Tag: Popped Culture

Looking for Gold

There was a trend during the California Gold Rush to take “Before” pictures ahead of your trip out west to look for gold.  The point being that once you inevitably found your share of gold there’d be an “After” picture, depicting your great wealth.  A practice that could be considered an act of boldness by some and an act of foolishness by others.  In some of the pictures the soon-to-be prospectors – usually from out east, where they were struggling to survive – would be dressed in ragged prospecting clothes with prop chisels and shovels.  In some other pictures, the subject’s face and hands would be dirtied-up to look more the part.  All of these measures were taken in order to document the moment before the moment they were going to start to do something great.    

Of course, there is no record of “After” pictures because many of these people just went to another part of the country to struggle, suffer and die. The plight of these free spirited early Americans does not dull my fascination. I love that they celebrated the accomplishment before the attempt. It’s a type of humanity that feels familiar to me. I can even imagine those posing fools sitting for hours, preening in front of a water-colored background designed to look like the hills of California. I can see them swinging a pickaxe to the perfect freeze frame (of course, photo technology being what it was then, they’d be stuck in that stress-position forever). Those people are no less the historical figures because they took their victory lap before the race began. No, those folks peered out from underneath that exaggerated prospector’s hat and spoke life into their dreams, long before their fingers were crippled by working the sluice box or before they were unceremoniously eaten by a mountain lion or a grizzly. Those people were imbued with the spirit of Fake-It-Until-You-Make-It. And their essence lives on today in what we call Social Media.

Greater Blind Mole-Rat

This war in the Ukraine is an atrocity.  Russia’s army has done things that can’t be forgiven, but someday there must be a truce.  One day, the two parties have to come together and resolve this conflict, even though only one party is responsible.  The healing will be hard because the sins are so grave: rape, torture and all manner of killing.  Acts such as those are unforgiveable; especially, to the families that were acted upon, but, perhaps, there is a way forward.   The situation seems ever more hopeless as the news coverage and celebrity interest wanes.  However, hopelessness is fertile soil for the seeds of faith.  When the possible seems to have all but abandoned a scenario, there is always the impossible.  Impossible not in the way we have come to think of it; instead, an Impossible that is at the water’s edge of human conception.  From that shore, we can cast wishes, faith and hope!  I’ve found an unlikely symbol of hope and I mean to assign it to this Russian War.  Ironically enough, the creature to lead this movement of hope is a most hopeless little critter itself, ensconced deep in the mountains near the Black sea region: the Greater Blind Mole Rat.

​Buried in the Black Sea region, shared by Russia and Ukraine, is a creature steeped in disadvantage and forlornness.  There is nothing great about the Greater Blind Mole Rat.  It is a small, furry cylinder of a critter with a biology best described as unfortunate.  Perhaps, the only thing truly great about the creature is its blindness, which is supported by failed and atrophied vision cells coupled with a thin layer of skin that covers the already useless orbs (just in case the poor varmint had even a dream of seeing the light of day).  This unlucky lump of a creature has not a blessing in its worthless little body.  One could reasonably theorize that since it’s a mole and most moles live underground, it has no need for good vision.  Well, first, way to minimize the Spalax Microphthalmus’ struggle.  Second, I would say, sure, sight is not a vital need in the dark, but how about digging…isn’t digging important?  Alas, another unfortunate turn for this cursed critter since his arms and legs are too short for effective burrowing.  And, in case you thought, functionality has failed it, but maybe, just maybe, aesthetics will not; I’d say guess again.  This furry little beast has a pair of oblong, threatening and jutting teeth that misshape its already ‘skinned-over’ face.  All told, it looks more like a woodland creature’s genitals than a mole or rat or anything else.  This little tube of ick has amassed a wealth of suffering and yet soldiers on…not towards outward or inward destruction, but to the next promising foothill.

So let’s all be more like the Greater Blind Mole Rat! Let us see the end to this conflict and all like it by rising from hopelessness and despair. Let us gather our strength and move towards a promising horizon, bright with what could be. Let that blind beastie be our beacon to the light – even though it definitely can’t see it. Let that hairy forest penis with teeth be our guide (even though it will almost certainly need guidance itself). It is the patron saint of faith when all seems lost. Andso, as that little blind bastard marches on, so shall we!

Lethal Aide

Finally, we have ended the charade and let Branding and Marketing have its hegemony in the abode of war.  Sure, we’vehad propaganda, pamphlets and the like, but now you can sense a real shift in philosophy.  It feels like those formerly Mad Men-style, Madison Avenue types have made it into the smoke-filled rooms where the biggest decisions are made.   And, at the head of the table, they’ve decided that masking war to make it palatable for public consumption is just so last generation.  No, the marketers have determined that warfare is an actuarial product, a commodity that is limited only by the difference between return and exposure.  Moreover, the return doesn’t have to be simply money; we’ve learned that war can bring about impetus, helping people see it your way.  Death and destruction boiled down to risk management; it’s a wager on the value of life vs. resources, variable only to P (proximity), π (profit – in its many forms) and P² (popularity).  Finally, the means to calculate how many foreign troops it could take to get a dollar reduction on energy costs or a tack-on tax cut to a relief bill.

​I came to this conclusion as the term “Lethal Aide” made its way around the Sunday Morning political shows.  Besides its obvious oxymoronic leaning, this term seems warmed-over and focused-grouped.  One can imagine a group of white male mid-westerners, ranging 18-34, sitting in a sterile room being feddifferent terms like “Death Help” and “Kill Assistance” before, finally, finding the perfect phrase: Lethal Aide.  “Yea, I mean…it makes me think…like your also kinda…helping the people you’re shooting at,” one of the focus group members must’vesaid.  It’s a softening of the hard reality of war and it is highlighting a grave cowardice that has become all too common in “modern” warfare: the outsourcing of responsibility and blood.  As long as another country’s soldiers and people take on the risk of death, there is no need to delve deep into the soul of a nation in order to find a morality and then the will to support it.  

Of course, there will always be despots. Even in the sandbox, we dealt with tyrants, but their crimes were petty or ridiculous. They needed the proper turns of fate and resources to grow into the monsters we always knew they could be. Consequently, when the beast comes to maturity, he or she will feast on a people or a country or a world. Free Nations will rush in to condemn and denounce, but do so in the company of their own allied autocracies, hand-in-hand with the “Lesser of Two Evils”.

The Islands and the Dark Places

On January 26, almost 250 years ago, British Admiral Arthur Phillip sailed a boat filled with convicts into Sydney Cove, in the land that became Australia.  This effort won the admiral a governorship of New South Wales, Australia, much to the distaste of the ignored Aboriginal peoples.  Such are the lengths societies will go to “get rid” of those citizens that committed a crime.  Those people that have severed the cardinal, two-pronged societal rule that if you break the law and do not have the means to defend yourself, you are forfeit.  

​Surely, a quarter of a century later, there has been some progress in the way we rehabilitate, reeducate and reincorporate the convicted population.  Nope.  It has remained the same plan.  We, as a society, stow all those we deem void to the social contract and ship them off somewhere.  Here in New York, we have an actual Island (Rikers) that houses those awaiting trial, no matter their mental health status, gang affiliation or general degree of criminality.  There are many institutions like this around the country, hidden away, to avoid waking the everyday citizen’s sympathy or empathy.  Any ember of sentiment for this lost population is quickly stifled by the brutal and lazy logic that these people “knew what the consequences were” or that they “shouldn’t have done the crime to begin with”.  How profound that branch of empiricism must seem to the complicit?  

In the real world, those that truly understand the vast and uncontrollable variables of life know that we are all one or two bad decisions away from a unique and terrible descent. Society will march on from any of its failed or lost members without a misstep. I would suggest that we, as a society, should never allow extant life be so prematurely obfuscated and forgotten. No matter, for as long as our civilization finds the value in storing people in the dark places and the will to overlook them, we will never truly be civilized.

The Ryder Files

​I’m a dad of a toddler – soon to be preschooler – so there is no way I don’t know who Ryder is.  For the uninitiated, there is a cartoon called Paw Patrol where a boy name Ryder leads a group of rescue pups – all with specific skills, and assorted, representative colors and vehicles – that help the people in and around a place called Adventure bay.  Feasible so far right?  You’re probably thinking they’ll be catching cats that fall out of trees and putting out the occasional picnic fire, no big deal.  You’d probably also assume they’d have a ladder, maybe a hose or flashlight and operate out of some sort of clubhouse or something.  Wrong!  I submit to you that Ryder is at the helm of a cross-departmental, DEA-CIA-NSA operation, which he’ssince become a double, no quadruple agent and is now playing all sides leading to a simultaneous career as a narcotics smuggler!  And if the Pups are not patsies they are aiding and abetting his criminal activities.

​Fact #1:  Ryder has unlimited technical resources with seemingly unlimited large-scale logistical support by the way of communication devices like Pup Pads and the mega headquarters known as the Paw Patrol Tower (The Tower also has a formulation that is powered by a meteorite that is seemingly radioactive.  They’re nuclear!).  Ryder can reach his team anywhere in Adventure bay, FoggyBottom and parts of Barkingburg without interference – the signal also works in some sort of land-before-time esque location only accessible by cave, but more on that when I watch those episodes.  This can only mean satellite signals, which means he definitely has military clearance.

​Fact #2:  Funding of this Paw Patrol project is not discussed, but on-demand new updates and tech become available to Ryder without any discussion of his means of acquisition.  I would eliminate the possibility that Ryder himself is the engineer of these devices and the many well-equipped vehicles like the Mission Cruiser, which is a 100-foot multi-purpose reconnaissance transport (tip of the iceberg!), since he has always had a great difficulty discerning Mayor Humdinger’s identity even though the mayor uses terribly conspicuous disguises.  This kind of support must be vast and with a marginal amount of oversight.  I don’t think you need me to spell out the kind of agencies that work that way!  However, even with the “Alphabet Boys” attached to this operation, Ryder’s sheer opportunity and access have also made him a player in the international drug distribution business.  

​Fact #3:  Ryder has cultivated relationships on all the major transport routes.  Cap’N Turbot runs the boating routes with the perfect cover story of being a marine biologist.  His back-up is none other than Zuma with extensive underwater and aquatic experience.  After that, you have the sky’s covered with…well Skye with the artificial intelligent-capable Robo-dog running any mission she can’t accomplish.  Jake operates the snowy mountains and Farmer Yumi handles the plains in case any passage is blocked.  Carlos and Tracker hold down the jungle area where I believe all the product originates!  And, of course, you have Ryder’s most loyal pup: Chase.  Chase that is always dressed as law enforcement, but whose main skill is sniffing out what’s wrong.  Sounds like a drug-sniffing dog if you ask me!

Or it could just be a kids show.

The Thurston Howell Gambit

Why aren’t there any new names for chess moves? If you study chess for an afternoon, you will butt up against a plethora of maneuvers named after people like the Smith-Morra Gambit or even after well thought-out concepts like the King’s Indian Attack. Some moves or pieces can even use different languages to represent them like “En Passant” or “Zwischenug”. Like how cool is that? Imagine how smart you’d look dropping down that Zwis-thing on some bozo (even smarter if you can pronounce it). That being said, it would be infinitely cooler to have a contemporary name for a move or piece, but it seems like that well has run dry.

Is it that no one has come up with a keen new strategy to get checkmate, take a piece or gain an advantage? Or is it that all the cool maneuvers are taken? I truly hope it isn’t the latter. I also hope that we haven’t advanced so far in the field of self-aggrandizement that we no longer need to hit a curtain call or two! Have we dug so deep that we’ve reached the other side and all that chess is just another game? Don’t worry my legion of pretentious, snoots, daddy’s home! And I have a brand-spanking-new chess move name! Hold on to your socks you gaggle of insufferable know-it-alls: I want to claim the move where one player gets frustrated and sweeps all the chess pieces off the board. That maneuver will now be called the It’s NotWhat You Know, But Who You Know Defense (also known as the I.N.W.Y.K.B.W.Y.K. Defense – pro bono marketers apply below). OMG! Here comes the egghead society again, “That’s not a real move!” My argument is simple – Chess is supposed to imitate life; it encompasses all the many components that we’ve bottled-up and labelled as Human Nature: loyalty, love, hate, heart-break, sacrifice, strategy, stimulation, desire, error, forgiveness, regret etc. And what is more life-like than a chess move that demonstrates that however much you’ve studied or learned there will always be well-positioned people that can just sweep your well-positioned pieces right onto the floor.

When Humility Fails

I set-out to consider the state of the Earth as I perceived it. What I wound up doing was thinking about the distress the planet must undoubtedly be in; ultimately, leading to a session of mind-bashing directed towards those that refuse and/or refute Climate Change. Firstly, regard that I don’t pretend to know the scientific data; I solely rely on the reports of scientists as well as some sort of internal, connecting thread of humanity that hazily alerts me that something is wrong. That is hardly proof of the theory of Climate Change and yet I always wind-up disparaging the other side. And since I am entirely too lazy to deep dive into the science and breakdown the numbers and long scientific words, I figured I’d make an attempt at empathy.

After a good 20 minutes of consideration – mixed with the occasional Sudoku forays… I’m a multi-tasker – I came to a conclusion that was both empathic and sympathetic. Perhaps, they have just been failed by humility! Humbleness is almost never wrong. It is immediately an admirable condition based solely on its opposition to arrogance, while also acting as a connection to your fellow person, freeing oneself from the belief of supremacy. Humility helps people join together over our flaws, while giving our fragile egos a rest. Of course, humans can ruin anything…even humility. So, I wondered if Humility in practice could eventually lead you to a sense of comforting helplessness. It’s kind of how if you’ve tripped or slipped and fell in front of a bunch of people (your day is coming if this has yet to happen to you) and instead of getting up right away you just sit there on the basement floor of your embarrassment. Perhaps, those deniers just see the world and the universe beyond their control. How could our actions impact the heavens and the pulse of a planet? Of course, there are political considerations, components of religiosity and a myriad of other factors tethered to this founding concept, but it remains both simple and digestible just like humankind’s best truisms. I cannot disprove this theory either, but I can present a new perspective.

What if our galaxy constituted a living God? Moreover, what if the Sun was its heart and the rest of the planets its organs? And everything else in the galaxy made-up all the many processes, and items within a living form. Perhaps, the Earth could be the brain or some other vital component. If this thought experiment were somehow true, what would one person on Earth be? I would argue that each person is a cell. At that point, if all these premises can be imagined, I would ask how important is a cell? Sure, a cell can die off to no consequence, but it can also choose itself over the organism. The result of that decision would be cancer. And in a world where even humility can fail, I would rather err on the side of caution.

Words I Love Pt. 18: Contronym

What is there not to love about the word Contronym? It’s usually not in your average dictionary, but hunt around and you’ll find it. It’s a word that means one thing and also means pretty much the opposite. True to form, it’s definition doesn’t truly give you a definitive understanding so here’s an example: Bound means both heading to a destination AND restrained from movement. I know, I know; it gives off an oxymoron vibe, but it’s actually better at being an oxymoron than an oxymoron. Where an oxymoron would say, “By getting on the picket line they were FREEDOM BOUND”, a contronym simply encompasses that contradiction in one word: Bound. It basically did all the heavy lifting for that oxyMORON. Advantage Contronym.

The contronym is more of a concept than just a word.  It’s a loadstar in speech, guiding us to one very important understanding: language is both the path and the destination, equally beautiful in its practicality as it is in its futility.   Everyday our survival relies on how well we communicate our needs to others, but, at the same time, we can exist just a few poorly chosen words away from our own destruction.  You should thank your nearest contronym because it is through it that we can see the dynamic force of language.  Language is like light in how it changes into a wave or a particle depending on what is needed to exist.   

Ironically, no matter how Language frantically evolves and morphs for its survival and relevancy, it will always be made ineffective by a look or a feeling or a picture. Ultimately, Language itself is a contronym because all the eloquent words in the world cannot define the most underwhelming of sunsets.