists to work on his song craft. Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, The Beatles, and The Who were still fairly popular at this time, but perhaps his tastes leaned a bit older or towards that songwriting style more.
 
The City of the Sun
This chapter in our hero’s story has him leaving his home (probably not literally Kansas, but most certainly the classic tale of mid-westerner heading west for fame and fortune). Assume he completed high school first, this would put the year at 1984 or 1985. “City of the Sun” most certainly refers to Los Angeles/Hollywood. Driving into town for the first time, gassing up at a Texaco (still a popular gas station at that time), and running into one of the many musicians who was ground up and spit out by the big machine.
 
It also appears that Johnny starts busking on the sidewalks, performing in some questionable bars, and starting to attract attention. Still in possession of his originality/uniqueness, but everyone who “knows better” is offering their advice on how he can “make it” to the next step.
 
Suit Fugue (Dance of the A&R Men)
Johnny has now been noticed by the record execs, looking to sign the next “big thing”. He has probably been working hard, playing as many gigs as possible, formed a band, etc., so probably a year or two after his arrival. Placing this in the 1987-1989 timeframe. This song sounds about right for late 1980s Hollywood / Record Labels.
 
After trying to stay true to his vision and style, our hero…our boy, is lured by fame and fortune, thus sacrificing his “true self” for whatever will make him a star (childhood dream/nightmare fulfilled).
 
I’d assume things begin moving quickly here (outside of the record release delays), getting signed to a label, recording, promoting, etc., maybe taking us right up to 1990-1991.
 
Imagemaker
Image creation, music video, promotion, interviews, etc. Early 1990s, MTV was quite popular (and still played music videos).
 
Water Under the Bridge
Same basic timeframe here. It probably wouldn’t take long for the glitter of all of the fame and attention to start to wear thin, self-doubt seeping in…but he seems to justify it a bit here, so not quite rock bottom (yet).
 
The Best Laid Plans
Over the top concert production — huge cast of characters on the stage matched only by the huge cast of characters behind the scenes getting paid and taking credit. Johnny is reflecting on how his original muse has been turned into a whirling, garish circus…both onstage and off. Probably a year or two later, once the initial album / persona really took off — 1992-1993.
 
Certifiable #1 Smash
OK, the first album and initial push were successful in establishing the star “Johnny Virgil”, but now it is time to ramp it up for album number two. This song sounds like the record label bringing in a hit songwriter / producer to “craft” the next big thing for Johnny. I mean, check out all of the buzzwords in the description! It must be good, right?
 
Most of these tie it right to the 1990s.
  • The 1990s were peak “Generation x”.
  • “Mighty Morphin’ power brokers” – the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers came out about 1993.
  • Tanya Harding was a star figure skater in the early 1990s, until in January 1994 she became tabloid fodder after her involvement in the attack on fellow skater, Nancy Kerrigan. Her name was everywhere for a while after that.
  • “anti-fur” had a big push in 1994 with PETA’s nude celebrity campaign (https://nymag.com/news/features/48247/)
  • “unplugged” – MTV’s unplugged because a huge success in the early 1990s.
  • “Wonderbra” – became popular in the early 1990s.
  • Day time talk shows “The Montel Williams Show” and “Geraldo” (plus others) rose to trashy popularity in the 1990s. They probably even had an episode with the exact title used in this song – “women who hate the men that hate them back”.
  • The video description really points to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer”, but that came out in 1989. In the early 1990s, Madonna was on to her Erotica / Sex period, so maybe all of her stuff was top of mind since she was very much in the public eye. Also, Kevin worked with Patrick Leonard on Madonna’s “I’m Breathless” album, so I’m sure there were many things about his time there that left a mark (and of course Madonna pops up again later on in “Fun”).
  • “Herb Ritz” [Herb Ritts] was a popular photographer in the 1980s/1990s. His work concentrated on black and white photography and portraits, often in the style of classical Greek sculpture, which emphasized the human shape. He also produced some music videos.
  • “OJ” – OJ Simpson’s murder trial began in 1994.
  • “VR” – 1994 was very early days for Virtual Reality (https://youtu.be/gtnjlDI4614?si=4O5afdaNFGayTha0)
Anyway, this song is pure 1994 zeitgeist, so we’ll peg Johnny’s next smash hit for 1994.
 
Staring Into Nothing
Johnny is now wildly popular (hey, he even has a special beer with his name on it), selling record numbers of tickets during the summer (1995?) concert season, elaborate stage shows (performing backlit in silhouette, curtain call with a cast of characters…maybe a continuation of the “circus” from “Best Laid Plans”, etc., but even with all of this success and popularity, he is empty and heading for a crash. So, he walks away from it all…but he’s not heading straight back to his original ideals…he’s taking a detour first.
 
Fun
So, with tons of money and nothing much else to do, Johnny falls into the trap of excessive drug use and general debauchery. He mentions an actress working for Leo DiCaprio, whose career had just taken off in the very early 1990s. By this time 1995 in our hero’s story, Leo was pretty huge (just before Titanic fame).
 
Madonna comes up in the conversation again, this time concerning her flatulent single. The subtext here is that popular artists could pretty much release anything to much success and critical acclaim, but there must be a backstory to Kevin’s fascination with Madonna’s “work” in this particular area. After all, he did record a song titled “Madonna’s Fart” for his Kaviar project.
 
The Sheryl mentioned in this song is most surely a nod to Sheryl Crow, whose 1994 David Letterman appearance pretty much put her at the top of Kevin’s “song writer’s revenge” list.
 
From Here to There
There is no telling how long the cycle of “Fun” lasted (several months maybe), before this bit of introspection and longing to return home strikes our hero. Perhaps by this point, he’s burned through most of his money and is contemplating a return to stardom (if only it didn’t come with all of those pesky compromises). So, it appears Johnny is on the move now, but to where?
 
Ghetto of Beautiful Things
The timeline gets a bit murky now (perhaps some years after his run at music stardom), and this part of the story always puzzled me. It seems like Johnny has ditched the music industry completely, and has instead become a painter. But it also appears that he did indeed blow through all of his money, and is working a regular job painting store windows and billboards for advertisements (i.e., “Everything must go”). Perhaps also creating paintings in the park or on the sidewalk (much like his early days of busking with his guitar), but probably not for artistic vision since he mentions clients (and a specific part of their anatomy). Maybe he indeed does have some artistic works, but people and / or critics do not see the “art” as Johnny so eloquently states it in the song.
 
It appears he has ended up in his “Ghetto of Beautiful Things” (a dilapidated abode surrounded by his art?), perhaps located in Nowhere’s End New Jersey. There is a “road / bridge to nowhere” located in Manahawkin, New Jersey (http://www.hiddennj.com/2013/01/on-road-to-nowhere-in-manahawkin.html), so maybe Johnny’s place is around here somewhere.
 
A Long Day’s Life
Again, a murky timeline, but the song suggests someone getting up there in years. When does someone start reflecting back on their life, their ambitious youth, the decisions they’ve made, the people they’ve pushed away, etc. and start seeking meaning and solace in the love of another? In their 40s?
 
So, perhaps we’re looking at 44 year old Johnny Virgil in the year 2010, really at the end of his rope as the struggling artist, tired of pushing everyone away, and seeking some redemption by the one thing he has shoved aside until now…love.
 
The Way Back Home
This could be more inner searching during the same time period as “A Long Day’s Life”. Perhaps in this chapter of the story, Johnny has returned to the “City of the Sun” / Los Angeles as a way to seek answers to his questions or to see if he could rekindle anything that might remain for him here. But the following lines show his realization that there is nothing left here for him:
I’m walking on pavement where old illusions fall
I’m struck by a sadness
Find a way back home…
The sage advice from the panhandler named Jesus, plots Johnny’s next destination, “You’ve all heard the answer, but you’re not listening yet. Love is the way back home. . .”.
 
Johnny’s Last Song
Now, we find a much older Johnny Virgil (in his 60s or 70s), probably back in his mid-western home town, probably even strumming his guitar for one last tune, and delivering some advice that he surely wished he could relay to his ambitious younger self.
 
If we consider Johnny’s big hits were in the mid-1990s, and go with the benchmark of 30-40 years before songs are considered classics or oldies, then maybe we end Johnny’s tale in the 2030s or 2040s.
 
Even though “The Shaming Of The True” isn’t completely autobiographical, there are certainly nuggets of truth about Kevin’s own life and feelings woven into the lyrics. If only he had stuck around until now to see how his own story would have unfolded.

Desktop Tour 2023

Here’s a tour of my current home office setup as of January 2023. Over the years it has gone through many iterations – triple monitors, many machines connected via complex KVM switching, etc. The current state is the result of stripping down the overly complex setup, going too far, and then adding a few things here and there. I’ve been running with the current configuration for a few months now, and I really like it. Continue reading Desktop Tour 2023

My Periodic IT Career Update

It has been almost 4 years since my last update on the constantly changing badges and company names of my workplace, so I figured it might be time for an update. Yes, fret not faithful readers, there has been another change besides how the worldwide pandemic has changed the entire workplace situation in general. As always, I’ll repeat the entire journey first, with the latest updates at the end.

Take it from the top…

While still in college I started a part-time IT gig with General Dynamics, which turned into a full time position once I graduated in 1989. Only a couple of years into that job, and General Dynamics decides to outsource their entire IT organization to a company called Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). New badge, same job really.

Over the next few years, the General Dynamics business that we supported, changed hands a few times. First to Hughes Electronics Corporation and then to Raytheon. My job at CSC also took me from Southern California to Tucson, Arizona. This lasted a few more years, until my boss asked me if I wanted to move to San Diego, California to help out on a new account. I probably said yes before he finished his sentence.

Job Timeline
Job Timeline

In mid-2000, I relocated to sunny San Diego and began work on writing a little client/server billing system to help CSC provide a detailed bill to its new IT outsourcing client, the County of San Diego. That little billing system lasted longer than CSC did on this contract, about 13 years, which is a pretty decent run for a VB6/SQL Server solution.  🙂

At the end of 2006, CSC had lost the County of San Diego contract to Northrop Grumman (NG). CSC’s staff was divided among NG and an IT consulting firm, BearingPoint. We didn’t get to choose, other than to accept the offer or not. So, another new badge. I guess it was time for a new picture anyway.

Just a couple of years in working for BearingPoint, they decided to sell the majority of their public services consulting business to Deloitte. Except our little piece supporting the County of San Diego was spun off to a new consulting firm, Éclat Consulting (no link for them since they folded some time ago. Here’s what the name means though). Éclat didn’t last too long, and we were shuffled to another new consulting firm, Attain. Still supporting the County of San Diego, just changing badges like bad fashion trends.

NG decided to walk away from the County of San Diego contract before their time was up, and passed it on to Hewlett Packard (HP). This time, everyone (that wanted to stay) was moved to HP (yet another new badge). All one big happy family again. At least for a couple of years.

Late into the year 2015, HP announced that it was going to split into two companies. HP would be handling consumer computers and printers, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) would be handling enterprise products and services. The change this time for us from HP to HPE wasn’t too disruptive, and we didn’t even get new badges! Well, we did get a new overlay that got glued to the face of the badge, with the new company name (same old photo though).

Wall of badge holders
Wall of badge holders. Some of the early companies either didn’t hand out much swag or were lost to the sands of time (and office moves).

The stability of being at HPE would only last until May of 2016, when HPE announced that it would be spinning off the enterprise services component to a new company. This new company would be a merger of sorts between HPE and CSC. This merged company would now be known as DXC Technology and it entered the world to much fanfare and business gibberish in May of 2017. This was going to be a great collaboration between two large IT firms that would take on the world… Until a few months later when it was deemed important to narrow their focus a bit and shed some of the newly acquired divisions. Yes, you guessed it, my job is once again up on the auction block.

For the remainder of 2017 and a couple of months into 2018, we didn’t really have any information about what was happening with our company. Nothing like uncertainty to really boost morale. Much speculation was made as to who would takeover this chunk of business, which is the U.S. Public Sector portion of DXC Technology’s holdings (state and local governments, and such). We received word about our fate in March or so, but had to keep it quiet.

On June 1, 2018, it was finally made public that we would be part of a three company spin-merge based upon DXC Technology’s U.S. Public Sector business, Vencore Holding Corp., and KeyPoint Government Solutions. Each of the three companies operates in different areas, so little to no overlap, thus creating a new company of about 14,000. This new company would be known as Perspecta.

Sometime in late 2020 / early 2021, amidst the “fun” of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we began hearing rumblings of a potential sale of our barely a toddler company, Perspecta, being courted for sale. On May 6, 2021, Peraton announced that they had officially closed the purchase of Perspecta. Earlier in the year, Peraton had also acquired Northrop Grumman’s integrated mission support and IT solutions business, so they are ramping up to become a major player in the IT space.

So, here we are in mid-2022 and Peraton still seems to be going strong and we’re slowly getting close to merging all of internal systems (like email and other backend systems) between Peraton, Northrup Grumman, and Perspecta. Hopefully, we won’t have to start dealing with the upheaval of another company change any time soon.

Meanwhile, I am still working on supporting the County of San Diego contract (which I started on back in 2000), so the base job hasn’t changed too much. Although, I have been branching out skills-wise, acquiring Amazon Web Services (AWS) experience, and soon some development using the Outsystems Low-Code platform. So, as long as I can keep learning new things and keeping my job interesting, I don’t have too much of a problem should my badge change every now and then. 😀

A new Perspecta on my IT career

Well, it has been a couple of years since my original article, My IT Career – coming around full circle, so I figured it was time for an update (especially since I’ve added a couple of new badges since then).

What appears below is the original article, reworked a little, and updated so it is current…at least as of today (06/01/2018). Who knows what will happen tomorrow.

Let the whole sordid tale begin.

While still in college I started a part-time IT gig with General Dynamics, which turned into a full time position once I graduated in 1989. Only a couple of years into that job, and General Dynamics decides to outsource their entire IT organization to a company called Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). New badge, same job really.

Over the next few years, the General Dynamics business that we supported, changed hands a few times. First to Hughes Electronics Corporation and then to Raytheon. My job at CSC also took me from Southern California to Tucson, Arizona. This lasted a few more years, until my boss asked me if I wanted to move to San Diego, California to help out on a new account. I probably said yes before he finished his sentence.

In mid-2000, I relocated to sunny San Diego and began work on writing a little client/server billing system to help CSC provide a detailed bill to its new IT outsourcing client, the County of San Diego. That little billing system lasted longer than CSC did on this contract, about 13 years, which is a pretty decent run for a VB6/SQL Server solution.  🙂

At the end of 2006, CSC had lost the County of San Diego contract to Northrop Grumman (NG). CSC’s staff was divided among NG and an IT consulting firm, BearingPoint. We didn’t get to choose, other than to accept the offer or not. So, another new badge. I guess it was time for a new picture anyway.

Just a couple of years in working for BearingPoint, they decided to sell the majority of their public services consulting business to Deloitte. Except our little piece supporting the County of San Diego was spun off to a new consulting firm, Éclat Consulting (no link for them since they folded some time ago. Here’s what the name means though). Éclat didn’t last too long, and we were shuffled to another new consulting firm, Attain. Still supporting the County of San Diego, just changing badges like bad fashion trends.

NG decided to walk away from the County of San Diego contract before their time was up, and passed it on to Hewlett Packard (HP). This time, everyone (that wanted to stay) was moved to HP (yet another new badge). All one big happy family again. At least for a couple of years.

Late into the year 2015, HP announced that it was going to split into two companies. HP would be handling consumer computers and printers, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) would be handling enterprise products and services. The change this time for us from HP to HPE wasn’t too disruptive, and we didn’t even get new badges! Well, we did get a new overlay that got glued to the face of the badge, with the new company name (same old photo though).

The stability of being at HPE would only last until May of 2016, when HPE announced that it would be spinning off the enterprise services component to a new company. This new company would be a merger of sorts between HPE and CSC. This merged company would now be known as DXC Technology and it entered the world to much fanfare and business gibberish in May of 2017. This was going to be a great collaboration between two large IT firms that would take on the world… Until a few months later when it was deemed important to narrow their focus a bit and shed some of the newly acquired divisions. Yes, you guessed it, my job is once again up on the auction block.

For the remainder of 2017 and a couple of months into 2018, we didn’t really have any information about what was happening with our company. Nothing like uncertainty to really boost morale. Much speculation was made as to who would takeover this chunk of business, which is the U.S. Public Sector portion of DXC Technology’s holdings (state and local governments, and such). We received word about our fate in March or so, but had to keep it quiet.

On June 1, 2018, it was finally made public that we would be part of a three company spin-merge based upon DXC Technology’s U.S. Public Sector business, Vencore Holding Corp., and KeyPoint Government Solutions. Each of the three companies operates in different areas, so little to no overlap, thus creating a new company of about 14,000. This new company would be known as Perspecta

It is getting close to the end of the first day as a Perspecta employee, so I think I’ll publish this entry before I have to add any more company names. One thing left to do is to crack open the swag box and put the new company sticker over the old logo on my badge. This is really starting to feel like license plate registration renewal stickers. I wonder if I’ll get new stickers next year?

Perspecta Swag

plus ça changeplus c’est la même chose

My IT Career…coming around full circle

So, yesterday (5/24/2016) the company I work for (HPE) made an announcement that they would be merging with another big IT services company early next year (see this article). I had a big chuckle about it. If you want to understand why, just try to follow along…I dare you.

While still in college I started a part-time IT gig with General Dynamics, which turned into a full time position once I graduated in 1989. Only a couple of years into that job, and General Dynamics decides to outsource their entire IT organization to a company called Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). New badge, same job really.

Over the next few years, the General Dynamics business that we supported, changed hands a few times. First to Hughes Electronics Corporation and then to Raytheon. My job at CSC also took me from Southern California to Tucson, Arizona. This lasted a few more years, until my boss asked me if I wanted to move to San Diego, California to help out on a new account. I probably said yes before he finished his sentence.

In mid-2000, I relocated to sunny San Diego and began work on writing a little client/server billing system to help CSC provide a detailed bill to its new IT outsourcing client, the County of San Diego. That little billing system lasted longer than CSC did on this contract, about 13 years, which is a pretty decent run for a VB6/SQL Server solution.  🙂

At the end of 2006, CSC had lost the County of San Diego contract to Northrop Grumman (NG). CSC’s staff was divided among NG and an IT consulting firm, BearingPoint. We didn’t get to choose, other than to accept the offer or not. So, another new badge. I guess it was time for a new picture anyway.

Just a couple of years in working for BearingPoint, they decided to sell the majority of their public services consulting business to Deloitte. Except our little piece supporting the County of San Diego was spun off to a new consulting firm, Éclat Consulting (no link for them since they folded some time ago. Here’s what the name means though). Éclat didn’t last too long, and we were shuffled to another new consulting firm, Attain. Still supporting the County of San Diego, just changing badges like bad fashion trends.

NG decided to walk away from the County of San Diego contract before their time was up, and passed it on to Hewlett Packard (HP). This time, everyone (that wanted to stay) was moved to HP (yet another new badge). All one big happy family again. At least for a couple of years.

Late into the year 2015, HP announced that it was going to split into two companies. HP would be handling consumer computers and printers, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) would be handling enterprise products and services. The change this time for us from HP to HPE wasn’t too disruptive, and we didn’t even get new badges! Well, we did get a new overlay that got glued to the face of the badge, with the new company name (same old photo though).

The stability of being at HPE would only last until May of the following year, when HPE announced that it would be spinning off the enterprise services component to a new company. This new company would be a merger of sorts between HPE and CSC (see the article at the very beginning of this post). This merger is supposed to be completed early in 2017.

Maybe I can locate my old CSC badge and wear it next to my current HPE badge? Ah, back to the beginning I go…

p.s. – I’m glad I wrote this post because I was getting a bit fuzzy on the details. It might come in handy if I need to update my resume. Although, I might have to create a chart of some kind as well.