Blackberries Will Ruin Your Life

When you’re connected in the way that technology enables, you’re disconnected in the way that survival requires.

There are more than a few Blackberry users (as in consciousness-altering substance users) who will one day wake up all alone and realize that they haven’t been paying attention, really, and it turns out that some of the shit they missed was fairly important and that’s why they’re alone.

Folks used to say that television would twist your mind.  They don’t say that anymore because they’re dead now and everybody who has something to say these days has already had their mind twisted by TV.  That’s a kind of progress, I think.

So, moving right along, I’m here to tell you that Blackberries will twist your mind and ruin your life.

Later’
- B -

That’s Not What The Black Guy Meant

Mixing two parts depression and one part resignation, I reveal my shame in having to admit that this kind of thing actually works on people of a certain age.  I noticed, after all.

I’m talking—as I wait for news of some kind of meaningful nod to the fourtieth anniversary of three days of mud, madness, and music—about Nike’s co-opting of not one but two of the more iconic elements that characterize the summer of love.  I’m talking about Nike’s naming a golf ball “mojo” and then setting that name in a graphic package design setting that is doing everything it can conjure up associations with The Jefferson Airplane, Haight Ashbury, worry-free hippies, and other stuff that is as far away from the state of the retirement savings account, as things to think about go, as you can get.  As if golf was somehow… ah, never mind.

It’s not often but I do visit San Francisco whenever I can and whenever I can, I really like to visit the Haight.  I can report that it is still an interesting and contrarian neighborhood and that there are still some genuine hippes of all ages carrying the torch for all of the rest of us who have lost our way.  I admire their tenacity and I don’t have much to say about their stupidity, if that’s what  it is.

But neither am I a completely deluded nitwit.  I am aware that there were economic interests at work in 1966 just as there are now, but really, would anyone have the temerity to compare Bill Graham to Phil Knight?

So that’s me yammering about the commercial theft of the commercial art styles and typography that marks the San Francsisco sixties.  Yammer 1.  The other yammer, Yammer 2, is about the theft of the word itself.  Mojo.  Its roots are deeper and older but am I right in thinking that the word had a sort of coming out in the sixties?  Was it brought forward by some searching musician, just a kid, really, needing something different and discovering his mojo in a ten year old record in a thrift on Central?

Does Phil know what Muddy Waters was singing about?

Bill knew.

Later,
-B-

Rabbits Are Lucky

There’s this website I had occassion to visit today and on this website is this world clock sort of thing that displays a bunch of simulated realtime stats almost all of which are thoroughly depressing.  I didn’t stay long; only long enough to notice in passing that somebody becomes a victim of identity theft every half-second or so and cattle are slaughtered at a higher frequency than that but rabbits are not.  The rabbits slaughtered stat didn’t change while I was there.

While identitiy theft is not going to be one of them, bad things can happen to rabbits, too, but in the main, rabbits appear to be lucky.

Later,
-B-

North Country Public Radio

Where I live in Canada I can tune in to North Country Public Radio , a public radio operation that broadcasts out of SUNY Canton NY and repeats all across the top of Vermont and New York.  On Friday afternoons, late afternoon, from 4 PM ’til 5, I think, there’s a show on NCPR that is called, if I recall correctly, The Beat Authority.  It is typical of the programming on this radio station at this hour on weekdays, i.e., weird music and especially weird coming from NCPR which I usually associate with the slow-talking calm of NPR news programming.

The contrast in styles between what you will hear on NCPR at 4:15 PM on a Monday through Friday and what you will hear an hour later on the same days (All Things Considered) is a freakin’ leap, I can tell ya.  You’ll have to grope your way from scratchy recordings Delta blues or Skandinavian folk sings or impenetrably obscure hip-hop all the way to sober Beltway commentary and there will be no smooth transitions to ease you along.

On Fridays, as I said, you will hear The Beat Authority (while I sincerely hope that I haven’t misidentified the show but neither do I feel compelled to Google it to confirm) hosted by the most pleasant mannered radio host you have ever heard.  This young man is the polar opposite of Howard Stern and if Howard is your thing, God help you.  The kid speaks fluent Spanish and his patter is nicely peppered with the language (still a titillating novelty in Canada.)  He knows his music and he is a genuinely enthusiastic fan of the acts and tracks he plays.  When he reads the non-sensical PSAs he finds a way to lend them import without a hint of patronization.  You’ll wait forever for a smart remark from the guy.

I thought about it for some time before realizing what it was: this on-air character doesn’t have a cynical bone in his body.  If I ran a radio station, I would hire him in an instant.

He may be the opposite of me, too.  He has shamed me into posting something that isn’t steeped in cynicism.

Later,

My Digital Life

The flyers land on the doorstep on Fridays.  I like to leaf through them and make stupid comments about the things that some marketers think they can convince me I need.  Nobody in the house listens to my stupid comments.

Somebody at HP’s agency sold somebody at HP on a campaign that is centered on the theme of “Your Digital Life” and this campaign declares in a swirly comfy sort of distinctly non-digital scripty handmade typeface (good trick, that) that I can, even should take my digital life to the beach or some such shit. 

Honestly. 

If I even had a digital life, I sure as fuck would not take it to the beach.

And you can keep your obvious comments about the irony of this post to yourself.

Later,
-B-

Human Capital

This was last night on the business news channel which I relate to in much the same way I relate to a boxing match on TV.  If I happen to land on a boxing match, I can’t leave.  Not until the round is over anyways.  I get really tense and wound up and I don’t like the feeling at all but I just can’t change the channel.  And I pick a favourite right away.  Used to be I would pick based on the cut and colour of the guy’s shorts.  More often these days I’m picking whichever guy has fewer tats. 

Speaking of which, does anybody remember the Ray Bradbury collection entitled The Illustrated Man?  Cripes, every extra in the latest crop of distressingly mindless hip-hop videos have got more ink than the Bradbury character.  On a scale from one to what-the-fuck-were-you-thinking, those guys are gonna be some sorry when the other part of their brain finally syncs up.

So I’m saying I relate to the business news channel the same way.  I get tense and here’s the kind of thing that does it.  The guy I caught last night is yammering about the regular shit but yesterday’s angle—and there’s an critically important new angle every day, of course, either that or there’s not gonna be any news at all and that cannot be allowed to happen—the new angle for yesterday was the state of the economy as reflected in the fact that Canada’s deficit is headed for outer space and the reason is that people, a lot of people, are collecting (un)empoyment insurance instead of paying income taxes.

The shit that passes for news, eh?

Anyways, this guy, who has me completely wound up by now, finds a way to segue to his next clever opinion that things are going to get worse.  Things are going to get worse, he says, because, and I’m not kidding here, because CEOs are “looking at” their human capital costs and they are looking at those costs  because those costs are among the largest as a percentage of all business costs.

Two things:
(1) “looking at” is a euphemism for getting ready to fuck some one or thing over without a hint of remorse; and,
(2) there is no business without ‘human capital’ costs, you stupid, stupid man.

Third thing:
(3) If you ever catch me using the term ‘human capital’ again, in any context other than my hyper-critical Peter Finch not gonna take it anymore context, you are instructed to kick my ass.  I am not human captial and neither are you.

Investment Tip Your Will Not See On The Business News Channel: Buy into tatoo removal technology.  The demand is going to be huge.

Later,
-B-

Merging Countries

Here’s an incredible thing to contemplate and I’m surprised you haven’t already.

On the radio this morning, I’m listening to this expert (experts are people that radio program producers call up for opinion and comment… they may not actually be experts, they may be whoever answered the phone) who has dubbed himself the ‘pessimistic professor’ (and he’s got that part completely right, I tell ya.)  This morning he was commenting expertly and giving his opinion on pension funds; on how pensions are so severely underfunded that we in our dotage we will be reduced to foraging for edible roots and heating our tents with twig fires.  And there is no solution, says the pessimistic professor.  None.

He may be right, and as if that weren’t gloomy enough he took the gloom factor to a fabulaous new low and predicted that not only the pensions but also the economies of many nations would collapse entirely and not only the economies but the very countries themselves, he prophesized, would disappear off the map.  Some big ones, too.

I’m thinking, “Neat!”  What happens when a country disappears off the map?  Do neighboring countries expand to fill the vacuum?  Better still, let’s say you’re the Minister of Finance or similar in one of these these countries that is teetering on the  brink of disappearing from the map.  Wouldn’t you freak out and think “I better do something!”  And wouldn’t there be a couple of things you would consider?  Wouldn’t you consider putting the country on the market?  Sell it, or maybe merge with another country?

Neat, again.  Would a shared border be  a requirement for merging countries?  Nah.  Business knows no borders.  So, how about a merger of Ireland (currently groaning after having gorged on what was cheap debt that is now worth way more than the dosh being used to service it) and Iceland (unless they’ve already handed over the keys.)  I’d call it Irceland.  First I’d expand RyanAir’s cheap routes.  Then I’d ship a couple of under-performing Dublin pubs to Rekjavik.  I’d make Sigur Ros do a set on the in front of the Guiness breweries every hour on the hour during the tourist season, and I’d sell off U2 to finance advanced orthotics research, the last and best hope for a revenue-generating export from these two North Atlantic island nations.

Later,
-B-

Fishing Off The Bridge To The Future

Had a conversation today that I only half understood… my half.  Some stuff about signaling protocols.  I mentioned that I had had my scalp threatened for uttering H.323 and SIP in the same paragraph, let alone the same sentence, let alone the same breath.

But that’s not the interesting part.  Neither is the fact that the convo soon came around to IPv6 vice IPv4 and how NATs are effectively a bridge to the future, insofar as Internet addesses go.  Where it starts to get a little more interesting is with my thinking that as long as there are a grillion NATs out there, there isn’t going to be a lot of pressure to move systems over to IPv6.  I could be completely fucked up about this, but it sure sounds good in my head.  And now things get far more interesting, to me.  That’s what happens when things sound good in my head.  And what sounds even better in there is this—Build a bridge to the future if you want but most just will not cross it.  Some will drop a line over the side, though.

It’s a metaphor, Jimmy, or is it an analogy?  Whatever it is, you can use it if you like.

Later,
-B-

Victory May Yet Be Mine

I get this rush of satisfaction when I make it through before the light turns red and everybody behind me has to stop.

This means, of course, that something is wrong.

As I am realizing this this very morning on the way to work, I notice that there is an apple tree in bloom on the lawn-like space in front of the school for challenged kids.
This school wasn’t always a school for challenged kids. The building is too old. When it was built, there were no schools for challenged kids. There were institutions. Lock-ups with visiting hours. Somewhere along the line, this school was given over to the purpose of educating challenged kids. I get this rush of pride when I realize that somewhere in my community there are people and resources to support this school.

This suggests that I am not beyond redemption.

Later,
-B-

How It Works – Corollas Of An Unnamed Color

There are drivers of Corollas of a color that doesn’t have a name or if it does, I don’t know it. It is a non-specific sort of not brown, not beige, not anything that you’d even waste any time trying to name, so boring is this color.

These drivers have chosen this color deliberately and the evidence is in the way they drive. I don’t have to tell you how they drive. It’s enough to say you don’t want to get stuck behind them with no room to pass, not even on the nicest day you can imagine and not even if you wake up that day thinking that life moves too fast and it’s time to slow down and enjoy the ride. Not even then.

Later,
-B-