Connection Lost

 I remember when long distance was the next best thing to being there. I remember when phones were connected to walls and the only way you could use them was to be within the cord's radius. At my house if you wanted privacy you could go downstairs or step outside the kitchen into the garage. That long distance phone call was something I was raised to fear from a cost point of view. If someone called you from another state they had better have something important to say because it was costing them a mint, especially in the middle of the day. 

These days we have phones in our pockets everywhere we go, and if it occurs to us to ring up an acquaintance in a distant land, we just need to know the digits. The allure and excitement of getting a long distance call is now all but forgotten. When Stevie Wonder wanted us to know that he just called to say "I love you," it meant something. 

This was somewhere around the time that I had to carry around a little plastic card with my MCI number printed on it so I could take advantage of all the savings available to me if I spent the extra six to eight minutes punching in the digits before the number I was trying to reach. And every so often someone in my freshman dorm would show up with a code that he insisted was that of a celebrity who wanted to "mess with the system" by letting a bunch of hungry drunk boys in on what we could only assume was free long distance. The guys in my hall chose to use this information to call 867-5309 in as many different area codes as we could remember. We asked for Jenny. 

Of course we all understood the real purpose of long distance. It wasn't for dialing random numbers in hope of speaking to the woman who inspired the song. It wasn't for calling just to say we loved someone. It was for bad news. If someone got a call "long distance," a hush would come over the normally boisterous freshmen. We watched as the recipient of the call trudged down the hall to the one phone that was placed at the far end of the hall. We waited for the door to open again to see what sort of news was important enough to break up the general mayhem of a Thursday afternoon at a liberal arts college. Good news, for the most part, could wait until rates were cheaper. 

This was a time of pay phones and directory assistance. There were actual human beings waiting to connect your call if you needed help. It never occurred to us that they could be listening to everything we said once they had finished their official business. There used to be these keen glass booths that offered the privacy you needed when you weren't at home and able to step out into the garage. I never fully understood how one of these see-through structures was ideal for Clark Kent to change clothes in, but this was a different time. 

A time when a call home cost a dime, and if you wanted to chat with someone far away, you needed to bring a pocketful of change. Or you could just send them an email. In about twenty years. 

Exacting

 Revenge is a dish best served cold. At least that is what I learned from watching Wrath of Khan. According to the very jacked Ricardo Montalban, this is an old Klingon proverb. It is only now that I have been reflecting on this issue that I find that Mister Montalban, while being quite the expert on fine Corinthian leather, is not well-versed on mid-nineteenth century French literature. 

But let's not quibble. 

It would seem that one of the best ways to get folks to sit up and watch a movie is to add an element of revenge. Recently, a Jason Stratham movie about a Working Man who goes to work exacting a number of righteous acts of vengeance in order to save his boss's daughter from Russian human traffickers. 

You've seen this kind of thing before. Keanu Reeves has a franchise full of such adventures, starting with going after the Russian human traffickers that killed his dog. Then there's Denzel Washington who has a franchise of his own in which he has to go after a bunch of Russian human traffickers. And let's not forget the trouble that Liam Neeson has had trying to keep his family safe from Russian human traffickers. 

The trick, it seems, is to make the bad guys so terrible that any sort of gratuitous, graphic depiction of their death is greeted with righteous enthusiasm from the audience. It's just not a good idea to mess with former hit men, CIA agents or Royal Marines. 

Or their dogs. 

Which brings me to this: Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away George Lucas wanted to cap off his original trilogy of space movies with a film called Revenge of the Jedi. For those of you who may have missed it, when it came out in theaters the title had been reconciled to a Return, rather than Revenge. George felt that the concept of Revenge was not in line with the Jedi philosophy. Event though many thousand posters had already been printed suggesting that it was. 

It should also be noted that back in those thrilling days of space opera, it was the bad guy with the salt and pepper mullet that was seeking revenge on Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. Which may have something to do with Khan's follow-up to the old Klingon proverb: "It's very cold in space."

And, it would seem, in multiplexes around the country in this century as well. 

I Thought Of This All By Myself

 I am old enough to remember that little paperclip that used to show up in the corner of a new document who offered "helpful" suggestions like "It looks like you're writing a ransom note. Would you like some help?" This none-too-clever anthromorphic paper fastener was called "Clippy," and after a ten year run of "helping" users of Microsoft Office, he was sent to the bottom of the drawer where all paper clips go to die. 

Did you like having Clippy around for those moments of hesitation? Do you wish you could still have his obsequious presence in your life? Welcome to the age of Artificial Intelligence. Looking for something on Al Gore's Internet? Google will be happy to distill any potential learning that could take place by distilling your search into pre-chewed nuggets of fact-pablum that can be easily digested. 

Have you ever wondered what you and your loved ones might look like if they were in a film by Nick Park. 

What's that? You say you don't know who Nick Park is? You might know him as the creator of Wallace and Gromit. Or maybe you'd like to sidestep that whole painstaking world of creating films by animating clay figures one frame at a time and use a filter to see what you would look like as one of those clay figures. 

For free.

Or maybe you're a fan of the work of Hayao Miyazaki and you'd like to have your next selfie look like something that came from one of his films. ChatGPT can do that for you.

For Free. 

Intellectual property? Don't worry your funny-looking head about it. It's all a part of the brave new world of machines doing the work for us. 

Somebody else's work. 

I know the difference between "homage" and "rip-off." If I used these "free" machine assistants I might pose that question to one of them. 

But that would be surrender, wouldn't it?

When I run out of words, I'll stop writing. 

So Much

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

This was the poem that played over and over again in my mind as my wife struggled to move a dozen railroad ties from our front yard where they had been so unceremoniously delivered to the back yard where they were going to be employed in the seemingly straightforward task of replacing the terracing. There was a time when the thought of moving a ton of lumber around would have been an amusing way to spend a weekend. Those days are gone. 

But that didn't keep my wife and I from making the grand gesture of Do It Yourself as my Spring Vacation was just beginning. There would be time for relaxing and recreation after the work was done. The work was negotiating all that wood into a configuration both useful and pleasant to look at. The first step in this endeavor was the most daunting. As I have mentioned far too often in this space, I am not the hale and hearty thirty year old who needs a challenge. There was a time when this would have been a great opportunity to maximize my dad and husband points by accomplishing something superhuman. 

Instead, I saw the opportunity to use my age and wisdom by finding a simple machine that would help us in our time of need. There was a moment when I truly believed that our garden wheelbarrow might just do the trick. Alas, it was strong on appearance, but short on balance. Instead, I opted for what amounts to the red wheelbarrow at our house: The Radio Flyer wagon that provided hours of amusement for my son when he was still captivated by wheeled contraptions without motors. Then over time, it became a utility vehicle for moving this and that here and there. 

And it continues, with a few rusty spots, to be red. 

The transport of railroad ties was accomplished without injury and not just a bit of pride. It occurred to both my wife and I that the next part of the job might best be taken on by elves if we simply left all the pieces strewn about the yard, but we knew that we were most likely in for the long haul after the long haul. Retaining walls don't just spring up out of the ground like you'd like them to. 

But that red wagon. 

So much depends on it. 

Bravo, and thank you William Carlos Williams. 

   

I Don't Get It

 I have a history of making some pretty solid April Fools jokes. The "secret" was based on having some minor toehold in truth. "It's funny because it's true," is an expression that gets a lot of play in the comedy business. The punch line comes at the moment when the level of abstraction where you have been operating switches suddenly and it creates a momentary confusion in the audience. Of course, if you shift too abruptly or not enough, the response will almost invariably be, "I don't get it." 

Which pretty much sums up my feelings about the Second Trumpreich. I know what a gift comedians felt that those first four years would be for comedy. You see, there's the regular way to do things, and then there's the absolutely worse way to do them. This where the humor that can be mined from Goofus And Gallant. This suggests that there is a Gallant to go along with the Goofus. 

Not so in the current regime. 

If there is a wrong or difficult way to do something, the MAGAts will find it. There is no comfort here. There is no landing place. Just a series of straight lines. 

Like, "Hey, you know what would be cool? If we invaded Greenland."

Or how about, "You know who really needs to date? Lauren Boebert and Kid Rock." 

Are these setups or punchlines? "Let's include a journalist on our secret war thread."

The folks at Saturday Night Live have to be pretty fed up with these clowns doing their job for them. 

Because it's not funny anymore. 

It's tedious. It's depressing. It's painful. 

It's currently scheduled to go on for four years. 

Get it? 

The Mouth Than Roared

 I suppose the lesson I take away from all this is: Never send a sycophant to do a sociopath's work. 

Julius Domingo Vance was in Greenland a few days back, nominally to visit the United States airbase we have up there, but also to chastise the folks who live there as well as spew disdain for their nominal leadership back in Denmark. "Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have underinvested in the people of Greenland, and you have underinvested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass filled with incredible people. That has to change, and because it hasn't changed, this is why President Trump's policy in Greenland is what it is."

Perhaps you weren't aware of the massive unrest in that arctic nation. Perhaps because there wasn't any massive unrest. 

Except for that created by the guy who was replaced by Elongated Mush. 

Which brings a couple of movie references to mind. This is my blog, so of course you would expect a couple movie references. The first one being the closing minutes of Stripes, in which the fates of the main characters are played out in magazine covers. Except for their former commanding officer, played by John Larroquette. He gets a tiny article buried inside the Nome News announcing his arrival in the Arctic wastes amid a record cold spell. 

There was a media event scheduled for Jimmy Duggan Vance to meet and greet Greenalnders. They could not find anyone in Greenland to accept that invitation. 

The second movie reference would be that of The Mouse That Roared, a little Peter Sellers comedy about how the Duchy of Grand Fenwick once attempted to take over the United States in hopes that their soldiers would be quickly vanquished and then US aid would come flooding back into their country. Except it didn't work out that way. 

Watch the movie. 

Don't watch the continued shenanigans of Joaquin Dizzy Vance as he continues to get things backward, threatening a sovereign nation that is busy going about their peaceful existence. The "mouse" in this equation wants nothing to do with the nation of roaring MAGAts. They would much rather get back to the concerns of trawling for halibut. 

And living their lives without the sound and fury coming from America, which signifies nothing.   

Garden Genome

 My wife and I were, I suppose, fortunate for each of us to have a sibling who was willing to donate a swab of spit to the genetic research the roots of our combined family tree. There were no surprises. If anything there was a calming affirmation of just how direct a line our ancestors had followed compared to the legends that had been shared over the years about our respective clans. 

My younger brother's trip into the mists of time revealed not a panoply of influences from across the globe, but a large red dot that was centered on one particular neighborhood in London. Compared to his wife that looked like a globe that had been infected with measles, tiny dots scattered across continents and time, his was pretty solidly a one note affair. 

My wife's mother has spent decades researching her family's trek from Germany to the mean streets of Detroit, something that a test tube of DNA only confirmed when my brother-in-law sealed his up and sent it away for observation. No side trips to points previously unknown or hidden relatives waiting to be revealed. His report was a somewhat less colorful version of the stories he had been told all his life. 

There were no missing inheritances or outstanding debts to be cleared, financially or emotionally. 23andMe failed to open any mystery doors. Which is why I find myself currently wondering with some relief what brought me several months ago to the edge of redundancy by ordering a kit for my wife's sixtieth birthday.

What was I thinking? Maybe there was some hidden piece of straggling genetic code that was missing from the year that separated her birth from that of her older brother. Maybe I was hoping to give her the experience of exploring her lineage within the extraordinarily safe limits of a test that had already been taken. 

Or maybe I could fess up to the truth: Amazon had a PrimeDay sale of 23andMe and it seemed like too good a deal to pass up. 

So I didn't. 

And that sealed package has floated from our coffee table to her desk to the window seat next to our bed in the intervening months, waiting for some reason to roll those loaded dice. 

Now 23andMe is filing for bankruptcy, and as part of the fire sale they are conducting, everyone's genetic code is up for grabs to the highest bidder. It's on sale for a limited time, not unlike PrimeDay, but only if you are silly enough to leave it sitting there on their website. If you don't delete your data, the 23andMe folks insist that you will be providing an enormous service: tracking down killers who escaped justice and providing a possible cure for the common cold. 

But I suppose it would be nice if that information had been given willingly, and not part of a legal settlement. 

Me? I'm willing to send a vial of my spit to Tesla. In case they need it.