Perfectly timed for the Giftmas season, I have this amusing headline sports story:
Gene Smith, Athletic director of Ohio State, says, "we did not explicitly tell them they couldn't sell what we gave them".
That's a fun sentence. A few Ohio State University football players sold a few trinkets — trinkets that their school "gave" them. Suspensions ensued. The football players in question thought their BIG 10 championships rings were kinda cool, but — like most "may I buy you a drink?" women bar-goers — if given the choice, they'd rather have the cash.
Remember fellas, they ain't giving you shit... the strings are tightly fastened.
A friend of mine told me, very mat-toe-uh-fackly, that I write this blog because (quote) I want people to think like me... (end). I disagree, that's what I tell myself. My most dependable explanation for the writings I collect in this digital place: I want to work with my thoughts, (you know, test them out, see how they roll — rather than blindly accepting them) and, when I find something that might by enjoyed by another Youman Being, I offerit — from there, I'm not really involved (it's not like I get a lot of follow up questions, most of the discussions about the posts happen before they're written).
The name, what the Tee Vee taught, might be worth an explanation. Philip K. Dick, years before I was birthed, said this:
TV viewing is a kind of sleeplearning. An EEG of a person watching TV shows that after about half an hour the brain decides that nothing is happening, and it goes into a hypnoidal twilight state, emitting alpha waves. This is because there is such little eye motion. In addition, much of the information is graphic and therefore passes into the right hemisphere of the brain, rather than being processed by the left, where the conscious personality is located. Recent experiments indicate that much of what we see on the TV screen is received on a subliminal basis. We only imagine that we consciously see what is there. The bulk of the messages elude our attention; literally, after a few hours of TV watching, we do not know what we have seen. Our memories are spurious, like our memories of dreams; the blank spaces are filled in retrospectively. And falsified. We have participated unknowingly in the creation of of a spurious reality, and then we have obligingly fed it to ourselves. We have colluded in our own doom.
I freely admit that much of this — to me — is unknown or nonsense. An EEG? Huh? What the fuck is an alpha wave? Colluded in our own doom... What now? Yet, I'm totally with him, and I don't really know why... it just works for me (I suspect it's the part about spurious memories, filled in retrospectively, and falsified... I like that, that feels right, somehow). Read a little more, if you would:
It was always my hope, in writing novels and stories that asked the question "What is reality?" to someday get an answer. This was the hope of of most of my readers, too. Years passed... But the problem is a real one, not a mere intellectual game. Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups — and the electronic hardware exists by which to deliver these pseudoworlds right into the heads of the reader, the viewer, the listener. Sometimes when I watch my eleven-year-old daughter watch TV, I wonder what she is being taught. The problem of miscuing; consider that. A TV program produced for adults is viewed by a small child. Half of what is said and done in the TV drama is probably misunderstood by the child. Maybe it's all misunderstood. And the thing is, Just how authentic is the information anyhow, even if the child correctly understood it? What is the relationship between the average TV situation comedy and reality? What about the cop shows? Cars are continually swerving out of control, crashing, and catching fire. The police are always good and they always win. Do not ignore that one point: The police always win. What a lesson that is. You should not fight authority, and even if you do, you will lose. The message here is, Be passive. And — cooperate. If Officer Baretta asks you for information, give it to him, because Officer Baretta is a good man and to be trusted. He loves you and you should love him.
Bringing capital T Truth or "reality" into living rooms and offices is not my objective. No-no-no. Rather, I want to — eventually, no hurry — create my own reality. Nothing to be preached or promised. There will be no fanfare. I'm not creating a product. I'm creating a lens. For me. A way of seeing. And listening. Speaking, moving, and so forth. In many ways, I'm still consumed by my tee vee teachings, my sleeplearning. Here's an example (and the raison d'être of this post — so please, if you made it this far, perk yourself):
When I hear somebody reject a scientific explanation for the creation of the universe (specifically, rejecting it in favor of a religious/mythical explanation) my first reaction is to mock and laugh ("dumbass," my head voice scoffs). Now, this is a usable example of what the Tee Vee taught me*, because I have no fucking good reason for doing this. In fact, I too do not accept a scientific explanation for the creation of the universe (note: I don't reject it, I just don't accept it, because I don't understand). Look at that thing: the hilarity to your right is a visual helper, designed to help eager scientific minds comprehend a theory. I've spent some time (we're going all the way back to pre-dropped balls here) considering the creation of the universe. I love it. Great fun. Very challenging. I fail every fucking time. I simply don't understand. I can slowly wade into the info, build each idea, ask my college Physics professor lots of annoying questions... yet, I can't get there. If I have ever said, "I understand the basics of Big Bang cosmology," I was fucking lying. In the past, this is something I'm sure I have lied about, because I so badly wanted to understand, yet I fell short.
Despite this, to this day, if I hear someone take a crap on scientific explanations for "the big question", a snarky moan spurts through my head. I don't like this. Its facelessness is ugly (actually, it has a face... mine). So I have to hope that, somehow, I'll remember that I have no grounds for being so dismissive — such an asshole. That's what this blog is about, reducing the asshole who works the long, thoughtless hours of the auto-pilot shift.
* I don't literally mean "television taught me to think this way". Rather, I'm thinking of the things we learn less than consciously, behind our own backs.
I careen. This is me. My plans are pliable, my scripts faint — I ad lib, I wing it. And I do so because preparation walks us towards despair (how is that for a claim, eh? Preparation leads to despair. We're having fun today), if you will:
To prepare is to envision. And to envision is to make an ostensibly irresistible move: believing we are in control. Believing that, if done correctly, directed action can produce a desired effect. Of course, I don't dispute that "directed action can produce a desired effect"... of course it can, it does. Listen to a comedian; watch someone train their pet/child; bluff a poker hand — actions produce effects, and sometimes the effect you planned for. And this, I think, is where despair invites us in. If we believe in our ability to make — literally create — the circumstances in which we live... that is some seriously fucking ill-assorted thinking. If we look at the each moment as an equation waiting to be manipulated, we're fucked. I firmly believe in my own incompetence. Now, I know our human brains are renowned — and in many instances, I am genuinely impressed — but let's face it, our abilities are grossly overestimated. I suppose this is a result of being the hegemon: the dominant species struggles to see a difference between dominance and control. And isn't this where everything goes wrong? When we seek to control outcomes?
I'll take away my silly philosopher persona now (you're welcome), and give you an example.
Not a day passes when I am not subjected to a variant of this complaint/statement: This or that isn't fair. When the school kids unleash this howler, it is most often (so far as I can guess) a response to this perceived injustice: somebody else — a non-me — just received something good... and I did not. Or, conversely, I received something bad, and someone else didn't.
In response, I like this (in the most genuine tone I can muster): I do not understand fair and unfair. What would be fair, and how do you know? The answer usually doesn't address the question. Instead, the complaint gets repeated. And this is when I ascend my soapbox and (ex)pound away:
The official company policy, the rules you're asked to follow, lovely children, are constantly changing. The influence of customs wangle and wane — we notice much later. To determine what is "fair" is to determine the indeterminable — what is happening compared to what should be happening? I can't figure either. Who knows. Stop trying (at this point, the children have clear body language: that's enough, slightly-older-than-us Authority figure... I continue anyway). As a wise man once said, accept the mystery. Yet, please consider this:
Mind your own business. Reject the authority you don't choose. When you deal with people, be good to them. I cannot define good... even if I could, by the time I finish, something will have changed.
“I make no apologies for the how the F.B.I. agents handled their work in executing the operation that led to Mr. Mohamud’s arrest,” Mr. Holder said. “Their efforts helped to identify a person who repeatedly expressed his desire and intention to kill innocent Americans.” He added: “But you also have my word that the Justice Department will — just as vigorously — continue to pursue anyone who would target Muslims, or their houses of worship.”
Guffaw Guffaw.
Innocent? Wait, Holder is saying that Mr. Mohamud (teenage young men get called "Mr." once they're imprisoned) wanted to kill innocent people? It seems that Director Holder took the kid's alleged intent and then added his own adjective: innocent.
I mean, I have no doubt that Holder thinks the hypothetical victims of the FBI's faux terrorist plot would be innocent victims — but surely the kid that they coerced into faux action wouldn't define them as innocent... right? Could he have misspoke? That would make sense, I'm sure Holder meant to say infidel Americans, not innocent Americans. There we go, mystery solved.
As McLuhan said, the kids "these days" are looking for roles. Obviously, the wonderful folks at the F.B.I. are aware of this. To take a disaffected teenager, create a role that reeks of something momentous, support him at every turn, and then claim, "we caught the bad guy" sums up the hilarity pretty well. The FBI is approximate to a far less likable version of James Caan's character in Bottle Rocket: seduce the dumb kids on the front end, fuck em' on the back end. They're dumb kids, they were all but asking for it.
Albert Haynesworth is a football player for the Washington Redskins (if you're terribly unaware of American football, I didn't make up that name, they are called the Red. Skins.) He grew in a small South Carolina town — population, 4 digits. He is twenty-nine years old, he is black, he went to the University of Tennessee for three years (the National Football League requires players be three years removed from high school to be eligible).
Albert once stepped on an opponent's un-helmeted head. He once signed a "7 year contract" for $100 million dollars (I put that in quotes because there is no such thing as a long-term contract in the NFL, every year is, essentially, a one year option for the team to exercise... almost every player who signs a long-term deal does not see all of the money, often substantially less, as is the case with Albert). He once failed a team administered conditioning test... it was a big deal. When the team makes practice "not mandatory", Albert is not coming. Just the other day, the Washington professional football team (aforementioned Redksins) suspended Haynesworth, without pay, for the remainder of the season.
Please, if you have 3 minutes, watch this. If you don't, I hear you (I've written two pretty fucking bland paragraphs thus far)
Every question is wonderfully loaded, let's go for a walk:
"When you signed that one hundred million dollar contract... what were your expectations?"
Albert, I think rather obviously, gives a stock answer. Athletes always have the same goal. If they're exceptionally talented, they want to be "the best". If they're good — but not great — they want to be "the best they can be". So, he goes ahead and says what he is supposed to say: I want to be the best. The follow up question functions in this way, "Well, you're not performing like the BEST!" And, what does Albert do? He doesn't take the bait. Rather, he speaks, very calmly, about some of us his struggles and frustrations... a beautiful answer. Realizing she hasn't skewered her prey, she goes for the "let the athlete hang himself by saying something bad about the hometown fans" question:
What do you think the perception of you, in this town, is?
Now, let me say this clearly... the perception of Haynesworth is lazy. ungrateful. black. man. The national sports media have fallen over themselves making this clear. This is like asking Michael Vick what PETA thinks of him. And, yet again, Albert gives a beautiful, uncertain, answer, "I don't really know," he says. And then he lays out several potential opinions.
Foolishly, I'm saving the best for last. The ESPN hack asks Albert is he was considering not taking the twenty-one million dollar ($21,000,000) bonus that his contract provided for him... "Albert, did you consider not taking the money? You know, because management is disappointed?" His response — what else? — was to laugh. Boy, it was tough, on one hand... I could take the money that my contract provided for me... or, I could... wait, why wouldn't I take the money? Because I haven't "earned" it? Fucking. Hilarious.
I enjoy Albert Haynesworth for two reasons:
1) He is a worker. In America, the worker is the enemy. America loves management. Hates their (fellow) workers. I've heard this refrain many times, "Haynesworth needs to earn that contract." WRONG! He earned it when he wrote his name on the bottom. If the assholes who run the Washington Redskins (and trust me, although I don't have the time or interest to outline all that is loathsome about Mike Shanahan and Daniel Snyder — these guys are top notch dickheads), aren't happy with Albert, that's fine. They can suspend him (check), try to renege their contract (check), and generally fuck with their worker (check...it is the American way, after all), nobody will be surprised. Haynesworth goes as he goes, he is — so far as I can tell — neither compliant or despondent... he is quickly becoming a hero.
2) He knows how to take flight from aggressive questioning. Watch the video again, if you'd like. He eludes the bullshit. Doesn't engage on the interviewer's terms. Takes lateral steps... not forward or backward, he moves around.
Earlier today — and for only a few moments — a stranger shaped my persona (what a vigorous word, persona). I am a versatile bus rider, like to mix-it-up. But lately, I've enjoyed the physical act of writing. Now, I'm talking about old school writing (not chisel and tablet old, pen and paper), what I write might be called "stream of consciousness" — but that's not a terribly accurate label, of course. Stream of consciousness suggests, to me, "unfiltered" thinking, and also somewhat aimless. Writing can drift without a specific topic or focus, but it is not aimless — the aim is to write. So, I'm writing, very quickly, sloppy. And, I'm turning the paper as I write... to and fro. For someone who isn't me, I'd imagine it would be nearly impossible (and certainly not worth the effort) to decipher the lines and shapes as letters and words.
If you're a public transportee, you might have noticed the following observation: most people sit quietly, all movement tends to cease — other than the natural jostling that occurs when many tons of people and machine are propelled forward at impressive speeds, of course. Therefore, anybody who is moving draws some attention. My attention came in the form of a question: what are you writing? I don't remember what I said, but it wasn't the clean answer he was expecting, I suspect. His response to whatever it is I happened to say was curious, indeed. He said, "it looks like you're just scribbling. I'm going to call you the scribbler." To which (my memory is back!) I asked, "when?"
"Huh?" the now quizzical man responded.
"When are you going to call me the scribbler?"
At this point, the guy gets pissed. Based on what I heard, my tone was straight silly, not confrontational: I was just fucking with him, but I wasn't fucking with him... if you follow me. He saw it differently, calls me a wise-ass (he was a bit of an old-timer), and then — and this is clearly the best part — he loudly proclaims: "This is what you get for trying to be friendly."
We're pretty sure that every single thing that Christopher Hitchens does or says amounts to an exercise in hilarity (Oh, Hitchens is having a God debate with Tony Blair tonight? Damn, I can't. I have tickets to watch a mermaid and a hippo play tennis... let me know who wins though). I know this. However, this is just too fucking funny.
They should be teaching this in our nation's fine institutions of institution. I mean, the headline is enough to get excited, but the second headline (what do you call that?).... oh, that second headline:
The Wikileaks founder is an unscrupulous megalomaniac with a political agenda.
Not since the American government called another country's government a "quasi-official racket", has anything more amusing been uttered.
Ben Roethlisberger (quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers), with only two minutes and thirty-nine seconds off the clock in Sunday night's football game, had his beak smashed. There he was, an unlikeable champion, exhaling spurts of blood from his nose.
A staggeringly beautiful 350 pound Tongan, called Haloti Ngata, was the assailant/tackler. He rammed his immense arm into Ben's head, collapsing the helmet's facemask across the bridge of his nose... it just wouldn't stop. High definition is merciless. This is what high definition television promises: humanity in the raw.
An American person said to me, "Qatar and Russia, I'm not going there!"
Uh... I know. Because, um, they got zee oil — and it won't be long before holding onto the stuff will be far wiser than selling it; the World Cup Committee is smart enough to realize this — good thinkin' fellas. Remember, it's 2008 folks. Time hasn't figured everything out yet, we're just not sure who is going to have what come 2018 and 2022. Yet, we can be pretty goddamned sure that some oil will be sloshing around in Russia and Qatar.
I read some unimaginative claims at the Telegraph, discussing how "dangerous" the Cup Committee's decision is. Uh, yeah, allow me to offer a thorough, calculated breakdown:
2018 Cup finalists:
Pay me for my OIL!... Ha, it is not for sale.
Belgium/Netherlands (No OIL!) Portugal and Spain (No OIL!) Russia (Lots of OIL!! Winners!) England (Measly amount of OIL!)
2022 Cup finalists: Australia (No OIL!) Japan (No OIL!) Qatar (Lots of OIL!! Winners!) Untied States (Some OIL! Fond of hating soccer) South Korea (No OIL!)
