Whacked

The observant browser will have noticed that I have no idea what purpose this blog serves any longer. It started as a means for keeping friends and family up to date on what the heck I'm doing here in faraway D.C./Reston. Along the way it morphed into sort of a clumsy effort to practice posting my opinions about things and stuff in anticipation of freelance gigs writing for MSNBC (which, thank God, hasn't managed to scarf up Yahoo! just yet).

However, I think we can all agree that no matter what the purpose of a blog is, it's always entertaining to learn about how completely and thoroughly I've been whacked in the arm during a kali class. We were practicing a particular drill that includes throwing an elbow at your partner's head. They evade/block and meanwhile bust up the arm you're throwing the elbow with.

In retrospect, I should have tried harder earlier in the class to keep from banging my partner's hand with a stick. Turnabout's fair play, I guess.

However, it was the practicing with the instructor that really beat me up.

I don't know why I like getting whacked during martial arts classes, but boy it gets the blood pumping (interstitially that is). Perhaps it's like when Samuel Johnson's responded to Bishop Berkeley's solipsistic view of the universe. Berkeley suggested that empiricism was fundamentally problematic because all you could know of the world was through your perceptions and so nothing existed but in your mind. Johnson gamely kicked a stone and cried, "I refute it thus."

The same sentiment was echoed more recently toward the end of Drugstore Cowboy when Matt Dillon announces that "there's nothing more life affirming than getting the shit kicked out of you". Perhaps it's true.

Stupid weather!

The wise and humble King Canute once dragged his throne out to the shore to command the tide not to come in. He did this to demonstrate the limits of his kingly powers to his courtiers, showing that God's power greatly outmatched that of any king.

Not being religious, I'm just pissed at Jesus for screwing up the weather this weekend for skiing. Wait, that doesn't make any sense.

Anyone hiring?

If anyone's keeping their ear to the ground about jobs I might be able to do, please forward leads.

Pre-chewed T.V.

This concerned member of the audience would very much like to know what the hell's going on. Also, he doesn't remember anything that happened yesterday.
pic by: Duchamp

So this is an interesting side effect of the writers' strike:

I'm watching Lost. Well, I suppose that's an interesting side-effect too, but the one I'm talking about is the crap at the bottom of the screen.

ABC is providing Cliff's notes for T.V. - probably because they figure it's been such a long time since we last saw this episode that we've forgotten a) what's going on and b) how to parse basic T.V.

In college I felt Cliff's notes were less a disservice to professors and more to those who used them. I avoided them because I felt that, you know, the point is not to get the right answer on the test, but to learn how to parse a narrative for its themes.

Call me pointy-headed, but I cling to the hope that a story can be more than either a delicious vector for otherwise insulting commercials or even a convenient space of time during which you may stare slack-jawed into the middle distance.

Now I've known people (generally not liberal arts majors) who won't allow me to watch T.V. with them. It's partially because I'm processing the meta-data of a show (like the foreshadowing, the thematic tone, which members of the away-team are wearing red shirts, which guest actors are known stars, etc.) and partially because I'm a dick. I can tell you within a fairly short amount of time which "suspect" on CSI did it, and I will (It's the person the bug-guy picks or the person who at any time went to an adult book store for any reason other than to expostulate on how sad an adult book store is).

However, even those folks who think I'm a dick because I'll watch the first 10 minutes of Law and Order before surmising what's up can look at a scene on T.V. and work out which of the dozen T.V. tropes is being executed. Is that Hobbit on Lost closing himself in an airlock as the music swells and the slow-mo kicks in? I guess, as if his hell-for-leather emoting isn't giving it away, that he's sacrificing himself for someone. If I'd missed that though, there's now a little snarky bit of text at the bottom to tell me.

Chee-rist! Seriously?

What's going on here? Does the network think I'm a complete fucking git? I resent that. Do the writers think their work here on T.V. is so subtle I'm likely to miss the meaning of it? Get over yourselves. Shakespeare didn't footnote his own plays you jackasses (by the way, it's a pun on phallus if you're wondering); where do you get off?

Did I seriously write a whole post about how T.V. may not be a smart medium? Actually no. I wrote a post about the end of days. If we're getting to the point in our culture's decline that someone's decided most of our country can't process T.V. shows unassisted, we've become the Eloi.

ZING! DANIEL JUST LIT INTO ABC. HIS POINT IS THAT DESPITE CATERING TO THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR, ABC STILL THINKS IT'S SHOOTING OVER THE HEADS OF A SIGNIFICANT PROPORTION OF ITS VIEWERS (See. Insulting isn't it?)

Hi Mike!

If you're still reading, this is for you.

Hi Karen as well (his wife).

I dig these photos

While some of my recent posts are either practicing for future freelance writing or just sort of personal stuff that I don't care if other people look at, this is for friends and family.

I came across this artist, Julie Blackmon's, site and I really like her photographs.

You should look at them.

Private? Public? no idea.

It's sort of old news now, but here are some thoughts on the changing face of digital privacy. I would have posted this last week but I fell asleep and then I forgot and so on and so forth.

So recently there's been all this mishagos about folks whose previous jobs have gotten them in trouble at their current jobs. First, and most delightfully, there's the story of "Militia" who is an American Gladiator. P.S.: He also did gay porn (I should mention here that I take the controversial stance that gay people are no more or less awful than straight folk, but the gayness of the porn is probably of material interest to the ostensibly family friendly NBC - and in the interest of full disclosure I should add that I hope one day to freelance for NBC and that while I'm straight, I have to admit that Johnny Depp's a pretty good looking chick for a dude).

The easy joke here is that the real tragedy for that guy is that now he's been outed as a Gladiator he probably won't be able to get back to the relatively highbrow fields of gay porn. And after all, how much life does American Gladiator really have in it? It's only up to #2 because of the writers' strike. No way it'll make it to American Gladiator 14.

The other story is of Ms. Greene, an English teacher (she's in England. I don't know about teaching English) who - before becoming a teacher - acted in a risqué, but award winning, ad for work clothing.

Now the standard advice offered by parents everywhere and my buddy Helen here, is not to put your stupid shit up on the Internet in the first place, Dumbass! However, in these cases that advice doesn't apply well. In both cases it wasn't them who put stuff on the Internet (I don't know if it was or wasn't with the Gladiator (which, in a parenthetical comment inside a parenthetical comment is a pretty gay name to begin with), but that's immaterial since porn is always posted on the Internet and whether Militia (Good grief!) did or not, it would have gotten there eventually).

There are lots of issues in play here. First, is sex shameful, de facto? It certainly is in America, but I was surprised by the case of Ms. Greene because European ads have always flirted with the naughty and no one gives a rat's ass. Over there they recollect that lots of people have a bit of a slap and a tickle now and then and somehow find their way to enjoying it without becoming . . . . I'm honestly not sure what the moral majority is worried will happen if the public acknowledges that folks have sex for fun. You'd think that Ms. Greene, employed at an English school, would get off with a serious tsk-ing and be back to her adoring students in no time flat. It was them who found the vid on YouTube in the first place.

And actually, that's a handy second issue. Just who is in danger here? Her students weren't over on GodTube searching for "Jesus loves me" when they found her video. The parents are making some noise about dismissing her, but it's totally beyond me. She wasn't doing anything illegal or even naked. As a rep from the clothing company that made the ad said, she was just doing her job as a model and actress. As for the gay porn. Man, that just makes me laugh. Actually, it appears that NBC is taking the high road and not firing him. After a little revisionist history (they're saying that Alex Castro, a.k.a. Militia, only posed nude for a few shots - but anyone with an internet and a passing knowledge of Google can learn otherwise) they're going to let the whole thing blow over.

The facts of all this are that stuff on the Internet has a half-life of forever and it knows where you live - or more accurately work. And what's on the Internet? Everything. Or close enough. Have you ever done anything you're not proud of? It could show up.

I think we may be seeing the beginning of a change in the fabric of public life. It turns out that Paris Hilton was sort of a visionary - and believe me I don't throw praise for Paris Hilton around just willy nilly. When she got caught on tape in flagrente delicto, her response was "Yeah? And?" Now at the time she thought she was a sure bet for the gazillions of her grandpa so her livelihood wasn't on the line. But as parents everywhere will tell you, only you have power over you. If you refuse to be embarrassed (particularly by doing a job that society condones enough to pay you for it and buy the proceeds - porn - or the advertised wears - you know, advertising) no one can embarrass you.

I think, and sort of hope, that we will have to start talking our walk. Do you ever go to the men's bathroom in a Minnesota airport and look for gay sex? You probably shouldn't publicly condemn gays then. Have you watched risqué ads on T.V. without exploding and/or calling your elected officials full of outrage? Stop being a hypocrite about Ms. Green then. Your laundry is potentially out there as well.

There's a lot more to be said about the fading line between public and private lives, but I'm lazy for the time being.