sundries

[rm]

Tonight we do the paperwork for Claudette and we pick her up Monday.

Meanwhile, tomorrow we head to Cold Spring.

Google Buzz - less confusing than Wave but just as dumb? Certainly the various drama that's sure to arise when people start realizing who people know (either through the "how dare you talk to my ex" phenom or the "OMGOMGOMG you know Random Famous Person") because people couldn't figure out how to be discrete is going to be epic. Google, of course, auto adds contacts in a way that makes avoiding drama harder.

Nelson Mandela was released from prison 20 years ago today.

When he came to New York, after, there was a ticker tape parade for him. I had just met a young man through our mutual recent appointments to the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation National Youth Committee whose father was a judge, and he invited me down to one of the court house buildings where he said he could get us out on the roof. He did, and we were the only people up there and we watched the parade from there. It was terrifying, and I remember thinking he was supposed to kiss me; he didn't.

Tigers are on the verge of extinction in the wild.

What's on a $177 bagel?

What would you do with 178 sq. ft.?

Alexander McQueen has taken his own life.

Charlie Wilson has died.

A queer zombie anthology from a small horror press got canceled apparently because some of the other authors who write for that press expressed their homophobic complaints about sharing a publisher with queer content. When you surrender to bigots, even if you are not a bigot, you are still doing something bigoted. This goes for the press in this little drama and it goes for everyone who automatically gives a higher rather to fanfiction with gay content in it because otherwise someone on the Internet might yell at them.

Capitulation to bigotry causes real harm.

phaetonschariot explains why: Queer people people don't get to stop being queer. How fucking handy it is that you can duck out of the fight. Just because you can, doesn't mean it's right. You know, I don't like people yelling at me either.

jslorentz talks about desire, activism, quaint little categories and trying to do the right thing -- for oneself and for the community.

Designing a better gender menu, via supergee. I don't agree with all of the suggestions (I don't, for example, like "it's complicated" as the only choice beyond "male" or "female" and I'm not all that off-put by "other" because I feel it includes less judgment than other options which assign narrative that may not be relevant to me. Obviously YMMV), but it's a good, interesting, relevant read.

Is it terrible that my main reaction to this seems to be about my hatred of the double-breasted suit jacket?

Last night we watched that Buffy episode where everyone keeps reenacting that final fight between the teacher/student murder/suicide couple in 1955. It was like "here, watch the cast of Buffy demonstrate Practical Aesthetics." Seriously, it was WEIRD. I have no idea if any of the actors or the director were drawing on that technique for the episode, but every time the scene played out, it felt EXACTLY like a a Practical Aesthetics scene to me. EVERY TIME.

Also, wow, I feel way too much compassion for Spike.

Comments

[gement.livejournal.com]

They do have a demographic for "likes to think of themselves as individuals," though, and "liberal/progressive" (a presumption, but no worse than "girls like lipstick" by advertising standards), and "gay appeal".

I'd say that 5% is self-selecting for some very targeted advertising, and advertisers pay better for really specific targets.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Specific targets with money to spend, which I do believe is the perception ( if not a stereotype ) of the gay community at large.

I wish we had more individual thinking people , regardless of demographic. It might make this whole adjustment process easier. like watching CNN the other night and have the Army captain talking about how 60 years ago the thought of someone like himself ( Asian-American ) serving in the army was 'unheard of' and 'would never happen' , and yet here he is today - the concept of him being not allowed to serve is foreign and strange. His hope was that 60 years from now the same can be said for the DADT fiasco - that we will look into the past and say ' wow, they used to not let people in the army because of being gay? I'm glad we grew past that'.

I have a long deep seeded hate for the media machine, but it is what drives this culture, and it's probably the best target to effect large scale change.

[rm.livejournal.com]

See, I don't have a hatred for the media machine, which makes these conversations evil. I am the media machine. It's my living, it's my father's living. It's just a thing. It can be smarter. It can adapt. What doesn't adapt dies. You don't want to know how many television exec I know who no longer own a TV because they can jsut watch everything online.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

My hatred comes from my first career - broadcast television. I was a control operator/engineer and basically had to sit there and run the Tv station , which meant being exposed to 10 years of every program, commercial, and infomercial that was broadcast. I came to see how people are manipulated - and often in negative ways by what is beamed into their heads. Taking phone calls from people who did not understand that the program they are watching is an informercial and not a real show , watching things like baywatch furthering unrealistic models of how we should look,act,talk to be accepted. We've come a long way from Archie Bunker, but we still glorify his point of view and underlying message with every Axe and GoDaddy ad. We are still able to recite advertising jingles from our youth but we can't recall the last time we listened to something that was not top 40 preprocessed , quantized and laid before us to consume.

Adapt, yes - but not so much the media ( broadcast to internet , analog to digital ) but the message has to change. In many ways it is changing - some for the better some not. 30 years ago we would never have seen TV ads for "On line booty call ", or birth control. in the early 80's the ads for condoms or birth control pills would have sent the religious right with a hatchet to the MTV uplink. Instead of filling peoples heads with the idea that you must own these shoes, drink this drink, drive this car is what needs to change. I grew up and came into my own in an era where people were shot and killed over their sneakers. The media machine created that. It took advantage of human nature and a marginalized demographic to stuff their bottom line. TV shows like " three's company " that painted a picture of pretending to be gay by being swishy and so on as a method of tricking your landlord into letting you have female roommates ....

I just feel that many of the social ills are created by people who are more concerned with their bottom line than what they are pumping into the minds of the people. Just like a factory pumping waste into a river in order to make cheaper product.

I don't mean to make the conversations evil. I just have a thing against mass brainwashing that contributes to the hate against people in groups we both care about, if not inhabit.


Your living, as I understand it, is in the analysis of the media - not the creation or use of it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I wrote a Harry Potter trivia book that's hardly critical. I have published original fiction and poetry. I am currently in the middle of a TV show pitch process. I am writing a novel.

I had credited role in a major picture that was distributed by Dreamworks and Paramount and continue to audition for film and television.

I worked in advertising, marketing and PR for ten years. Before that I worked for a major wire service. I continue to write copy for a range of commercial websites.

Saying that my living comes only from being critical of the media is not accurate.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

You're right. I overlooked some of that. I was only thinking of one of your jobs, in which I thought you did analysis of the media.

Mea culpa.

[rm.livejournal.com]

All good. And yeah. But that job is also telling people about how to work the media better, so analysis is not inherently critical.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Right - I did not mean to imply ( if I did ) that analysis is inherently critical.

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's all good, I'm being vague because I can't really talk about it. Three Days of the Condor and all that. ;)

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Someday we will sit down over drinks, loosen our ties , and I'll tell you my version of Three Days of the Condor. :)

[rm.livejournal.com]

We should make a club.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

We so should.

On that note, I have heard tell from another DJ that there is a very nice retro speakeasy style bar/club that is far off the beaten path , and well hidden. I was supposed to check it out but the DMV and all , ugh , it never happened. The impression I was given is that it's not unlike DoV.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Also , just to make sure we are clear - I am not saying that you are evil , or that you do evil. I think the machine is evil , and in order to reverse that agents of change are needed - and that is what I see you as. An agent of change working towards fixing a broken system.

[rm.livejournal.com]

We're clear. I'm just like "HEY I MAKE STUFF" and it's a subject about which I am defense due to petty LJ/fandom wankery that you can consider yourself blessed to have missed.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Speaking of making stuff - I still need to get a copy of your book, and I know you have not had the time/space to look over the stuff that I am creating ... but I am hoping to make stuff as well ( my graphic novel ).

You know I have not written/published anything since my serial story in cthulhusex?