Social Rules, Technology

Prince and Privacy

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xty

 

What prompted this rambling post is that I made a Prince-themed picture for a Facebook friend. I made some graphics and ended up with something unusual and personal, as she was a major Prince fan. I used a high school yearbook photo of my friend that she didn’t even own. It is true that I had to use hop-scotch and logic to surmise her maiden name and geography, but I’ve done this so long that it was overwhelmingly obvious that the picture was indeed her when I encountered it. When I did an ancestry.com search, even though my Facebook friend is still alive, the amount and breadth of information was staggering. (PS: The more unusual your name is, the greater the likelihood that you can be found with much more speed and volume of information.)

I often forget that not everyone understands the sheer magnitude of the internet. There is nothing it fails to touch. Regardless of the number of posts I write above privacy and data volume, I routinely surprise someone with pictures of their junior high year book, their birth date, relatives they never knew they had, secret marriages and divorces divulged, or comments they wrote 15 years ago on a “We Love Axes” message board.

I’ve had situations where people assume I am stalking them or somehow have done something untoward to access information or pictures of them. While I don’t condone stalking, I hate to admit that I am still shocked at this reaction. Stalking requires effort and dedication to match the twisted mind of the person motivated enough to actually stalk another person.(My Facebook friend didn’t believe I was stalking her, to be clear, but she was definitely surprised…)

Since I live among normal human beings, I go back and read a reminder I wrote to myself in an old blog. The reminder tells me to pretend that the person in question just started out on the internet – and therefore is honestly surprised. Even when someone is a writer, actor or lawyer in real life, they are still prone to misunderstanding the reach of the internet in their lives. Once I can imagine the person involved honestly feeling exposed to it for the first time, I am once again sympathetic and feel uneasy at being the one to show them. It’s not my intention to ‘out’ them to the internet or make them feel violated.

The internet is exactly like a room full of stacked and folded newspapers. You might need  a year to go through them to find your name, but it is a certainty that your life is described somewhere in those papers. Over time, someone reads, indexes, and scans all those papers, page by page, thousands and millions of them. And so, your life gets increasingly searchable. You don’t get to vote on whether it happens, or even to what extent.

We sit in a seemingly infinite pool of data. It’s an inhospitable place if you want to feel like you live a protected and quiet life.

 

 

 

 

Whimsical

Don’t Blink In the Lavatory

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“I don’t like to be late,” the guy said with a slight edge of irritation in his voice.
“I don’t like to be later,” I quipped, as being cryptic was my goal for the day.

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Each day the ice cream truck drives past my house, blaring horrific, cartoony music. Man, I don’t like Kanye West.

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Why is a redneck spitting on the ground while having a conversation okay but if I urinate on your hat while we are ice skating someone is gonna get mad?

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After watching one of the dumb efficiency experts talk, I tried flying out of bed in the morning instead of getting up slowly, but the propellers continue to get stuck in the covers.

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Robin Schulz’ “Sugar”

To anyone who wants to hear Prince’s influence, I challenge you to listen to this song and imagine that Prince were singing it. Everything about it screams his presence. I’m the most tragically unhip white guy to ever live, but this song resonates. Plus, the police officer is a guy I’d love to have an Irish coffee with someday.

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The following is the kind of crazy social media post I enjoy writing:

Have you guys ever wondered about the social discomfort vampires can cause? In some movies, vampires won’t bite people who use drugs. That could be very awkward: if you were on a job interview in the evening and a vampire kicks in the door and sees you, sitting opposite your prospective employer behind his desk. If he doesn’t bite you, you’ll never get the job, as your employer will know you’re using drugs. If he does bite you, you will also never get the job, either, because you are applying for day shift and the sun will cause scheduling problems for your boss. This is a very serious issue I’d like to see addressed in a vampire movie. Tomorrow we’ll discuss thermonuclear dissipation techniques but right now, we need this vampire issue settled. Thank you.

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Whimsical

An Angel Sings For Heaven

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The truth is you may never know who hears or sees your words, music, or life, nor what lessons are derived.

Many voices have withered through the inattention that life’s unending demands heap upon us.

What is done without perfected reflection is at times the best fruit to be consumed, just as the best smile is one born from unstudied happiness: life blossoms where it will.

Let us not forget to appreciate talent where we find it.

(I borrowed a friend-of-a-friend’s video and used the music, as I’m not sure the person singing and playing appreciates the sheer talent or practice reflected in her efforts. I ask forgiveness for hearing something ethereal and celestial in the music.)

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The above video is a song I slightly modified from a friend’s twitter feed. He’s playing the piano. When I heard it, lyrics seemed to jump out and hit me in the face. Luckily, he seemed to like my interpretation of his work.

Whimsical

Wednesday Amused

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If I hear “May the fourth be with you” one more time, I won’t hate it because it wasn’t clever. I’ll hate it because that joke is so stale it smells like a fart stored in an old mayonnaise jar left out in the summer sun for 16 years. Besides, we get it: you enjoy Star Wars, much in the same way as I enjoy not smelling old farty mayonnaise jars.

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Misheard but exceptional quote: “When it rains it whores.”

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“I don’t post pictures on Facebook because I don’t like the way I look.” Using that logic, my only question is, “How comfortable are you only coming out at night?”

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“Money can’t buy happiness.” Hmmm… I’m pretty happy when I don’t have to see my boss’ nostril hairs for two days.  Imagine the ecstasy I’d feel after a month.

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The new-hire asked, “What’s the philosophy of this business, how do they operate?” His appointed mentor looked at him for several seconds and replied, “Resistance is futile.”

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New phrase to describe donated items: “The best things that money didn’t buy.”

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Let’s be honest: the best thing to punish most DWI offenders with is a court-mandated poetry interpretation course. They will be so angry they will never drink and drive again.

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Some people can’t help but overkill everything. For example, some people aren’t happy with falling off a cliff – they feel they must jump.

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Some studies suggest that medical mistakes may actually be the true #2 cause of death in the U.S.A. There’s no joke here – that is true.

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The biggest study yet done on spanking, spanning 50 years and 160,000+ children, has again determined that spanking might yield short-term changes in behavior, but result in long-term negative consequences. I know that people everywhere are going to shake their heads in disagreement, because if there is one thing we know, it is that anecdotal confusion of evidence is the modern-day camouflage of logic.

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I hope one day we discover that dogs have languages, too. Not that they all speak the same language, but that each one has his own, with none being capable of understanding the others. It will explain a lot about the Republicans to me.

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Isn’t it strange that connections to real people do more to restore customer service than almost any other metric, yet businesses still feel compelled to treat labor costs and human presence as a burdensome cost to be avoided?

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Here’s the deal: if you give me a place to live, food to eat, transportation, and medical care, I think the minimum wage would be just about right. #stupidcomparisons

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If we started calling perfumes ‘odorants,’ which they are, I would hope that sales will fall. Only 1 in 7 perfumes smell anything like the term ‘pleasant.’

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Just once I’d like to watch one of those nature documentaries and see a group of cows in a field – and then one of the cows farting, followed by a snicker from another cow in the group. It’s all about small goals.

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If you get pulled over and are asked to walk “a straight line,” first remember that lines are theoretical constructs that don’t exist in reality – and they are infinite. So, the answer is always “No.” And you should never lie to a police officer.

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Whimsical

My Dream Says Colin Powell Will Be President

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In the one-in-a-million chance that I had a prescient dream, take a second to read the short synopsis of a crazy dream I had last night. It was so real that I went to work with the echo of it in my head. I imagine the dream was a combination of Trump’s Indiana victory and scenarios playing in my fevered sleep from being unable to be comfortable the entire night.

PS. I don’t believe in dreams seeing the future, or any supernatural claptrap such as that.

I had a dream last night, one that lingered after I crawled from bed this morning. I was sitting at my computer, and checked my email one last time. I had a solitary email with the subject line: “Objective Election.” There was both an elephant and donkey logo, albeit in a strange form, above the only text in the email. When I opened it, the first line said this: “Trump presumptive nominee. Alternative election configuration active. 4th candidate scenario is advised. Powell to win.” The email had no sender and no other information. As I was about to print or screenshot the screen image, the email blinked and disappeared.

None of the major candidates currently running for president will win the election. If my very intricate dream is correct, somehow Colin Powell will be the next president, despite his age.

Bear in mind, this was just a dream. But if it turns out to be true, do I get credit for being the first psychic ever?

Personal, Social Rules

About Pictures…

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memories

 

As important a moment as a wedding might be, it is a singular event, out of focus when compared to the bulk of one’s life. Weddings are rare May snows when silhouetted against the millions of daily moments that comprise the range of our lives. It’s easy to be joyous for a wedding. It’s much more difficult to live a good life without at least some pictures that bring us back to moments of turmoil or indecision. Weirdly enough, we mentally fog them over much of the time, allowing nostalgia to cloud our recollections of pain, struggle, or loss.  Our minds revere the ability to discolor our past in an emotionally satisfying palette. A good picture taken even in circumstances of unhappiness can later paradoxically bring us peace and joy.

Sifting through boxes and albums personally assembled by someone is an invitation into their private life. Whether selected photos are chosen for strategic intent or personal worth, they are placed there with care, as significant slivers of that person’s life. Each picture is a moment someone thought to capture for future review and reflection. All too often, a picture snapped in haste or humor evolves to become a touchstone memory in someone’s life. A great picture reveals a truth we didn’t even recognize. The things or people we believe to be memorable are often supplanted by memories we simply failed to appreciate as they approached.

After doing many archive projects for friends and family, I continue to find myself confronting the complexity of the people in the pictures. Seeing a person’s life spread out in front of me tends to demonstrate that each of us travels the same byways – and if we are lucky, with people who catch us in moments of mirth.

Quite often, as I am digitizing a picture of another person, I suddenly see that person from a new perspective. Whether it is a moment of coy surprise, insidious delight or unadulterated glee, something in the picture feels alive and spans across the days or decades from when it was taken. I feel like Christopher Reeve’s character in “Someone In Time,” imagining that time is indeed an illusion and some unseen hand has flung open a door facing backwards in time. As strange as it may sound, these moments are profound. For anyone who has never done a project with the photos of a person’s life, the concept might seem slightly doubtful.

In parting, let me remind you to take your pictures and then let them breathe. Share them. A picture not shared is a life unrevealed. Time will brick up your door moment by moment, leaving your view cluttered if you do not reflect back by peering into the individual memories that pictures provide us. Don’t let your life be frittered away by the attempt to simply capture moments – but equal to that caution should be the urge to share and reveal oneself in pictures to those in your life.

 

 

 

Whimsical

An Inelegant Tuesday Afternoon

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I ain’t saying the mechanic’s shop was trying to take advantage of me, but I thought I saw Bill Cosby changing the oil on a car in there.

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“Time does not race you. It’s patient, knowing that it has every second in the world to casually win the sprint.”

I made the picture below, using yearbook pictures from 50 years ago. I posted it on the social media of one the teachers everyone loves and will remember.

“While immortality is impossible, teachers have the best chance at going the furthest, at least while human memories last.”

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My wife got excited when I told her I went to buy a new micro-wave. But her excitement diminished greatly upon my arrival home. I did buy a new micro-wave. Not for cooking, though – it is a really small hand that I hold up in the air when I see someone I know.

microwave

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A joke for fans of esoteric jokes: I guess I should have paid more attention when I was craving macaroni. Evidently, I bought a box containing one huge macaroni noodle. The box was labelled “Macroroni.”

roni

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I’m way out of touch. A high school student asked me if I was a fan of Drake. “Nah,” I told him. “Duck feathers cause esophageal irritation.”

 

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Social Rules

Negativity Shushers, A Minor Post

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Today, I read a couple of “focus only on the good” posts. I agree with the spirit of the sentiment. A positive outlook, even in the midst of turmoil, is a good objective.

But. There is always a “but.” In one case, a quote came from an artist who clearly doesn’t follow his own advice. He’s been negative in some contexts, marginalizing groups and people with broad strokes. Granted, that is his “job.” I’m not mentioning him by name, as there’s no point in starting a specific tit-for-tat with defensive sparring.  Like everyone else, me included, he is a hypocrite. You and I can learn from anyone, even if they only provide us with a single glorious quote. The problem is that we all read greater context into such quotes, stretching them erroneously to cover situations that don’t fall to the level of a “positive outlook.”

There’s nothing worse than a world full of negativity shushers, actively oblivious to the real pain and suffering in everyone’s lives. (A “shusher” is someone who attempts to lessen or quiet expression.) We certainly don’t want a room full of negativity, that’s for certain. It drains our ability to live expressive lives. However, if I’m at the library and a librarian is looking over her glasses at someone talking, all the while loudly hissing “Shhhhh,” it is the librarian being a pain. In my analogy, the negativity shushers are like a gaggle of people telling everyone else to “be positive.”

There are people right now in our lives discovering they have cancer, or finding out that they’ve lost their job unexpectedly, through no fault of their own, and won’t be able to afford insurance. Perhaps, they are struggling with racism or homophobia, issues that aren’t on your daily radar. In other words, they are releasing their pain and suffering like human beings always have. They may not be able to reveal their entire truth at this moment. What you perceive as negativity may in fact just be normal expression of frustration or circumstances.

As with the inherent flaw in prosperity gospel, those who espouse constant positivity sometimes go too far and sometimes silence or cloister people’s real need to share their trials and tribulations. Sometimes, those things that seem minor to you, such as losing $50 to an ATM, are monumental to the person expressing them. Often, the people in question have suffered a clump of unpleasant or unlucky experiences. We want people to be able to share their stories and lives with us.

I see so many churning for being positive, not realizing that in many contexts, almost anything sounds negative to an unwelcoming mind.

In other words, “It’s only negativity when other people are saying it.”

Satire Parody, Whimsical

Wednesday or Bust

2 Comments

You should keep an iron in your car and near your desk at work. You can use it to remove wrinkles, make a Panini, or wrap the cord around your hand and go Chuck Norris on anyone who attacks you. Additional plus: if you are bored, you can hide it under your desk and when people ask you where it went, you can just shrug and tell them, “I don’t know, I must be low on iron.”
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“Thanks to the social controversy surrounding bathrooms, it is safe to say that we all have our minds in the toilet.”
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“There’s a lot happening in Springdale!” (Ad campaign.) Yes, and I’d appreciate it if you could take it down a notch. Some of us are trying to live one moment at a time in this consumer economy.
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I tried to book my bachelor’s party at Chuck E. Cheese’s. Evidently, they don’t have a keg deposit.
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I’d like just one superhero to resist the temptation to worry about a costume. If you’ve got superpowers, who cares if you can sew?
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If you take the time to count out 99 Problems, you definitely have at least one problem.
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I don’t know why, but I would be fascinated to watch Sarah Palin learn to speak Japanese. It just seems like the most entertaining idea in the world.
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I tried to put on a band-aid on a deep puncture last Thursday. I didn’t do it right. Technically, my effort itself was just a band-aid.
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I’m not saying my food took a long time to get the table at the new restaurant, just that it took long enough for me to establish voter residency in New Jersey by the time I ate.
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“You only fail if you don’t try.” Not true. You fail like a Bush presidency even when you work your butt off, sometimes. Success is another way to describe the process by which you arrive just one step past all your failures.
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If your boss has a terrible nickname that no one uses in his/her presence, it is a certainty that the nickname is accurate, in the same opposite way that no car salesman who calls himself “Honest” is.
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Instagrim: A new app to send pictures of accidents.
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Security experts tell you that you should change your passwords frequently. Prank experts tell you that you should change your bosses’ passwords frequently, too.
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Why do they call it Grilled Cheese? I mean, what kind of answers did they get from it in an interrogation?
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They always tell me to go out and enjoy the sunset. They never tell me to come inside and enjoy the waterfall in the toilet when it flushes. Both are the most human of experiences.
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Getting a truck is the equivalent of winning the favor lottery. Except your friends and family are the ones who win. “I bought a new truck,” he said, full of excitement. Flash forward 5 years, after he’s had to help 345 friends move, transport something, or haul wood as a ‘small favor.’
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The truth is that you will always be sniped by people don’t have a full deck. Instead of playing the poker hand they play, throw down an Uno card and act like you’ve won. If not, you’re gonna end up crazy, because those with lower wattage bulbs have an endless supply of Gump to replenish their supply.
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In business, the plural ‘we’ becomes both singular and second person at the first sign of blame.
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“You have to give credit where credit is due.” Nice cliché, but if it is credit, who pays the interest?
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Motivational business poster: No matter how difficult the task, the number of obstacles or how big the lack of funds, there is a manager willing to tell you to do it.
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An employee is someone who is often incapable of being trusted to decide how to do his own job, as judged by someone incapable of being able to do his own work.
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Self-driving cars will be really dangerous for those of us who have no sense of self.
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“How will action movies work in the future if all cars are self-driving?” Someone asked this the other day, being clever. I replied, “They will now literally be cars chasing instead of a car chase.”
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The studio wasn’t happy with my last script. They paid me to write a horror movie. The plot was all about algebra in our daily lives.
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In a recent meeting, my boss handed me a stack of printed excel spreadsheets and told me to figure them out. I handed them to the guy on the right, telling him to do it. He objected, asking why I thought he needed to do it. “Because in school, they always instructed you to Solve for X.”