Marshall McLuhan, Reality T.V. & why The price of eternal vigilance is indifference.
03.16.05 (10:04 pm) [edit]Ok I'm gonna take the risk of sounding like some flipped out media student here but I have a few things to say about Television.
Yes... That's Television with a capital "T".
First make no mistake, I love my T.V. in fact I have a few of them and I love them all equally and unconditionally, but I don't trust them!
Only a fool would!
Television brings entertainment, Information and even info-tainment (if you let it) into our lives.
Television can do good things but we as watchers shouldn't let ourselves believe that it or the people that control it "care" about us!
Television should not only be watched but observed, for it has the potential to do us great harm.
These days we seem to be so willing to give over so much of our belief to "The Box" and all those that find themselves on it, that it is starting to become common belief that there is something special about our celebrities.
Nothing could be further from the truth!
They are made up of the same stuff as all humans, this is something to bear in mind when we are watching.
Yes... "The medium is the Message" but is it a message we should trust?
Of course not!
If recent history has taught us anything it is that we can't trust the people that have the awesome responsibility of presenting news, current events or even "reality" to us, we have now well & truly entered another age of the personal agenda.
Every bit of content is now subject to the point of view of those that present it, or those that control them.
We can't even be sure that what we are being shown is in our best interest in, fact we can be sure it is not.
For example now that we are at war and Michael Jackson's trial has started, what has become of the millions dying in Africa?
What's going on in Bosnia?
These questions and so many more beg to be answered but somehow go unanswered, how is this with news media budget rising to incredible new highs?
Why are we seeing the same stories aired at 11, 4, 5 & 11 again?
And why is the media leading us like lemmings to the precipice of vengeance in so many cases?
But most importantly why are we sitting on our fat asses and taking it?
Television could finally put the trouble between the races to bed, inspire us to really embrace "Personal Responsibility" for our world and it's people or even simply make us realize that we all share the same lives and the same fate.
Yes all that and more could happen...
If only we could just get real!
So if you do happen to find yourself on T.V. or working in it, start your day by remembering all the people you love and reminding yourself of how they are, in a very real and tangible way connected to the rest of us... and then behave the only way you can baring those facts in mind.
Travel / New Zealand
02.07.05 (6:21 pm) [edit]Why is it that I never take enough photos?
There are some places that i've been that I have no record of or an incomplete one at best, even my childhood is not catalouged.
I ask you who does'nt have baby photos?
So a few years ago , after the purchase of my first digital cam
I decided to take a run at getting some record going of the life I have. At first I found I had just accumilated lots of pics without me in them, and strange pics of objects, buildings, roads, textures.
Well a few cams later i seem to make it into a pic or two here and there.
like this one!
From a trip I truly enjoyed, 5 weeks in New Zealand, both islands north and south from stem to stern.
This pic is from a sulphur pit in Rotorura.
Much stink!
But a must go destination!
=http://monkpeabody.tblog.com/... target=_blank [image]monkpeabody_137520 8005.jpg[/image]
Tales from the emerald city
08.26.04 (7:48 am) [edit]The Vegemite Conversion Kit
-The secret to business success is finding a hole in the market and filling it with a ridiculously high priced product that has little or no real value-
& nbsp; &n bsp; &nb sp; &nbs p; ; & nbsp; &n bsp; &nb sp; &nbs p; ; “A graduate of some American business school”
Any Australian will tell you how ridiculous it is to believe that every Australian has a pet kangaroo, that Steve Irwin & Crocodile Dundee are typical Aussies or that Most Australians ingest on a daily basis a dark, sticky, yeast based, foul smelling paste… Sorry that last one is actually true.
Vegemite…For decades Vegemite has been a basic staple of the Australian diet. Breakfast, lunch or dinner, Australians love the stuff. (Brits too… but sometimes it’s Promite or Marmite I’ve tried them all and I can’t make any distinction)
The way I heard it… it was discovered years ago by brewers who were trying to keep Australians supplied with beer and I imagine because of the incredible workload & responsibility involved with creating “liquid gold” they found just enough time to scrape their bread on the bottom of the barrels and feed on the thick yeasty residue that had collected there.
A tradition was born!
But the rich & sticky history of the mighty mite does not stop there.
The way I heard it … During World War II there was a legendary incident involving two German spies that had been painstakingly trained to impersonate Australians by the greatest minds German intelligence could assemble.
Their ingenious plan nearly succeeded! The two spies had managed to secure positions at the very heart of the Allied military intelligence structure, until during an innocent breakfast meeting all their training came undone.
During that breakfast one of the two did what they warned & trained not to do.
Without thinking, he ate a piece of toast smeared with Vegemite that was ironically there to make the two “Australian” officers feel at home.
Even with all his training there was no way he could hide his revulsion.
In that moment the course of WWII was changed.
Now in 2004, a time when Australia is accepting a great number of foreign-born citizens that have been politically displaced and come to Oz looking for freedom.
Middle easterners, Africans…Americans, who are unable to join in that core breakfast ritual of vegemite and toast and through that, solidify their assimilation into Australian society.
This sad condition would have continued if it were not for the tireless efforts of an Ex-Pat American visionary who longed to devise a way to make Vegemite (the food 90% of the world’s starving millions would refuse to eat) palatable.
The process is nothing short of revolutionary but very secret.
All I can really tell you is that it involves soybeans, simple sugars and it erases every positive nutritional element that exists in Vegemite.
As is the case with most American innovations it addresses a surface issue, does some real damage and ignores all the substance.
Putting those small deficits aside never again will an American have to explain why he can’t eat Vegemite.
Finally… we can all be happy little Vegemites!
Draw a line ... and i'll cross it!
07.17.04 (8:38 am) [edit]Why is it that no matter where I call home I can always find the pub/bar I need?
I say need, not because I have some kind of drinking problem, but because I am a people watcher, a strange sort of social voyeur.
Always in the crowd, but never really part of it.
I drink, Oh yes I do, but most importantly I find the atmosphere in a pub very comfortable, see I spent a lot of time in that environment when I was young, and mama was tending bar.
Having a nose for interesting pubs I will admit is a small gift, …but still I think it’s an amusing little gift.
It’s been a practice of mine for many years that, once or twice a month I go out to feel around for a pub.
From the time I bought my first legal drink, I have always done this alone.
I travel alone always have, and I like it that way.
Not that I’m anti-social, it’s just my nature to seek new places and people alone.
If I were anti-social why would I be looking for a pub anyway?
No, I travel alone because I have found by way of years of experience that I meet the most interesting people when I’m alone.
So that’s the way I do it.
[b]Hey, do I look Irish in this![/b]
New Rochelle NY the home of two of my favourite fictional TV characters, Rob and Laura Petry an ice rink a mall and not much else.
The bar where I purchased my first legal drink was located in New Rochelle NY.
It was on my birthday, my legal drinkin’ birthday.
As I remember it, I had plans to meet up with a few of my friends to bring in my birthday right, but that was hours away and I was itching to exercise my government given right to drink myself stupid.
There was this bar in New Rochelle called “The Shamrock”.
The Shamrock had been there as long as I can remember.
Don’t know if it’s still there but all the years when I was growing up I can remember it’s blacked out windows & the green neon shamrock over the door.
Whenever my friends and I would leave our much smaller town of Mount Vernon & go to the New Rochelle Mall we’d have to pass right by it.
The Shamrock seemed to always be open.
It didn’t matter what time of day you’d always see someone coming out or going in.
It was just the kind of place my momma told me to avoid (in fact I’m sure I have a memory of my mother pointing at it and saying … “Don’t ever go in there!”)
For some reason I thought this was just the place.
I have always gotten a big kick out of going where someone says I shouldn’t.
I love crossing the line.
As I walked in through the cheap dark veneer door with the worn gold plated knob and took my first look in I thought to myself mama was right.
As I walked in on the right stood a very large Irish bar bouncer.
I only mention he was Irish cause he was so Irish, or what Irish meant to me back then.
Red hair. Cherry cheeks, barrel chest and more than a little confused by my sudden & very Afro-American appearance.
The floor was covered with those black and white marble vinyl tiles, the kind they always put down in diners.
It was only seconds till I began to feel the vibe caused by my entrance into this very insular environment, so I announced firmly but not too loudly that I had come in to purchase my first “legal” drink!
This announcement warmed the pub by at least 12 degrees, every one of those rosy red faces (all male) turned towards me showed a mixture if amusement, surprise and if I’m not mistaken a wee bit of malice.
The crowd watched as I crossed to the bar and ordered the best single malt scotch the bar had.
That scored some points!
As the bartender reached down behind the bar I removed my hat and revealed my heavy mop of Dred locked hair, surprisingly there was only a single gasp of “Oh my Gawd!”
Just in time my scotch arrived, I made it vanish as quickly as it came.
Just then I heard someone shout “Davey…Give us your darts!”
I savoured, smiled & ordered another.
This time, no ice if you please… Davey.
I think most of the bar’s patrons were waiting to see if I keeled over after that second drink and when I didn’t… the third was bought for me.
I drank all night at the Shamrock, played darts and made friends that I would never see again.
I walked out hours later, tipsy but with that warm glow you can only get from crossing the line…and scotch.
Step up Groover!
07.17.04 (8:26 am) [edit]It’s no mystery to anyone that life can be very complicated.
How do you get from here to where you want to be!
Yes my friend life is filled with uncertainty.
And then, other times… your path is very simple.
The how of your life & what to do’s become very basic.
If you’re lucky this will happen @ regular intervals in your life.
I have never known anyone that was lucky enough to have a life without ever wondering… am I doing the right thing?
That being said…
Sometimes the point is simply to groove!
It don’t matter much what the situation is, could be your life, could be your job.
You could be sittin’ in with a Jazz combo when it comes on slowly.
Suddenly the way is clear, the clouds between your ears part and you can hear the drummer laying some down, then you start to hear the bass, maybe some thick slabs of B3 come next.
[i](Stabbing horn section optional)[/i]
All this information start crawling around the bandstand and it all becomes so clear!
You’ve done the work & all the pieces are there.
So…you just groove!
Man…you are the groove!
All hot & slippery, solid & vaporous
Full bright light & joy.
Finally the light inside is switched on.
Everyone in the group is having their say, you can hear the conversation develop, then…when the groove is rock solid & you’re deep in it.
Then you start passin’ it around, tradin’ fours, eights.
Each in their turn says what they feel, what they truly feel, cause ya can’t hide nothing here…in this place at this moment there is only one truth.
You are there in the moment.
You groove, take it all in till finally eyes start to glance at your way and they have only one message…
Step up Groover!
Small world
07.09.04 (2:32 am) [edit]It is a small world!
We live in a world of much fashion but no sense.
Form but no substance.
Passion but no compassion.
A time when we have allowed more than one case of ethnic cleansing to go on unchecked has happened to our outrage,the feeling that we are here to do some good globally.
This a time when we give our hearts & minds over to men and women that we imbue with powers they don't have. Small people. People that feel nothing for us and worse feel detached from us.
Yes there is much evil in the world and what is worse much selfishness. In theory we have joined together in society to enhance the lives of ALL that live within it, our brothers and sisters under a common banner. In practice though, we most often find that banner cannot cover us all. We need a BIGGER banner.
Day after day those that we have chosen to administrate make choices that will excise those that in their opinion will not serve the banner, but i ask you who gave them the right to inflict upon us their opinions! These men do not serve us well with their opinions. Their job is not to develop opinions but to determine the consensus of we the citizens. We that share this society. This world society. It is only through disinterest that we find ourselves in this sorry state, and soon enough we will begin to realize that our lives are bigger than our differences. But will it be too late.Will we find that this world is only big enough for those that have the power.
Cultural Strangelove (continued)
07.07.04 (8:44 am) [edit][b]Out onto Sidney's streets [/b]
Out the door, down the hill to Manly Warf…easy!
As I headed down the hill that day to take my first of many trips across Sidney harbour, I began to notice just how beautiful this neighbourhood is.
Incredible beaches and ocean on that side of the hill and rows of lovely houses with lush green lawns on this side of the hill!
On the way down the hill I began to feel my spark coming back, the spring in my step returning!
Listening to the Magpies singing and feeling the cool breeze from the harbour on my face…I closed my eyes and I exhaled!
I’d been waiting to do that!
When I opened my eyes after I don’t know how long, I saw two officers one male one female heading up the hill towards me.
Damn!
Had I lingered too long?
Had someone looked out their window, seen a dark, dread locked stranger and called the cops?
Oh well, nothing to do but play this out.
I continued down the hill.
As we got closer, to my amazement they both took a step to the side and let me pass between them.
As I passed I heard a voice say “G’day! …Do you need some help?”
[i](Did he actually say G’day?) [/i]
Whatever it was that he did say, for a split second I heard “Up against the wall!”
[i]Well… I am from New York! [/i]
However I resisted the urge to spread-eagle up against the nearest wall and instead said… “Just trying to make my way down to the ferry”.
He replied, “It’s just down there on the left”
Confused, I said “Thanks”
They turned and continued up the hill.
They must’ve thought I was insane!
I went down there to the left, found the ferry and in 30 minutes or so I found myself in Darling Harbour.
The place was teaming with people.
Some sightseeing, some others just trying to beat the summer heat.
I’m just there in the middle of all the new sights and sounds & smells, lovin it.
Realizing that just a few days ago I left New York as it was being covered in a blanket of snow! Yeah I was feeling pretty good.
That’s when I heard it, off in the distance.
That sound… Boom Tat! Boom Boom Tat!
The sound of Hip-Hop beats mixed with the sound of dribbling basketballs!
I let my ears lead me.
[i]Boom Tat! [/i]
Down the path, through the chain link fence.
[i]Boom Boom Tat![/i]
Until… just behind the wall in front of me, I knew there would be a scene I would recognise.
[i]Boom Tat! [/i]
Black top!
[i]Boom Boom Tat![/i]
And Black People.
What an idiot I was!
What I saw that day was the effect of Afro-American culture upon a group of Australian youths that saw no colour in the culture. Or more rightly… Their colour did not exclude them from the culture!
In my mind the voice – over said…
“All things are as they were… Only the colours have been changed …to protect the innocent!”
Cultural Strangelove: or How to stop worrying bout your color and realise that you're 'tha bomb!
07.06.04 (9:04 am) [edit]Color & Culture
Color or Culture
Does the fact that you have skin of a certain color automatically gain you entrance to the culture that is associated with that color?
Or is it necessary to live within a culture to truly belong?
Does color matter anymore in these times when we have all become underdog and oppressor? Hmmm? That's an awful lot of question there?
Maybe it's best to start with a story...
[b]1992[/b]
Sydney, Australia
A young man (this young man) from New York stumbles off a Qantas trans-hemispheric jet after 36 hours of flying hell.
Filled with joy because he is about to be reunited with his Australian wife, from whom he has been separated for the past six months!
I rush across the melting tarmac, barely noticing the heat or the brightness of the sun.
[i]*incidentally the summer sun in Australia was & is bright enough to burn the retinas right out of your head![/i]
Into the airport building, through the customs maze, present this, get that stamped and out into the airport proper.
Dear readers...please understand me!
I never judge anyone on the basis of race or color but... as I walked out into that airport i could not help but think...
"I have never seen so many Caucasians in one place in my life!"
An uninterrupted sea of white faces and I a small brown speck among them.
My Australian mates never understand why I would feel uneasy in that situation.
To most "Aussies" I represent the "American culture" which of course is true and how I've always wanted to be seen, but still...
As we travelled through the city to "Aunty Doe's" house which was quite a distance, over the bridge to the northern beaches and still no dark faces.
I felt really exposed, solitary, and very uneasy about those feelings.
Uneasy because from the moment I'd arrived it was like I was voted "queen for a day"!
Not one bad thing happened!
I had my wife back, the sun shone everyday, we were two seconds from the most beautiful beach & ocean and "aunty Doe" was one truly switched on octogenarian!
All that and it still took me nearly two weeks before I ventured out onto the streets alone!
[b]Out onto Sidney's streets[/b]
TBC...
Why would you leave New York?
06.27.04 (7:42 am) [edit]When I left New York, I think that few of my friends understood my reasons.
To tell the truth... I am only beginning to understand myself.
My last 10 years there were so filled with activity, that I have to cut hunks of it up in my memory and slow it down to really see what happened. Don't get me wrong I loved the pace, the urgency of it all! Even if it was just an illusion... a figment of a collective imagining.
I do love that city! Sometimes I'd go out late at night and just walk.
Uptown, downtown, cross-town it didn't matter, I just wanted to be on the streets.
They were my streets.
Just before I left in the early 90's, I lived in a rather large apartment on 40th & 6th with my brother and his husband.
The three of us did not have a bad life, enough room to be out of each other’s hair & Bryant Park and the city at our doorstep.
If I could have only frozen that time, no... not out of a sense of nostalgia, or even because it was my "Golden time". No...simply cause we were all alive then.
Because it was before that Plague touched us.
Before the color started to drain out of our daily existence.
Now my brother and I live on opposite sides of the globe neither in NYC.
We don’t speak about our 'other' or the city, but sometime we speak of love...and then we know...we can only be visitors there now.
Why would you leave New York?
Well... Why wouldn't we?
-Monk-
Open letter to the world at large!
06.20.04 (5:54 pm) [edit]This is NOT a complicated world!
Do you find that hard to believe?
Do you believe that anything ever progresses past the point of human need and the more sticky issue of human desire?
Passion is useless without compassion to temper it!
I know that many groups want you to believe that modern life is too complicated for an average person to sort through, but my friends there are only average people on this planet!
Do you believe that these complicated issues are best left to the professionals to solve?
Professional what? Professional politicians?
Politician with big ideas? hmmm?
Now I may be wrong... but the way i heard it politcians are not supposed to have big ideas. They should spend all of their time in office administering to the needs of the people.
They are all, up to and including the president only middle management. Put in place for only one purpose... to administrate our will.
maybe we should elect professional humans then we'd all be eligible again!
After we all, we all turn Pro on the day we are born. Why do we then spend the rest of our lives trying to become amateurs?
Trying to foget how to love.
Trying to forget how to hate.
Trying to forget that we are ONE people, all locked on this spinning ball, ONE race that can trace it's origins back to a common root.
:idea:
Here it is in a nutshell brothers and sisters!
We have been spun!
Suckered!
Hood-winked!
We have actually begun to exclude [u]ourselves[/u] from the democratic rights that we had been given!
We have allowed the smallest and most petty of us to make desicions in our names, in the belief that they have our best interest at heart?
Really... don't we know by now by now that they don't?
Where it all began/ part 1/ summer of OZ
06.19.04 (5:32 pm) [edit]It's been a long summer vacation in Australia, 12 years by my count. And I'll tell you it's been a wild ride.
Come on in, and I'll tell you a story!
A story with more stupidity than a day in congres.
more banal than a Hollywood blockbuster
and more regret than a Greek tragedy!
It all started in New York, as most good stories do.
Just after the first gulf war, that the first Bush started. I was working triple duty.
By day i was a jeweler, by night working on a recording project for H.S. with M.B. and on-call for M.B. as guitar tech/audio engineer/go-fer/guitar student/conscience... the list goes on and on!
Lots goin' on... and i was LOVIN' it!
I was working in my creative zone, stimulated and open. I was tired, but happy.
Backstory:
Just two or so years before I was involved in a car wreck that landed me flat on my back, in a full body cast for over a year. And when I got out... I wanted Sex, positive stimulus and SEX!
I know i said sex twice!
A whole year!!!
And then...
In steps the woman! Well, there's always a woman isn't there? For me she was no ordinary woman, so different!
She: White-Australian.
Me: Black- American
She: Just under 6 feet tall
Me: 5'6" or so if i don't slouch
She: love the Bush
Me: Love the city
Well... you get the idea.
I met her at a party my brother was giving at our apartment. I wasn't even going to stay at the party, I would have been the only straight person there and as i said earlier... and SEX! Anyway... I was getting ready to make my exit when...
There she stood, shocking red hair, green halter-neck flower patterned ball gown and green doc martin boots.
I had to have her!
TBC
Looking back and running forward
06.19.04 (10:59 am) [edit]Sometimes I look back to the time in my life when I was played high school football (gridiron).
In my freshman year I was developing such a bad habit of looking behind while carring the ball upfield that coach Scarpino had to take me aside.
He told me how counter productive it was to look behind when everything I wanted was ahead of me! Now everyone in town knew that coach had taken one too many hits to the head when he played, but I had to admit he was right.
When you look back you lose time, concentration, advantage!
It's true in football and true in life.
With the help of the coaching staff I broke myself of that habit, and I took the coach's advice to heart. In my life I have not spent much time looking back. I've tried to anticipate what lay ahead. But now, so far from home, I do find myself looking back, wondering what became of the people that I knew In my early days, what would have become of me if I had stayed stateside? Would things be better or worse if I had never come to Australia? And then ... coach's voice popes into my head and tells me to turn around ...turn around and haul ass!
I've still got a few plays left, but no time outs, so i'm gonna keep heading for the goal line while there's still time left.
Thanks coach!
What ever happened to the guitar solo?
06.19.04 (12:27 am) [edit]I am not sure if it is an result of getting older but when i listen to music these days i feel something is missing.
There's no doubt that music sounds better, the technology has come a long way! I am not looking for a return to the past that way. I ain't givin' up my MP3 player. It's too neat! You'll have to pry it from my cold dead hand! To paraphrase some cold dead guy.
Yes, the music sounds better but where are the Guitar solos? I miss them so much! Ok, today's music has "PHAT BEATS" aplenty...but Where is the improv factor?
That 8 or 16 or 32 bars of pure self expression?
Where is Ernie Isley taking flight and trading endless ideas on "Who's that lady"?
Where's the emotional solo's of say stevie ray?
Where is the part of the song that says "We've said plenty... But here's how I feel about it!"
Some believe the guitar solo to be self-indulgent wankery.
I see it as a metaphor for personal freedom, that chance for the guitarist to soar over the changes free to improvise, play with the time & be in the moment.
The moment when the 'Head' comes around and says "Do ya feel lucky?...Well do ya ...PUNK? And you gotta step up and fill that space with the only thing you got...your SOUL!
I was lucky enough to grow up in a home filled with Jazz & jazz players that knew the importance of the solo. For all instruments.
To all of them and all the others that made or didn't make the changes... I thank you!
I'm sure guitar solos will make a comeback, and when they do I'll be there to take the trip and take my chances!
I'll see you at the "A" section!
New kid on the tblog
06.17.04 (9:22 pm) [edit]Well who knew there were so many ways to blogger! I became aware of this world just a while back when I bought a new camera. I've looked around and this seems like a good place to hang my hat.
A little about me:
Ex-Pat New Yorker
Guitarist
Writer
Go Board maker http://www.geocities.com/monk...
Living in Australia (and lovin it! ...finally)