The other night I was driving two hours and I stopped at a convenience store in a little community along the way, one of those wispy towns whose outer edges bleed indistinctly into the surrounding farmland, where silos lord over residential neighborhoods, and parking lots are shared by both school staffers and workers at the grain mill. As I was waiting in line, contemplating whether I should get a doughnut to go with my coffee, I overheard a conversation between the guy in front of me and two teenage boys working behind the counter.
The man was a typical area man, mid-40s, prominent mid-section, baseball cap yanked down over thinning hair, his personality suggesting he was used to - and comfortable - interacting with kids and may have held some kind of position around town, probably as a teacher. The kids behind the counter were typical local stock; their clean-cut handsomeness obscured by the pock-marked gangliness so unavoidable at their age.
They were discussing the local high school football team's performance the night before, a 'Monday morning analysis' (though it was Saturday night) of the team's strengths and weaknesses, what ways they needed to improve and how best to go about it before playing a conference powerhouse (and rival) from the next town over, next Friday night. The offense was strong, quick and unpredictable, it was agreed; defense needed the work.
It was an oddly reassuring tableau: nice normal guys in a nice, normal town, having a nice normal conversation about something that was important to them, something that reaffirmed their place in the world, rather than their location on the periphery of everything. This was their town, their team, in their world, and they were speaking - in that moment - the way pro teams are spoken of on SportsCenter - same enthusiastic attention given to hashing out the details. I like to think at that moment the same conversation was going on in convenience stores in little towns all across the country.
I'm a Pittsburgh Steelers fan and a Green Bay Packers fan, in that order. The Super Bowl a few years back really had me in a quandary. I grew up in Wisconsin, so could hardly have avoided an appreciation (at least) for the Green and Gold. But in the late 1970s, something about the Steel Curtain era must have caught my attention one Sunday afternoon, because ever since, my primary allegiance has been with the Steelers. Driving through that region, and I have a few times, is not only a drive through some of the most beautiful country in the country, but a dreamland for any member of Steelers Nation. In no other place that I've been to (even in Wisconsin, where the Packers enjoy a fan appreciation beyond legend), have I ever seen the local or regional team more visible. Put simply, you can't swing a dead cat, and a dead cat is not swung, in western Pennsylvania without some mention of the Steelers, and I love it. Kind of makes me wish I lived there. Too cold (I will eventually be heading south), but seeing a game at Heinz Field one day is definitely a bucket list item. I wouldn't mind seeing a game at Lambeau either, for that matter. But if I had to choose...
That being said, I never align myself with, or expect anything from, the players themselves. I appreciate the extent to which they each contribute to a winning (or losing) season, but make no mistake, it is a rare instance that any one player feels a particular devotion to any one team, or the city that team calls home, or the fans living there. Pardon my French, and sorry if this bursts someone's bubble, but for the most part players go - or would if they could (and often do, when free agency come into play) - where the money and the blow jobs are, plain and simple. That's the machine that the NFL has become, and anybody who holds onto the belief that there's much direct connection between the pros and what I witnessed the other night in the convenience store is naïve at best, delusional in the worst of scenarios.
I'm sure even in the old days it was about 'money and blow jobs'; that is, more about the payoff...'what's in it for me'...and less about the game. But it does seem like the attitudes (and subsequent behavior) of NFL players gets a little crappier with each new season, and more than a few notable players have in the last decade hand-delivered gift wrapped 'worst scenarios' right to the doorstep of fans: notably Michael Vick, Ben Roethlisberger, Richie Incognito, Greg Hardy, Aaron Hernandez, Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson...even Brett Favre reportedly got a little creepy a few years back.
Granted (and in fairness to Favre), some of these situations were worse than others, but they all revealed the same singular truth that until very recently, nobody who follows football seemed to want to acknowledge: that pro players are not always the high-stepping, take charge, rock solid role models we believe - or expect - them to be. And whenever a new indictment or new TMZ alert reminds us of this, the reaction is always the same: shock from the fans, as though how could any of this be true (and this often coupled with a disgusting, though thankfully microcosmic, show of support from certain fans, like those fucking idiotic women who showed up at the Pittsburgh/Baltimore game a few weeks back wearing Ray Rice jerseys), and an unnerving code of silence from the NFL, a kid glove policy which has been put on the hot seat - and rightfully so - in light of recent events.
The explanation should not be a mystery to anyone. First of all, there's no denying American football is a culture of male aggression and violence that can have long-term physical and psychological effects on its participants. We all like to see a good hit, we all expect these guys to torque up and play their hearts out, and it should come as no surprise that some players are going to have trouble shutting off that gridiron grit when the game is over. Some of that aggression is bound to leak onto the playing field of their personal lives. That aggression is, after all, at least in part, what makes them good players in the first place.
But I think the influx of incalculable levels of money and celebrity makes things much worse. The National Football League has become a multi-billion dollar industry, growing by leaps and bounds every season, with so much monopolized power and influence over its players, the media, and the times we live in (think: football, not baseball, is now our national pastime), it could easily be considered its own government. There truly is enough money at play on any given day to qualify as a gross national product, and scouting for new talent to keep the money moving and growing starts early, back to high school, to those little towns awash in their Friday night lights.
I'd venture that might be where behavioral problems witnessed later begin, back in those small towns, where nice clean cut kids (or sometimes perhaps not so clean cut) talk with their elders about how the team did that Friday. Football teams are revered, to say the least, and there is routinely a buzz created about exceptional players, even without the presence or possibility of scouts, even if only to fill a little space on the sports page of the local paper. An undeniable and potent star power is lent kids who have just learned how to drive a car, because football is a big fucking deal in towns that have little else to hang the end of their day on. The standouts become bona fide stars, and if they end up attracting the attention of scouts, that can lead to being given a free ride through institutions of higher learning they otherwise might never be allowed to attend, solely for their skills on the gridiron.
The NFL of course is always hungry for fresh meat - fresh meat equals dollar signs - and each high school and college would love to be the slaughter house from which the meat comes. That's the 'machine' in action, and to that end, I would be willing to bet, at least in some cases, great lengths are traveled to safeguard and fast track certain players' paths to the pros. Reputations are protected, records fudged, bad behavior glossed over or erased entirely, legal infractions that would get ordinary students in hot water 'handled'. Really, how could this not be the case? They may be great athletes, but they're still teenagers, and all teenagers make mistakes.
No teenager is 'clean cut' the way we believe - or expect - them to be.
This Petri dish of duplicity can foster a feeling of entitlement in the kids that obscures any appreciation for their good fortune (and talent), and obliterates (as in leaves not so much as a faint smudge) anything they felt in their first pee wee league game, where talk of the fundamentals, of teamwork, of sportsmanship, were probably still part of the narrative, and to which, more to the point, they were still listening.
In other words, by 20, 21, 22, when doors really start to open for the legitimately talented, these guys are already feeling entitled. And if they become standouts in the NFL, it's all over. That fortune and fame creates a sense of unbridled arrogance and invincibility that, when mixed with the aggression they make their living with, can - and often does, we have seen - create monsters.
The responsibility of the NFL shouldn't be merely to respond when a player does something horrible, it should also be to vet all potential players early on, enact a true zero tolerance policy that scrutinizes their behavior long before they sign that contract. At least back to their freshman year in college, and perhaps even further. If they do something wrong it should be over for them. No exceptions, no second chances whatsoever. A drunk driving arrest, a drug conviction, anything of a violent nature, even a barroom fight, it should be over. Over and done.
When I read that back aloud, I admit it seems harsh. But when you consider the money and fame that might be lavished on these individuals, the opportunity many of them will be given to become household names and perhaps national heroes, it's not really harsh at all, or too unreasonable an expectation. They should never stop considering it a privilege to play professional football - not a right, or a certainty, but a privilege. And they should walk the line. A very taut and thin line.
If they can't, or won't, they should be over and done.
Interestingly enough, partial responsibility for the explosion of obscene amounts of money in pro sports lies within my own family. Bob Woolf, a pioneering sports lawyer active throughout the 1980s, was a cousin of my dad's. He was known as a consummate wheeler and dealer, and helped 'invent' the six-figure contract for such clients as Larry Byrd, Doug Flutie, Dr. J, Carl Yastrzemski, and even (sigh) the New Kids on the Block.
Please don't hold it against me; we're from the country mouse side of the family. ;-)
In any case, many more lawyers and agents followed Bob Woolf, took his 'friendly persuasion' tactic to a whole new level, creating an environment of eight and nine-figure contracts and celebrity endorsement deals that would make Jerry Maguire blush. I have never begrudged anyone the right to make as much money as possible, but I think if there were less money involved, less promise of fame, and a tighter leash placed on individuals who want to get there one day, indeed, if there were less need (or opportunity) for me to quip snidely about 'money and blow jobs' when speaking of the NFL, players might come up through the ranks with anticipation that is fueled by gratitude, rather than entitlement.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Robin Williams
1986. Robin Williams' A Night at the Met. My dad had taped it off HBO, and it did not take long for me to have every word committed to memory, every expression, every gesture and gesticulation down pat. A Night at the Met was iconic to my childhood. There was Eddie Murphy back then, too. You couldn't grow up in the 1980s and not know Delirious. But Eddie Murphy was an 'other', came across, to me at least, like an emissary from another world. Maybe because he was black, I don't know...maybe my enthusiasm was quelled by a buddy who quickly commandeered that album, got really good at throwing down impromptu performances of 'Ralph and Ed' or 'Elvis Lemonade' at the drop of a hat, making it his shtick and leaving me only the malnourished hope of impersonating the impersonator. The sloppy thirds of comedy. No thanks.
Or maybe it was the difference in the humor itself. Eddie Murphy was funny, but leaned in a different direction, toward the puerile. Robin Williams was smart, at times trenchant, and yet never at the expense of being funny. A Night at the Met was the first comedy routine I could wrap my head around, first one where I felt confident that I got all the jokes, knew what he was talking about, and more to the point, a little bit how he talked about it. I had a sense that Williams' worried about stuff and used humor to mask it, and I could relate to that. It was my passport to the much-talked about larger world most people first step into around the age of 13 or 14. There would be others in the comedy realm, each seemingly assigned to just the right time in my life to be appreciated fully - Sam Kinison, George Carlin, Chris Rock, more recently Louis CK, and over time Williams obviously revealed himself to be a performer of extraordinary range and talent, that is, much more than just a comedian - but for years after, I would quote the material from ...Met - my timing and delivery still (clumsily) honed from countless nights performing right alongside Robin in the living room while my parents were at work or out shopping - to garner favor with friends, to impress girls. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it backfired. One time when I was nineteen I thought I was killing it with a girl at a party until I made the mistake of doing an impression of Stallone doing Hamlet - 'To be, or what...?'
The smile actually drained from her face a little, as she muttered, 'Thank you, Robin...'
Embarrassing, but she was totally right. Thank you, Robin. I am shocked, and also very heartbroken.
Or maybe it was the difference in the humor itself. Eddie Murphy was funny, but leaned in a different direction, toward the puerile. Robin Williams was smart, at times trenchant, and yet never at the expense of being funny. A Night at the Met was the first comedy routine I could wrap my head around, first one where I felt confident that I got all the jokes, knew what he was talking about, and more to the point, a little bit how he talked about it. I had a sense that Williams' worried about stuff and used humor to mask it, and I could relate to that. It was my passport to the much-talked about larger world most people first step into around the age of 13 or 14. There would be others in the comedy realm, each seemingly assigned to just the right time in my life to be appreciated fully - Sam Kinison, George Carlin, Chris Rock, more recently Louis CK, and over time Williams obviously revealed himself to be a performer of extraordinary range and talent, that is, much more than just a comedian - but for years after, I would quote the material from ...Met - my timing and delivery still (clumsily) honed from countless nights performing right alongside Robin in the living room while my parents were at work or out shopping - to garner favor with friends, to impress girls. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it backfired. One time when I was nineteen I thought I was killing it with a girl at a party until I made the mistake of doing an impression of Stallone doing Hamlet - 'To be, or what...?'
The smile actually drained from her face a little, as she muttered, 'Thank you, Robin...'
Embarrassing, but she was totally right. Thank you, Robin. I am shocked, and also very heartbroken.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Ode to Casey Kasem...and radio's silver age...and Shaggy...
Casey Kasem passed away today, at the age of 82.
It was neither a shock, nor a moment too soon, it would seem, for the gravely ill radio personality, but it was definitely the passing of an era. Like many Boomers and Gen X'ers, Kasem's was the voice most likely to be heard dropping tinnily out of my dual cassette, AM/FM boom box when I was a kid, counting down the 'biggest hits in the land' on American Top 40. His delivery was just a little smarmy, his vocal quality just this side of nasal, but he nevertheless, I thought, came across upbeat and sincere; he breathed life into pop music, made the countdown seem like an important thing with his earnestness and enthusiasm, made you want to wait until the end to see which song claimed the #1 slot, and led you to believe that it somehow mattered. Before I became aware of how lame it all was, before I was too jaded to give a shit, there was something invigorating about the Top 40 countdown. Something invigorating about the long distance dedications and his sage advice at sign-off: 'Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars...'
I listened to Casey Kasem in the early 1980s, 1981 - 1984, from Donna Summer / Hall and Oates / 38 Special, to We Are the World / Prince / Cyndi Lauper. In those first few years of MTV, at the very first light of the digital age, Kasem might already have been considered among the last of the 'old school' radio jocks, having started out when radio deejays were still gods...when on Friday and Saturday (or any) nights, they delivered listeners from isolation by providing music they would otherwise not hear or know about. Oh, to have been on the air (anywhere, but especially in a major market), in the 60s and 70s, radio's silver age, after the advent of rock and roll, but before huge corporate conglomerates were allowed to buy up as many stations as they wanted and standardize them, the days before clever but entirely bloodless automation techniques reduced stations to veritable graveyards with a skeleton staff comprised mostly of account execs. To be spitting copy and spinning stacks 'o wax in that time when radio deejays did nothing less than bridge the gap for many between here and 'there', when they were the Dick Clarks of their market....even (or especially) if it was a small market.
And all of the above addresses only the change in the radio industry; it does not speak to the rise of the digital age, and the changing music industry. These days, radio doesn't really mean much, would seem to be going the way of newspapers in some places, but 'countdown' shows on radio, as a way of hearing new songs and discovering new artists, mean even less. Every playlist on someone's iPod is a 'countdown', and nothing needs to be delivered anymore. A full body of music, spanning all eras and all genres all at once, is readily available on-line, legally or otherwise, and can be brought along anywhere - literally anywhere - one chooses to go. In short, we are all our own deejay, living our lives with the soundtrack of our lives playing in the background continuously. We choose what is '#1' at any given moment. We no longer need Casey Kasem to tell us. Ryan Seacrest does his best to carry the torch, and Kasem himself was doing his countdown thing right up until his retirement in 2009. But nah...I don't know of any kids among the Millennials who listen to American Top 40 (or 'AT40', as it's known today) the way we did twenty or thirty years ago, not with the same sense of anticipation and purpose.
And as for long distance dedications, they were nice back then, weren't they? I thought so, anyway. Finely misted droplets of romance Kasem sweetened with a lilt of his voice and a pregnant pause before announcing, so-and-so, in someplace or other, 'here's your long distance dedication...' I tried this once when I was working in radio, did a 'dedication' on the air...mine was complete bullshit. I just made it up, and used Smoky Mountain Rain by Ronnie Milsap. I got chewed out by the GM for this; he might not have believed it was real, but he mostly complained that Smoky Mountain Rain was way too old for a 'hot country' station to be playing. I thought it was a good choice, and I still do. Somewhere I have tapes of some of the shows from my radio days. If I could find a tape of that (and I think it might actually exist...), I'd post it here, let readers decide how convincing I sound.
But in any case, there is no 'long distance' between us anymore, really, none that bears, or warrants, the pageantry of over-the-air dedications. Text, e-mail and Skype, Facebook, Reddit, Snapchat, Twitter and Tumblr, and so forth and so on, have bridged the gap of space and time. If anything, we're all up in each other's face now in a way we never were in the past. We are never given a chance to drift apart, start getting sentimental, to start longing. Too often, the past really does remain present.
Casey Kasem's perfect radio voice was also well suited for cartoon voice-overs. He provided the voice for Shaggy, from the Scooby Doo cartoons, and ironically enough, given the astonishing longevity of that cartoon's popularity with each new generation, it might be said that this will be his most lasting accomplishment, his legacy.
It was neither a shock, nor a moment too soon, it would seem, for the gravely ill radio personality, but it was definitely the passing of an era. Like many Boomers and Gen X'ers, Kasem's was the voice most likely to be heard dropping tinnily out of my dual cassette, AM/FM boom box when I was a kid, counting down the 'biggest hits in the land' on American Top 40. His delivery was just a little smarmy, his vocal quality just this side of nasal, but he nevertheless, I thought, came across upbeat and sincere; he breathed life into pop music, made the countdown seem like an important thing with his earnestness and enthusiasm, made you want to wait until the end to see which song claimed the #1 slot, and led you to believe that it somehow mattered. Before I became aware of how lame it all was, before I was too jaded to give a shit, there was something invigorating about the Top 40 countdown. Something invigorating about the long distance dedications and his sage advice at sign-off: 'Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars...'
I listened to Casey Kasem in the early 1980s, 1981 - 1984, from Donna Summer / Hall and Oates / 38 Special, to We Are the World / Prince / Cyndi Lauper. In those first few years of MTV, at the very first light of the digital age, Kasem might already have been considered among the last of the 'old school' radio jocks, having started out when radio deejays were still gods...when on Friday and Saturday (or any) nights, they delivered listeners from isolation by providing music they would otherwise not hear or know about. Oh, to have been on the air (anywhere, but especially in a major market), in the 60s and 70s, radio's silver age, after the advent of rock and roll, but before huge corporate conglomerates were allowed to buy up as many stations as they wanted and standardize them, the days before clever but entirely bloodless automation techniques reduced stations to veritable graveyards with a skeleton staff comprised mostly of account execs. To be spitting copy and spinning stacks 'o wax in that time when radio deejays did nothing less than bridge the gap for many between here and 'there', when they were the Dick Clarks of their market....even (or especially) if it was a small market.
And all of the above addresses only the change in the radio industry; it does not speak to the rise of the digital age, and the changing music industry. These days, radio doesn't really mean much, would seem to be going the way of newspapers in some places, but 'countdown' shows on radio, as a way of hearing new songs and discovering new artists, mean even less. Every playlist on someone's iPod is a 'countdown', and nothing needs to be delivered anymore. A full body of music, spanning all eras and all genres all at once, is readily available on-line, legally or otherwise, and can be brought along anywhere - literally anywhere - one chooses to go. In short, we are all our own deejay, living our lives with the soundtrack of our lives playing in the background continuously. We choose what is '#1' at any given moment. We no longer need Casey Kasem to tell us. Ryan Seacrest does his best to carry the torch, and Kasem himself was doing his countdown thing right up until his retirement in 2009. But nah...I don't know of any kids among the Millennials who listen to American Top 40 (or 'AT40', as it's known today) the way we did twenty or thirty years ago, not with the same sense of anticipation and purpose.
And as for long distance dedications, they were nice back then, weren't they? I thought so, anyway. Finely misted droplets of romance Kasem sweetened with a lilt of his voice and a pregnant pause before announcing, so-and-so, in someplace or other, 'here's your long distance dedication...' I tried this once when I was working in radio, did a 'dedication' on the air...mine was complete bullshit. I just made it up, and used Smoky Mountain Rain by Ronnie Milsap. I got chewed out by the GM for this; he might not have believed it was real, but he mostly complained that Smoky Mountain Rain was way too old for a 'hot country' station to be playing. I thought it was a good choice, and I still do. Somewhere I have tapes of some of the shows from my radio days. If I could find a tape of that (and I think it might actually exist...), I'd post it here, let readers decide how convincing I sound.
But in any case, there is no 'long distance' between us anymore, really, none that bears, or warrants, the pageantry of over-the-air dedications. Text, e-mail and Skype, Facebook, Reddit, Snapchat, Twitter and Tumblr, and so forth and so on, have bridged the gap of space and time. If anything, we're all up in each other's face now in a way we never were in the past. We are never given a chance to drift apart, start getting sentimental, to start longing. Too often, the past really does remain present.
Casey Kasem's perfect radio voice was also well suited for cartoon voice-overs. He provided the voice for Shaggy, from the Scooby Doo cartoons, and ironically enough, given the astonishing longevity of that cartoon's popularity with each new generation, it might be said that this will be his most lasting accomplishment, his legacy.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Hawaii stowaway story is serious business, but also downright astonishing
When I was sixteen years old I was full of piss and vinegar - about what I knew, what I was capable of, what I was willing to do - but like most middle class, Midwestern teenagers, it was just that: piss and vinegar. Truth was, I never strayed much - if at all - outside my safe zone, and my rebellions, my surrenders to impulse, were for the most part garden variety and PG-rated. One time I drove my new car (a '77 Chrysler Newport that didn't always start) three hours to Minneapolis, though I'd only been driving for a few months and didn't know Minneapolis (or city driving) at all. This event was on a short list of things I did in outright defiance of my parents back then, and though it was kind of thrilling, when I returned home safely with nothing terrible having happened, as my parents worried might, I couldn't help feeling as relieved as I did vindicated.
News last month that a 16-year-old California kid snuck onto an airport tarmac, climbed into a wheel well of a Boeing 767, and survived a five-hour flight at 35,000 feet to Hawaii deserves some serious inquiry, but also, quite frankly, some serious applause.
The obvious questions, born of grave concern, arose immediately: How was the boy not spotted by someone? Airport security? Baggage handlers? And if this kid could do what he did, what's to stop someone with ill-intent from doing the same thing? And of course, the most obvious: how the hell did he survive subzero temperatures and virtually no oxygen for such a period of time?
The questions about airport security might never be answered. The only proper (and possible) response would seem to be to tighten up the game at all of them (every facet of the airline travel industry should forever be in a state of 'tightening'...) And I'd be willing to bet the boy will have no answers as to how he survived the journey. So far, doctors seem to have done little more than shrug and talk about the possibility (however unlikely) that he went into a state of 'hibernation' during the flight, which saved his life.
If I had a chance to sit down and talk to this kid, I'd have just one question, and it would not have anything to do with surviving it physically. I would want to know how he pulled it off emotionally, and psychologically? Where in his psyche did he have to dig, and how deep, to not only figure out how to do it, but then actually do it?
Sitting there waiting for something to happen would be the worst. It's one thing to imagine him getting there, climbing over the airport fence in the dark, approaching the massive aircraft, grabbing hold of an enormous tire and climbing up into the wheel well. But what mysterious force enabled him to stay there, crouched in that cramped, uncomfortable space, heart and mind racing, breaking out in wave after wave of cold sweat, trying to control his breathing, counting the seconds and minutes until take off?
What went through his mind when he heard rummaging and thumping going on in the cabin directly above his head, as the plane was boarded and prepped?
How did he not panic into fleeing - in a jackrabbit sprint back across the tarmac - when he heard the engines fire up for the first time, or when the plane first lurched into motion...?
And what in the name of all that is holy went through his mind in the moment - poised motionless at the head of the runway - when the aircraft first rushed toward take-off speed? Take-offs freak me the hell out when I'm safely buckled into seat 27A!
'One question' can't help but lead to another, and another, and another.
Reportedly, he was homesick and wanted to see his mother in Somalia. Okay, that's powerful stuff, especially when you're a kid, so I guess the impetus is not hard to figure out. But what kept him motivated on the follow through? He's sixteen years old!
At sixteen, no matter how much I missed my mother, I would not have had the wherewithal to even know how to go about plane hopping, much less the stones to actually do it. I'd have tired and given up, or pussied out (to use age-appropriate lingo) really quick.
And what of the prep time required? That alone would be a major undertaking. There clearly needed to be a lot of studying, a lot of careful calculation and plotting, a familiarity with the airport layout, with flight plans and schedules and so forth, to bridge the gap between reading about it and doing it.
At sixteen, I struggled paying attention in gym class and wasn't too keen on concentrating long enough to wrap my head around directions for hooking up a VCR.
Make no mistake, I am not saying what this reportedly 'quiet teen' from San Jose, California did was right. I am neither condoning it, nor dismissing the seriousness of it just because it didn't cause a catastrophe (which it easily could have). But man, there's no denying it's impressive. People train for things like this: they train for marshaling their fears of speed, height and distance. They go out of their way to prepare themselves psychologically for the pushing of boundaries through extreme behaviors, extreme sports, and they're usually not sixteen years old when they do.
At sixteen, my sixteen, all the 'piss and vinegar' in the world could not have hidden the fact that I didn't think there were too many reasons to get out of bed in the morning, or that I fully expected there to be cereal (Fruity Pebbles) and cold milk waiting for me downstairs in the kitchen when I did, or that I would get a little bitchy and bratty if there wasn't, and likely use it as an excuse to go back to bed.
News last month that a 16-year-old California kid snuck onto an airport tarmac, climbed into a wheel well of a Boeing 767, and survived a five-hour flight at 35,000 feet to Hawaii deserves some serious inquiry, but also, quite frankly, some serious applause.
The obvious questions, born of grave concern, arose immediately: How was the boy not spotted by someone? Airport security? Baggage handlers? And if this kid could do what he did, what's to stop someone with ill-intent from doing the same thing? And of course, the most obvious: how the hell did he survive subzero temperatures and virtually no oxygen for such a period of time?
The questions about airport security might never be answered. The only proper (and possible) response would seem to be to tighten up the game at all of them (every facet of the airline travel industry should forever be in a state of 'tightening'...) And I'd be willing to bet the boy will have no answers as to how he survived the journey. So far, doctors seem to have done little more than shrug and talk about the possibility (however unlikely) that he went into a state of 'hibernation' during the flight, which saved his life.
If I had a chance to sit down and talk to this kid, I'd have just one question, and it would not have anything to do with surviving it physically. I would want to know how he pulled it off emotionally, and psychologically? Where in his psyche did he have to dig, and how deep, to not only figure out how to do it, but then actually do it?
Sitting there waiting for something to happen would be the worst. It's one thing to imagine him getting there, climbing over the airport fence in the dark, approaching the massive aircraft, grabbing hold of an enormous tire and climbing up into the wheel well. But what mysterious force enabled him to stay there, crouched in that cramped, uncomfortable space, heart and mind racing, breaking out in wave after wave of cold sweat, trying to control his breathing, counting the seconds and minutes until take off?
What went through his mind when he heard rummaging and thumping going on in the cabin directly above his head, as the plane was boarded and prepped?
How did he not panic into fleeing - in a jackrabbit sprint back across the tarmac - when he heard the engines fire up for the first time, or when the plane first lurched into motion...?
And what in the name of all that is holy went through his mind in the moment - poised motionless at the head of the runway - when the aircraft first rushed toward take-off speed? Take-offs freak me the hell out when I'm safely buckled into seat 27A!
'One question' can't help but lead to another, and another, and another.
Reportedly, he was homesick and wanted to see his mother in Somalia. Okay, that's powerful stuff, especially when you're a kid, so I guess the impetus is not hard to figure out. But what kept him motivated on the follow through? He's sixteen years old!
At sixteen, no matter how much I missed my mother, I would not have had the wherewithal to even know how to go about plane hopping, much less the stones to actually do it. I'd have tired and given up, or pussied out (to use age-appropriate lingo) really quick.
And what of the prep time required? That alone would be a major undertaking. There clearly needed to be a lot of studying, a lot of careful calculation and plotting, a familiarity with the airport layout, with flight plans and schedules and so forth, to bridge the gap between reading about it and doing it.
At sixteen, I struggled paying attention in gym class and wasn't too keen on concentrating long enough to wrap my head around directions for hooking up a VCR.
Make no mistake, I am not saying what this reportedly 'quiet teen' from San Jose, California did was right. I am neither condoning it, nor dismissing the seriousness of it just because it didn't cause a catastrophe (which it easily could have). But man, there's no denying it's impressive. People train for things like this: they train for marshaling their fears of speed, height and distance. They go out of their way to prepare themselves psychologically for the pushing of boundaries through extreme behaviors, extreme sports, and they're usually not sixteen years old when they do.
At sixteen, my sixteen, all the 'piss and vinegar' in the world could not have hidden the fact that I didn't think there were too many reasons to get out of bed in the morning, or that I fully expected there to be cereal (Fruity Pebbles) and cold milk waiting for me downstairs in the kitchen when I did, or that I would get a little bitchy and bratty if there wasn't, and likely use it as an excuse to go back to bed.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Coming in 2015...uhhh...Peanuts? Really? *sigh...*
So not 45 seconds ago, I came across a 'teaser/trailer' on YouTube for Peanuts, the first feature length movie to come out for the comic strip franchise, unless you include (and you should...) 1980's 'Bon Voyage Charlie Brown (And Don't Come Back)'...and surely the first to render the beloved characters with computer animation.
Slated for release in 2015, the movie is (at least so far) being billed as, "Peanuts: by Schulz"...a worthy sign that some semblance of the original comic strip will be preserved. I can only hope 'Schulz' will not feel compelled to roll over in his grave when it is released.
The minute-long trailer seems inoffensive enough, lending Charlie Brown and Snoopy familiar mannerisms that hold true to the old days. It even sports that Vince Guaraldi piano jam that has pretty much become the Peanuts theme - further evidence that something will remain of the original, that all that made Peanuts great in the past will not be snuffed out in one bloated, belch-like endeavor to make it palatable to a new audience.
Hey, it happens. In the past 15 years, I've twice bore witness to a grievous bastardization of another childhood favorite. Jim Carrey and Mike Myers were each, in turn, unleashed on Dr. Seuss in the early 2000s, with, in my opinion, disastrous results.
I have nothing against Jim Carrey or Mike Myers, in their element. But to try creating a mash-up of their comedic shticks and the sweet, dreamy trip of Dr. Seuss - whose books allowed the imaginations of readers to do the walking for three generations - in other words, to turn the heady unraveling of a rainy day when the Cat in the Hat pays a visit into a particle stream of Austin Powers-caliber fart jokes and 'peeing in the fountain' sight gags, was the most horrible fucking thing I have ever seen on the big screen.
This, from someone who endured Bulworth and Dr. T and the Women...
I'd give anything for that not to happen with this incarnation of Peanuts. And I am especially defensive of Peanuts, because I'm especially fond of Peanuts.
There are two ways this new movie can go, as I see it It will either corrupt the franchise entirely, desperate to keep viewers' attention by updating the characters, turning them too savvy, or too snarky, or just needlessly too modern (imagine Charlie Brown an uber depressive emo...Schroeder an arrogant hipster...Linus, a David Spade-type know-it-all, with an asshole comment about everything...)
Or...
It will go the saccharine, river-of-sugar route, which would be equally as untrue to Schulz's vision. The Peanuts comic strip conceived and churned out dutifully for 50 years by Charles Schulz, almost until his death in early 2000, was not saccharine. Too often, it gets dismissed / remembered as such, by people who are not digging deep enough, or are distracted by some of the more prominent totems of the Peanuts world: sayings like Happiness is a Warm Puppy, for instance, or what's always been perceived as an overstated Christian message (although that itself would seem to be misunderstood...)
Instead, Peanuts was intended to humanize kids, to put intelligent, and yes, sometimes pensive thoughts in the mouths of children. It was first and foremost a comic strip, so its main charge was providing the requisite daily dose of gag relief, but it was philosophical too, even a little dark once in a while. Not the overwrought and ridiculous 'dark' populated by vampires (and mascara-streaked emos...) that makes for flashy Saturday night programming on the WB; rather, the plainly dressed sort of dark, sporting a clean haircut and sensible shoes, that visits ordinary people at odd moments in this life, usually vulnerable moments. Peanuts was, at times, tuned into the kind of thoughts that can draw shadows out from the corners of any room and turn any day pensive, without there really being a reason.
The very best example of Peanuts' complexity might be Charlie Brown's opening line in the now classic 1965 Christmas special: "I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming, but I'm not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel ... I just don't understand Christmas I guess. I like getting presents, and sending Christmas cards, and decorating trees and all that, but I'm still not happy. I always end up feeling depressed."
Numerous animated specials followed that one, throughout the 1970s and 80s. Some were better than others; and some, admittedly, went out of their way to capture what was popular in the day, in the very manner I'm hoping will not be the case here. (1983's It's FlashBeagle, Charlie Brown leaps to mind...) But most were drawn from storylines in the comic strip, and nearly all bore a sampling, at least, of the intimate brand of intelligence and melancholy that sets the strip, which at its peak ran in over 2,500 newspapers, apart. I remember watching She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown when I was nine, and really being moved by the end scene, where, after a tape malfunctions, Woodstock saves the day by whistling music so that Peppermint Patty can complete her skating routine. The tune he whistles? O Mio Babbino Caro.
An odd yet fitting choice for a children's program. There was (is) something lovely about the scene, which I just cannot see working now. Kids today either have to be shouted at, or completely inoculated from reality, from themselves, from their 'pensive thoughts'.
Maybe I'm wrong...about what kids respond to these days and what lengths this new movie will go to get and keep their attention. Seriously, I hope I am. But either way, it's been proven time and time again that when someone great passes, that which made them great should probably be left to pass with them.
Slated for release in 2015, the movie is (at least so far) being billed as, "Peanuts: by Schulz"...a worthy sign that some semblance of the original comic strip will be preserved. I can only hope 'Schulz' will not feel compelled to roll over in his grave when it is released.
The minute-long trailer seems inoffensive enough, lending Charlie Brown and Snoopy familiar mannerisms that hold true to the old days. It even sports that Vince Guaraldi piano jam that has pretty much become the Peanuts theme - further evidence that something will remain of the original, that all that made Peanuts great in the past will not be snuffed out in one bloated, belch-like endeavor to make it palatable to a new audience.
Hey, it happens. In the past 15 years, I've twice bore witness to a grievous bastardization of another childhood favorite. Jim Carrey and Mike Myers were each, in turn, unleashed on Dr. Seuss in the early 2000s, with, in my opinion, disastrous results.
I have nothing against Jim Carrey or Mike Myers, in their element. But to try creating a mash-up of their comedic shticks and the sweet, dreamy trip of Dr. Seuss - whose books allowed the imaginations of readers to do the walking for three generations - in other words, to turn the heady unraveling of a rainy day when the Cat in the Hat pays a visit into a particle stream of Austin Powers-caliber fart jokes and 'peeing in the fountain' sight gags, was the most horrible fucking thing I have ever seen on the big screen.
This, from someone who endured Bulworth and Dr. T and the Women...
I'd give anything for that not to happen with this incarnation of Peanuts. And I am especially defensive of Peanuts, because I'm especially fond of Peanuts.
There are two ways this new movie can go, as I see it It will either corrupt the franchise entirely, desperate to keep viewers' attention by updating the characters, turning them too savvy, or too snarky, or just needlessly too modern (imagine Charlie Brown an uber depressive emo...Schroeder an arrogant hipster...Linus, a David Spade-type know-it-all, with an asshole comment about everything...)
Or...
It will go the saccharine, river-of-sugar route, which would be equally as untrue to Schulz's vision. The Peanuts comic strip conceived and churned out dutifully for 50 years by Charles Schulz, almost until his death in early 2000, was not saccharine. Too often, it gets dismissed / remembered as such, by people who are not digging deep enough, or are distracted by some of the more prominent totems of the Peanuts world: sayings like Happiness is a Warm Puppy, for instance, or what's always been perceived as an overstated Christian message (although that itself would seem to be misunderstood...)
Instead, Peanuts was intended to humanize kids, to put intelligent, and yes, sometimes pensive thoughts in the mouths of children. It was first and foremost a comic strip, so its main charge was providing the requisite daily dose of gag relief, but it was philosophical too, even a little dark once in a while. Not the overwrought and ridiculous 'dark' populated by vampires (and mascara-streaked emos...) that makes for flashy Saturday night programming on the WB; rather, the plainly dressed sort of dark, sporting a clean haircut and sensible shoes, that visits ordinary people at odd moments in this life, usually vulnerable moments. Peanuts was, at times, tuned into the kind of thoughts that can draw shadows out from the corners of any room and turn any day pensive, without there really being a reason.
 |
POTENT - Throughout its 50 year run, Peanuts sought to humanize kids, to portray them as thoughtful individuals, and did so without coddling them or pandering to them. This particular panel, which I clipped from a newspaper page in the mid 1990s, is perhaps the best print evidence that Peanuts does not deserve to remembered as saccharine.
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The very best example of Peanuts' complexity might be Charlie Brown's opening line in the now classic 1965 Christmas special: "I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming, but I'm not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel ... I just don't understand Christmas I guess. I like getting presents, and sending Christmas cards, and decorating trees and all that, but I'm still not happy. I always end up feeling depressed."
Numerous animated specials followed that one, throughout the 1970s and 80s. Some were better than others; and some, admittedly, went out of their way to capture what was popular in the day, in the very manner I'm hoping will not be the case here. (1983's It's FlashBeagle, Charlie Brown leaps to mind...) But most were drawn from storylines in the comic strip, and nearly all bore a sampling, at least, of the intimate brand of intelligence and melancholy that sets the strip, which at its peak ran in over 2,500 newspapers, apart. I remember watching She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown when I was nine, and really being moved by the end scene, where, after a tape malfunctions, Woodstock saves the day by whistling music so that Peppermint Patty can complete her skating routine. The tune he whistles? O Mio Babbino Caro.
An odd yet fitting choice for a children's program. There was (is) something lovely about the scene, which I just cannot see working now. Kids today either have to be shouted at, or completely inoculated from reality, from themselves, from their 'pensive thoughts'.
Maybe I'm wrong...about what kids respond to these days and what lengths this new movie will go to get and keep their attention. Seriously, I hope I am. But either way, it's been proven time and time again that when someone great passes, that which made them great should probably be left to pass with them.
 |
Monday, January 27, 2014
Greetings from the Polar Vortex (...Am I dead yet?)
And so, here in west central Wisconsin, following six surprise inches of fine, fresh powder overnight Saturday, we find ourselves in the midst of yet another Arctic blast; Polar Vortex II, The Reckoning, you might be inclined to call it, smack dab in the midst of what's almost surely to be remembered as the 'Winter of '14.' (Which sounds kind of weird, actually, leads me - erroneously - to thoughts of Model T's, horse-drawn carriages and chickens kept in people's yards...)
Happily, the media coverage is far less hysterical than two weeks ago, when, to hear your average TV anchor tell it, the Four Snowmen of the Apocalypse were bearing down on us all. But precautions are still being taken this time around: schools are closing, events are being postponed or cancelled outright, and there's a buzz going on about it, on-line and in public places, a uniformity of response centered around a looming danger, which has led to a certain indignation over any class or organization that isn't closing up shop as the Snowmen reach the outskirts of town...
Which, in turn, has led me to wonder if we really are becoming softer as a species.
Surely nobody alive in America today is (or can be expected to be) as hardy as pioneers or American Indians of 150 years ago, but I wonder sometimes, set adrift as we are in the sunny doldrums of comfort and ease, living lives in which every impulse and aversion alike is indulged a hundred times over in real time, if we're as hardy a people as we were fifty years ago, or even thirty.
I grew up in the 70s and 80s in Wisconsin, a state that's always thrown a hell of a winter (a short description of which helped keep Kate Winslet from throwing herself off the stern of the Titanic), and I don't remember a single day off from school back then merely because it was cold. There were plenty of snow days...a bomb scare once, too, and some kind of spill in the Chemistry lab that was so malodorous, classes were let out...but not once was I ever allowed to stay in bed on a Wednesday morning merely because it was cold outside. I could be wrong about this, but given how high in esteem days off were held, I would think I'd remember any that happened for an unusual reason.
I can see, perhaps, closing public schools when the temperature plunges, making sure our young children are not outside in this type of weather, waiting for the bus or, worse, walking to school. But colleges and vo-techs? Other public (but indoor) events? Really? Is the cold weather that unmanageable? That threatening? It sucks, to be sure...but as we ply our day, 99.9 % of us are only actually outside for 5 to 20 seconds at a pass, usually between the front door and our car. Is brutal cold a reason to cease living, to hole up and power down until it passes? I just don't know...
I might be unusual, that is, not the right person to ask, because the last thing I want to do when the weather's like this is stay in and get cozy. I get restless, start climbing the living room curtains, need to get up and get out. But if it's at all true that we've become weak in the face of winter, as usual, I think the news media's to blame. When you consider its hysterical response to the polar vortex (which, as I understand it, is an archaic meteorological term from the 1940s that is neither an uncommon phenomenon in winter, nor all that threatening), perhaps it's no surprise that it's come down to whole days being ground to a halt, in a winter that isn't even as cold as some in the past.
The news media (and by this, I mean primarily television...) operates under the premise of dispensing vital information, giving us the story, keeping us informed, but Humanity survived just fine from 10,000 BC to 1980 AD, prior to the advent of the 24-hour news cycle. We handled cold, and fire and water and earth in a very worthy way. There was tragedy surely, because there is tragedy from time to time in this life. But at no time was our survival as a species threatened in the days before we gave winter storms their own names and stuck reporters under street lamps in Anyplace, Anywhere to broadcast live for the duration. At no time was a cold snap, or a winter storm, treated or thought of as an Apocalyptic event just to sell more cell phones, SUVs and bags of potato chips (because make no mistake, that's what 'news' - particularly the 24-hour kind - has become: never about broadcasting live so much as generating hype for Madison Avenue).
I think the news media's zeal, the unending search for something to spin into a story (or turn into a scoop) in a world where something isn't always happening, not only succeeds in little more than fostering a culture of fear and paranoia, but erodes our ability to think for ourselves, to rely on wits and common sense and observation, and communication with one another (ironically enough) to arrive at the proper response.
A wicked cold snap is not a good situation; it can be dangerous; certainly it presents the potential for hardship (among our most vulnerable citizens in particular), but it is not the fricking snow apocalypse either, and shouldn't be treated that way.
And though I hate this time of year with a white hot passion I keep hoping will one day melt all the snow, I say again, at least it feels like winter, a winter of old. It's kind of reassuring to be trudging through half a foot of snow that came without warning overnight, to have to 'bundle up' and go out to start my car ahead of time, to have a reason to bitch and complain and declare my allegiance to the Conch Republic. Even if these wintry days are an illusion (and nobody with a brain is claiming our current cold snap is proof that climate change isn't real), it's comforting nevertheless to see - and feel - a winter like those I remember from childhood. Brown Thanksgivings and 50 degree days in December - in Wisconsin - are unnatural; a 'January thaw' is supposed to be a minor hiccup in an otherwise impenetrable winter.
Happily, the media coverage is far less hysterical than two weeks ago, when, to hear your average TV anchor tell it, the Four Snowmen of the Apocalypse were bearing down on us all. But precautions are still being taken this time around: schools are closing, events are being postponed or cancelled outright, and there's a buzz going on about it, on-line and in public places, a uniformity of response centered around a looming danger, which has led to a certain indignation over any class or organization that isn't closing up shop as the Snowmen reach the outskirts of town...
Which, in turn, has led me to wonder if we really are becoming softer as a species.
Surely nobody alive in America today is (or can be expected to be) as hardy as pioneers or American Indians of 150 years ago, but I wonder sometimes, set adrift as we are in the sunny doldrums of comfort and ease, living lives in which every impulse and aversion alike is indulged a hundred times over in real time, if we're as hardy a people as we were fifty years ago, or even thirty.
I grew up in the 70s and 80s in Wisconsin, a state that's always thrown a hell of a winter (a short description of which helped keep Kate Winslet from throwing herself off the stern of the Titanic), and I don't remember a single day off from school back then merely because it was cold. There were plenty of snow days...a bomb scare once, too, and some kind of spill in the Chemistry lab that was so malodorous, classes were let out...but not once was I ever allowed to stay in bed on a Wednesday morning merely because it was cold outside. I could be wrong about this, but given how high in esteem days off were held, I would think I'd remember any that happened for an unusual reason.
I can see, perhaps, closing public schools when the temperature plunges, making sure our young children are not outside in this type of weather, waiting for the bus or, worse, walking to school. But colleges and vo-techs? Other public (but indoor) events? Really? Is the cold weather that unmanageable? That threatening? It sucks, to be sure...but as we ply our day, 99.9 % of us are only actually outside for 5 to 20 seconds at a pass, usually between the front door and our car. Is brutal cold a reason to cease living, to hole up and power down until it passes? I just don't know...
I might be unusual, that is, not the right person to ask, because the last thing I want to do when the weather's like this is stay in and get cozy. I get restless, start climbing the living room curtains, need to get up and get out. But if it's at all true that we've become weak in the face of winter, as usual, I think the news media's to blame. When you consider its hysterical response to the polar vortex (which, as I understand it, is an archaic meteorological term from the 1940s that is neither an uncommon phenomenon in winter, nor all that threatening), perhaps it's no surprise that it's come down to whole days being ground to a halt, in a winter that isn't even as cold as some in the past.
The news media (and by this, I mean primarily television...) operates under the premise of dispensing vital information, giving us the story, keeping us informed, but Humanity survived just fine from 10,000 BC to 1980 AD, prior to the advent of the 24-hour news cycle. We handled cold, and fire and water and earth in a very worthy way. There was tragedy surely, because there is tragedy from time to time in this life. But at no time was our survival as a species threatened in the days before we gave winter storms their own names and stuck reporters under street lamps in Anyplace, Anywhere to broadcast live for the duration. At no time was a cold snap, or a winter storm, treated or thought of as an Apocalyptic event just to sell more cell phones, SUVs and bags of potato chips (because make no mistake, that's what 'news' - particularly the 24-hour kind - has become: never about broadcasting live so much as generating hype for Madison Avenue).
I think the news media's zeal, the unending search for something to spin into a story (or turn into a scoop) in a world where something isn't always happening, not only succeeds in little more than fostering a culture of fear and paranoia, but erodes our ability to think for ourselves, to rely on wits and common sense and observation, and communication with one another (ironically enough) to arrive at the proper response.
A wicked cold snap is not a good situation; it can be dangerous; certainly it presents the potential for hardship (among our most vulnerable citizens in particular), but it is not the fricking snow apocalypse either, and shouldn't be treated that way.
And though I hate this time of year with a white hot passion I keep hoping will one day melt all the snow, I say again, at least it feels like winter, a winter of old. It's kind of reassuring to be trudging through half a foot of snow that came without warning overnight, to have to 'bundle up' and go out to start my car ahead of time, to have a reason to bitch and complain and declare my allegiance to the Conch Republic. Even if these wintry days are an illusion (and nobody with a brain is claiming our current cold snap is proof that climate change isn't real), it's comforting nevertheless to see - and feel - a winter like those I remember from childhood. Brown Thanksgivings and 50 degree days in December - in Wisconsin - are unnatural; a 'January thaw' is supposed to be a minor hiccup in an otherwise impenetrable winter.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
UPDATE: In light of Epic Rap Battles post, it would seem some clarification is in order
So my post last month about Epic Rap Battles of History was a kind of double-edged sword. On one hand, it got the attention of one of the creators, who re-blogged it on his Tumblr. This resulted in a flurry of views from people who otherwise might not know I exist (which is most people), and that in turn generated a flurry of 'likes'. All good, and very much appreciated.
But a few people called me out on my opinion of new media in the digital age, specifically YouTube. To my surprise, what was meant simply as a heartfelt ode to Epic Rap Battles... apparently read, to some, like the jaded grousing of an arrogant puke.
My answer to this charge: yes, that's exactly what it was. At least the jaded grousing part...
In 2006, Time magazine named 'You' as its Person of the Year...that is, all of us. YouTube had been launched just the year before, and Time smartly recognized the tremendous impact it was going to have. The award correctly suggested a paradigm shift, the creation of a whole new wave of information providers and entertainers direct from grass roots level - new faces and voices we would otherwise not see or hear but would become eager to. It could literally be anyone in the world, and here was the rub: in order to watch and listen to them we would, for the first time ever, go to our computers rather than our televisions or radios.
That was huge. Factor in the rise of smart phones in the last seven years, providing uninterrupted, real time connectedness, and I don't think it's an overstatement that the whole thing should be considered nothing less than an evolutionary step for our species.
Now's a good time to state that I don't think everything about YouTube is bad; that was what I didn't make clear in my last post, and so ruffled a few feathers. No question there's been some standouts: ERB, of course, and I'm also a fan of VSauce, as well as the Slow Mo Guys, Postmodern Jukebox is pretty amazing, the Nostalgia Critic pretty damn funny...I guess I'm revealing myself to be a bit of a nerd at heart. The point is, there are plenty of people taking the creative blank check technology now provides and doing interesting, original things.
I just think it's fair to say that most aren't.
While YouTube has delivered on its predicted impact, it hasn't quite lived up to its potential. It hasn't eclipsed traditional television and cinema as our primary fonts of entertainment or information by unleashing a tidal storm of Stones, Scorceses and Spielbergs, or Moores, Spurlocks and Kenners.
What YouTube has produced the most of is the 'open source' crowd, and I'd say these are the only people I'm actually indignant about: the utterly talentless who, simply because technology allows them to do so, throw together their GIFs and movie mash-ups and slide shows set to music, co-opting copyrighted material in the process.
Yes, fine, I admit, here I am a little jaded, even a little pukey, on principle. I understand why Prince - for example - jealously guards his creative body of work from those who would help themselves to it. On the surface, it's easy to think he's just being a tool for threatening legal action over unauthorized use of his image and music, but when you really get down to it, he's not being a tool at all. It's his image and music. It means something now, just as it meant something in 1984, and copyright laws are in place for his - and all of our - protection. In our digital age, the implications of publishing on YouTube (and that's really what it is - publishing) need to be acknowledged, the definitions of 'fair use' and 'satire' sharpened down to a spear point, and all attendant copyright observed, with authorship recognized.
One step up from the open source people on YouTube are what I call the 'day traders', those who see fit to share whatever stuff they happen to catch on their phones, the same stuff they're sharing on Facebook and Reddit and Twitter and Snapchat and all the rest.
Sometimes someone is in the right place at the right time and captures something magnificent:
And sometimes it falls on the sinister side, the cruelty, violence and bad decision making that for better or worse inform our Zeitgeist. But in any case, it's no secret that YouTube day traders trade in precious commodities. The bread crumbs of our daily lives have become as much entertainment as anything. That people actually cash in some of their precious time to watch the most random stuff, stuff they probably have or see or experience at home, and give their approval through their likes and comments and ad hoc reviews (which is really why they do it: the opportunity to chime in) is perhaps another post all together.
And of course, there are the myriad Vloggers, people who have realized that for a minimal expenditure of time and money they can have what pretty much amounts to their own television channel, their own reality show, their own bully pulpit. These folks are at least lifting a finger to be entertaining, but here again, just because they can, it doesn't naturally follow that they should, or that they can. Yes, they're entertaining (verb), but are they entertaining (adjective)? I've tuned in to more than a few vlogs, and there are some funny ones, but most simply aren't. Most of them have flat-lined into not even being interesting. Most, that I've seen, are simply people carrying around cameras and filming themselves doing the most mundane crap, witless and tired and creatively barren. Yet somehow they STILL manage to garner likes and viewers and followers and subscribers!
That seems perverse to me. I'm sorry, I'm trying desperately not to be a hater, but I don't think entertainment should be like a 5th grade soccer match, where everyone gets a trophy and there are no losers. I think when everyone is allowed to present themselves as a creative person - a film maker, a singer, a photographer, digital artist, writer or a composer - in the egalitarian arena of the Internet, everyone's going to. The waters can't help but get muddied and the curve by which we grade it all can't help but get lowered, thus lowering what we collectively expect, and in turn, lowering what anyone bothers to produce. And that's depressing. I don't think there's anything about that assertion that makes me an arrogant puke. I don't think there's a creative person in the world who would disagree. And frankly, whether I'm creative is not the point. I say these things strictly as a consumer, not a creator.
Epic Lloyd and Nice Peter are clearly talented guys, and were it 1994 rather than 2014, each would likely still find success in entertainment in some capacity, together or apart. Their 'story', I think, is that they do what they do, to the extent they do it, in a uniquely 21st century medium - i.e., the Internet, where anybody can conceivably do what they do, but most don't. Most settle for the easy route; they forsake a true creative process carried on the backs of pre and post production considerations, attention to detail, building upon each new success to create something bigger and better (all the stuff I raved about in my last post), and either plagiarize, or in the best of scenarios, simply hoist up a camera and film themselves smiling and saying pithy things, cooking eggs in their kitchen, or running around the grocery store mocking strangers and laughing at the zucchini.
The point is, none of that stuff, none of it, would see the light of day twenty years ago. Were its creators trying to travel through conventional channels to get it produced - the hero's journey through a wasteland of submissions and rejections that once defined the creative world and, though sometimes discouraging, filtered out the worthy from the not-so-worthy - most of it would be lucky to find its way into the 'out' basket on the desk of the secretary of even the most two-bit talent agent in Sacramento.
But now, the 'light of day' is immediately accessible to all of us all at once, a world-wide audience at our fingertips...and thus, nobody is vetted. Dues no longer have to be paid in order to be 'liked'.
What I'm asserting may sound extreme, but make no mistake, this phenomenon of complacency and laziness in entertainment is already at play in conventional channels, and has been for at least the last decade. We know it as 'reality' TV. It is literally why the Kardashians are what they are: 'famous for being famous', otherwise bringing nothing new, innovative or edifying to the party. Producers of these kinds of shows, probably dating back to the first season of The Real World the year I graduated high school (and possibly much earlier), realized it's easier, and cheaper, to just plop these awful people, any awful people (just so long as they're physically attractive and/or have 'big personalities'....), in front of a camera and let them do their stupid shit, say their stupid things, and still garner just as many viewers (in other words sell just as many cell phones, bags of Doritos and cases of beer, because it's all about advertising, baby...) as the shows that actually get conceived and thought through, written and produced.
And people watch. They watch! Do they laugh and mock? Probably (not always). But they still watch. The Kardashians, et al., are bonafide fucking celebrities! Just as (for instance) Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul (and Vince Gilligan) are celebrities....even more so.
Even more so! 8-/
And this can't help but beg the question: why are Epic Lloyd and Nice Peter (among others) busting their tails, straining their creative brains to create a legitimate, original product, when they could, for the price of a few bottles of Belvedere vodka and the expense of an apartment rental, get a few kids together, see who barfs first, and where, and what's said about it, and have a 'hit' on their hands?
My previous post was intended not only to express relief that they are doing what they're doing, but that people are responding so enthusiastically. God forbid everyone just throws up their hands and becomes content with the Kardashians, or Bad Girls, or the Real Anybody of Anywhere. That's how we wind up with chocolate chip cookies as the only dessert option.
Anything wrong with chocolate chip cookies? Hell no...but without the promise, the hope, of a well-textured torte once in a while, there isn't really any reason to get out of bed in the morning, is there?
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I was also asked by a couple people what Epic Rap Battle I'd like to see, and with a little thought came up with the following:
1) Stephen King versus Edgar Allen Poe
2) USA for Africa versus Band-Aid (this would be ambitious, but I think truly epic! Worthy of a season finale! ;-)
But a few people called me out on my opinion of new media in the digital age, specifically YouTube. To my surprise, what was meant simply as a heartfelt ode to Epic Rap Battles... apparently read, to some, like the jaded grousing of an arrogant puke.
My answer to this charge: yes, that's exactly what it was. At least the jaded grousing part...
In 2006, Time magazine named 'You' as its Person of the Year...that is, all of us. YouTube had been launched just the year before, and Time smartly recognized the tremendous impact it was going to have. The award correctly suggested a paradigm shift, the creation of a whole new wave of information providers and entertainers direct from grass roots level - new faces and voices we would otherwise not see or hear but would become eager to. It could literally be anyone in the world, and here was the rub: in order to watch and listen to them we would, for the first time ever, go to our computers rather than our televisions or radios.
That was huge. Factor in the rise of smart phones in the last seven years, providing uninterrupted, real time connectedness, and I don't think it's an overstatement that the whole thing should be considered nothing less than an evolutionary step for our species.
Now's a good time to state that I don't think everything about YouTube is bad; that was what I didn't make clear in my last post, and so ruffled a few feathers. No question there's been some standouts: ERB, of course, and I'm also a fan of VSauce, as well as the Slow Mo Guys, Postmodern Jukebox is pretty amazing, the Nostalgia Critic pretty damn funny...I guess I'm revealing myself to be a bit of a nerd at heart. The point is, there are plenty of people taking the creative blank check technology now provides and doing interesting, original things.
I just think it's fair to say that most aren't.
While YouTube has delivered on its predicted impact, it hasn't quite lived up to its potential. It hasn't eclipsed traditional television and cinema as our primary fonts of entertainment or information by unleashing a tidal storm of Stones, Scorceses and Spielbergs, or Moores, Spurlocks and Kenners.
What YouTube has produced the most of is the 'open source' crowd, and I'd say these are the only people I'm actually indignant about: the utterly talentless who, simply because technology allows them to do so, throw together their GIFs and movie mash-ups and slide shows set to music, co-opting copyrighted material in the process.
Yes, fine, I admit, here I am a little jaded, even a little pukey, on principle. I understand why Prince - for example - jealously guards his creative body of work from those who would help themselves to it. On the surface, it's easy to think he's just being a tool for threatening legal action over unauthorized use of his image and music, but when you really get down to it, he's not being a tool at all. It's his image and music. It means something now, just as it meant something in 1984, and copyright laws are in place for his - and all of our - protection. In our digital age, the implications of publishing on YouTube (and that's really what it is - publishing) need to be acknowledged, the definitions of 'fair use' and 'satire' sharpened down to a spear point, and all attendant copyright observed, with authorship recognized.
One step up from the open source people on YouTube are what I call the 'day traders', those who see fit to share whatever stuff they happen to catch on their phones, the same stuff they're sharing on Facebook and Reddit and Twitter and Snapchat and all the rest.
Sometimes someone is in the right place at the right time and captures something magnificent:
Other times it takes the form of the benign:
And sometimes it falls on the sinister side, the cruelty, violence and bad decision making that for better or worse inform our Zeitgeist. But in any case, it's no secret that YouTube day traders trade in precious commodities. The bread crumbs of our daily lives have become as much entertainment as anything. That people actually cash in some of their precious time to watch the most random stuff, stuff they probably have or see or experience at home, and give their approval through their likes and comments and ad hoc reviews (which is really why they do it: the opportunity to chime in) is perhaps another post all together.
And of course, there are the myriad Vloggers, people who have realized that for a minimal expenditure of time and money they can have what pretty much amounts to their own television channel, their own reality show, their own bully pulpit. These folks are at least lifting a finger to be entertaining, but here again, just because they can, it doesn't naturally follow that they should, or that they can. Yes, they're entertaining (verb), but are they entertaining (adjective)? I've tuned in to more than a few vlogs, and there are some funny ones, but most simply aren't. Most of them have flat-lined into not even being interesting. Most, that I've seen, are simply people carrying around cameras and filming themselves doing the most mundane crap, witless and tired and creatively barren. Yet somehow they STILL manage to garner likes and viewers and followers and subscribers!
That seems perverse to me. I'm sorry, I'm trying desperately not to be a hater, but I don't think entertainment should be like a 5th grade soccer match, where everyone gets a trophy and there are no losers. I think when everyone is allowed to present themselves as a creative person - a film maker, a singer, a photographer, digital artist, writer or a composer - in the egalitarian arena of the Internet, everyone's going to. The waters can't help but get muddied and the curve by which we grade it all can't help but get lowered, thus lowering what we collectively expect, and in turn, lowering what anyone bothers to produce. And that's depressing. I don't think there's anything about that assertion that makes me an arrogant puke. I don't think there's a creative person in the world who would disagree. And frankly, whether I'm creative is not the point. I say these things strictly as a consumer, not a creator.
Epic Lloyd and Nice Peter are clearly talented guys, and were it 1994 rather than 2014, each would likely still find success in entertainment in some capacity, together or apart. Their 'story', I think, is that they do what they do, to the extent they do it, in a uniquely 21st century medium - i.e., the Internet, where anybody can conceivably do what they do, but most don't. Most settle for the easy route; they forsake a true creative process carried on the backs of pre and post production considerations, attention to detail, building upon each new success to create something bigger and better (all the stuff I raved about in my last post), and either plagiarize, or in the best of scenarios, simply hoist up a camera and film themselves smiling and saying pithy things, cooking eggs in their kitchen, or running around the grocery store mocking strangers and laughing at the zucchini.
The point is, none of that stuff, none of it, would see the light of day twenty years ago. Were its creators trying to travel through conventional channels to get it produced - the hero's journey through a wasteland of submissions and rejections that once defined the creative world and, though sometimes discouraging, filtered out the worthy from the not-so-worthy - most of it would be lucky to find its way into the 'out' basket on the desk of the secretary of even the most two-bit talent agent in Sacramento.
But now, the 'light of day' is immediately accessible to all of us all at once, a world-wide audience at our fingertips...and thus, nobody is vetted. Dues no longer have to be paid in order to be 'liked'.
What I'm asserting may sound extreme, but make no mistake, this phenomenon of complacency and laziness in entertainment is already at play in conventional channels, and has been for at least the last decade. We know it as 'reality' TV. It is literally why the Kardashians are what they are: 'famous for being famous', otherwise bringing nothing new, innovative or edifying to the party. Producers of these kinds of shows, probably dating back to the first season of The Real World the year I graduated high school (and possibly much earlier), realized it's easier, and cheaper, to just plop these awful people, any awful people (just so long as they're physically attractive and/or have 'big personalities'....), in front of a camera and let them do their stupid shit, say their stupid things, and still garner just as many viewers (in other words sell just as many cell phones, bags of Doritos and cases of beer, because it's all about advertising, baby...) as the shows that actually get conceived and thought through, written and produced.
And people watch. They watch! Do they laugh and mock? Probably (not always). But they still watch. The Kardashians, et al., are bonafide fucking celebrities! Just as (for instance) Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul (and Vince Gilligan) are celebrities....even more so.
Even more so! 8-/
And this can't help but beg the question: why are Epic Lloyd and Nice Peter (among others) busting their tails, straining their creative brains to create a legitimate, original product, when they could, for the price of a few bottles of Belvedere vodka and the expense of an apartment rental, get a few kids together, see who barfs first, and where, and what's said about it, and have a 'hit' on their hands?
My previous post was intended not only to express relief that they are doing what they're doing, but that people are responding so enthusiastically. God forbid everyone just throws up their hands and becomes content with the Kardashians, or Bad Girls, or the Real Anybody of Anywhere. That's how we wind up with chocolate chip cookies as the only dessert option.
Anything wrong with chocolate chip cookies? Hell no...but without the promise, the hope, of a well-textured torte once in a while, there isn't really any reason to get out of bed in the morning, is there?
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I was also asked by a couple people what Epic Rap Battle I'd like to see, and with a little thought came up with the following:
1) Stephen King versus Edgar Allen Poe
2) USA for Africa versus Band-Aid (this would be ambitious, but I think truly epic! Worthy of a season finale! ;-)
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