1984 = 2012

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Welcome to your Dystopian future. George Orwell couldn't have predicted the specifics --the rise of the Web; the post-9/11 fear mongering resulting in the Patriot Act and airport full-body scanners; citizens willingly carrying around devices with built-in GPS or posting a treasure-trove of personal information onto a website cataloging their entire life. But Orwell certainly got the highlights right. His warning went unheeded, and look where we're at now.

These are scary times --where corporations have more rights than human beings; unions are vilified for defending employees; and the public is conditioned to believe giving up fundamental freedoms and privacy makes sense if it means a steady paycheck.

This was not what the Internet was supposed to be: an open resource giving power back to the people. Instead, it has been subverted into a means to keep us in check; to pit ourselves against our own words, photos and thoughts. In the early days, you could comfortably share information in an open forum with relative anonymity. Nowadays, that freedom is all but gone.

If you want to participate in social media on even the most rudimentary level, it will soon become a requirement to own a cell phone. Corporations claim this is a "security measure" for your protection. But it's really another way to keep tabs on individuals, to keep people "on the grid" and ensure their traceability.

The sad reality is there's very little we can do about it these days. Governments have successfully cracked down on anyone hoping to shake up the system. Corporations have infiltrated the political structure: many of their former senior managers are politicians themselves; the remainder are largely lending a corporate ear.

We, the people, are no longer represented. We pulled the proverbial wool over eyes, let fear supersede common sense, let those in power strip away our rights --all done one law or payoff at a time.

We are doomed.

aclu patriot act corporations corporate greed unions

Mike

***

An Exclusive Interview with The Dark Knight, Part One

Thursday, August 7, 2008

To say that he likes to avoid discussing his private life would be an understatement. After several unsuccessful attempts at arranging an interview with The Dark Knight, I finally met up with him at a classified place of his choosing. Extreme spoilers abound.

Mike: "Thank you for meeting with me this evening."

The Batman: "It's a pleasure."

Mike: "Excuse me?"

The Batman: "I said it's a pleasure."

Mike: "Sounds like you have a bit of a sore throat."

The Batman: "The voice is part of my persona."

Mike: "It must take a toll on your vocal chords to keep that up all the time."

The Batman: "Lozenges help. Smell the menthol?"

Mike: "Indeed. So by now you've probably heard the rumor about your true identity."

The Batman: "I have."

Mike: "Any truth to it? Are you really George W. Bush?"

The Batman: "I'm whomever Gotham needs me to be."

Mike: "Does Gotham need George W. Bush?"

The Batman: "You'll have to do better than that."

Mike: "Do you believe torture yields good results?"

The Batman: "It depends on how you define 'torture.'"

Mike: "Do you believe you got good results from repeatedly punching a clown in the face, throwing him against several walls and beating him until he finally gives you the information he'd planned to give you all along, information that ultimately leads to the death of the only love in your life?"

The Batman: "If only Gordon had let me waterboard the fucker..."

Mike: "Let's suppose The Joker blew up Wayne Tower, killing thousands of people. Would you bomb The Penguin's lair in response?

The Batman: "It's an established fact that those two have worked together."

Mike: "Have you ever made up words or phrases like, 'misunderestimated,' 'Evil-Doer' or 'strategery?'

The Batman: "Does 'weaponized hallucinogens' count?"

Mike: "It's a start. I want to talk a little bit about wiretapping and eavesdropping. There's a rumor that you engineered a device allowing you to monitor anyone with a cell phone. True?"

The Batman: "No, I didn't engineer it. I 'supported' its construction. In any case, the device is no longer operable."

Mike: "Why should we believe you?"

The Batman: "You can trust me."

Mike: "A wise man once said, 'Trust, but verify.'

The Batman: "Ah, yes. Ronald Reagan."

Mike: "Actually he was quoting a Russian proverb, 'doveryai, no proveryai'."

The Batman: "You're starting to annoy me."

Mike: "Here, have a Ricola."

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Mike

***

George Carlin: The Thoughtful Curmudgeon

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Few post Generation X'ers remember the days when HBO was not broadcast 24 hours a day. Even I was but a small child. I remember a summer routine of ours in 1981, when we'd come home from a day of sunburn and swimming pools, greeted by the air conditioning and a tiny television set, marvelling at cable TV.

Mom had splurged on the fledgling movie channel. During the mornings and afternoons, HBO would display a countdown until their programming would begin for the evening, sometimes showing movie previews in a little section of the screen as the countdown continued.

In the early days of HBO, there were typically three types of programming: movies, boxing and George Carlin specials. A child's secret mission was to skim through the HBO guide every month, pinpoint the R-rated and adult-oriented shows whose descriptions contained especially filthy-sounding, italicized parental warnings like "nudity, strong sexual content, profanity," and then pick a discreet time to sneak downstairs to the TV and bask in all its glorious obscenity. George Carlin's stand-up routines were a regular pick of mine.

If Steve Martin was the father of comedic influence for our generation, with his innocent brand of goofiness, Carlin was the curmudgeonly grandfather. He was the guy that kids liked to hang around just to get a giggle every time he masterfully used the "F" word.

One of George Carlin's earliest HBO specials was Carlin at Carnegie Hall. It was an especially memorable event for me because it was the one in which he'd expanded his "seven curse word" list to more than a hundred. Science has since acknowledged that there was a significant spike in the use of the phrase, "pecker tracks" among pre-teens shortly after the first broadcast.

Carlin was known for an especially dark streak in later years. He openly admitted that he had little hope for the future of humanity. Technology and engineering, he said, had become the driving force of our society at the expense of everything else. "I hope I live long enough to watch it all collapse, just for the fun of it," he'd stated on an airing of Inside the Actor's Studio. "If the world ever really blows up, I hope it happens east of me, so that I can watch on CNN for a long time before the prevailing winds bring the thing back around to me."

Despite his cynicism (or "realism," as he'd put it), Carlin shared keen observations about our daily life that always struck a chord in people. He made you look at mundane routines or things you'd taken for granted and forced you to alter your perspective of them forever.

So long, George. Here's hoping you've now got box seats to life's freak show.

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Mike

***

Clinton and Obama Meet Star Wars

Monday, June 9, 2008

Overheard somewhere on Earth...

"I'm so disgusted that Obama is now the Democratic candidate. Hillary Clinton best represented my beliefs and values and if she isn't going to represent the Democratic party, I'll just have to vote for John McCain."

Overheard in a galaxy far, far away...

"Leia was my choice for leading the Rebellion and now that they've eliminated her from the race, I just don't know what I'm going to do. I mean, c'mon! Some nerf-herder like Lando Calrissian won't have what it takes to take on the likes of the Empire! If I can't vote for Leia, then I'm just going to have to switch to the Dark Side and support Darth Vader.

"Sure, Emperor Palpatine duped the Galaxy into believing we were in danger and, yes, we let him build his Death Star, despite the heavy cost and loss of life. But how bad could Vader, his potential successor, really be?"

election hillary clinton barack obama obama clinton john mccain star wars empire vader voter superdelegate

Mike

***

It Was 30 Years Ago Today

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

I awoke that fateful sunny Saturday morning on the couch. My brother and I had both fallen asleep there, I on one end and he on the other. We'd been waiting for Dad to bring home pizza after he got off work.

He never arrived.

My grandmother met my gaze solemnly as I raised my head from an arm of the couch. She had taken a kitchen chair and sat nearby, watching over and waiting for us to awaken. I was the first.

Grandma did not speak to me as I stood to peek into the kitchen. There were a number of adult friends and family members in there, taking turns hugging my sobbing mother.

Continuing down the hallway, I reached Mom and Dad's bedroom. Dad's side of the bed was both empty and pristine.

I backpeddled up the hall to my bedroom and shut the door. My young brain couldn't quite figure it out, but clearly something was wrong and I knew Dad was involved.

Mom entered a few minutes later, her face still wet with tears. Closing the door behind her, she sat on a nearby chair and motioned for me to climb in her lap.

She held me for a moment, gently stroking my hair, as though to console the both of us. She spoke softly, and I was surprised when I realized she'd begun telling me a story. She spoke generally of life, about how people grow up and older and, either through natural causes or by accident, leave this earth to go to heaven. Then she paused.

"Daddy...is dead," she whispered slowly, rocking us gently in the chair. She went on to explain that he'd died in a motorcycle accident on his way home and now watched over my brother and me.

Mom lifted me down from my perch and quietly left the bedroom to return to our guests. I sat there alone, staring blankly at my closet peppered with toys as the muffled weeping outside continued. Near me was a Six Million Dollar Man doll Dad had gotten me for Christmas. I gingerly picked it up, running my fingers over its plastic face, over the bionic eye. In a second, the doll came to symbolize everything I'd known about my father and I threw it into the closet with all my might before bursting into tears.

It was an incredibly surreal series of events for a child's mind to process. It was an age at which I had only recently come to comprehend the concept of death.

April 29, 1978 changed my life forever. I would go on to spend the rest of my childhood and adolescence without a significant father figure. That day, combined with the abuse-laden pre-teen years that followed, hollowed something out of me, and I've been drifting through life ever since. For 30 years I've wondered what kind of man I'd be had my father survived. Perhaps it will take me another 30 to realize that I'll never know.

motorcycle accident broken neck accidental death 1978 motorcycle kawasaki six million dollar man

Mike

***

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