My Daughter and Her New Job

My daughter, Michelle, called me yesterday.  Typically when she calls she has an issue with something.  Either the internet is down, or she can’t find “Teen Mom” on-line or, and this has happened more than a few times, she’s struck something with her car.  Calls aren’t usually to “chat.”

We’ve known for a while now that Michelle had applied for a job at the place where she is interning.   And we’ve known for a while that it was looking really good she’d get the job.  As with most places of employment they probably have to do a few steps to make it look like they’ve thrown the job posting out to the masses before they give the job to the person that they want.

The past weekend, while helping a friend of Michelle’s move, Michelle talked about her interview process for the job and how it was sort of impromptu and kind of official but that they didn’t give her the job and she was worried and who knows when she’ll find out, etc.

It’s times like this, as a father, where my typical response is:  “Huh.  Interesting.”  Not really “Father Knows Best” type of stuff where I wax poetically about striving for your dream and doing what it takes to accomplish it.  Typically the less syllables the better in my book.

When she called to tell me she got the job I was excited for her but kept down playing it a bit.  To the point where she said:  “You’re acting like I haven’t been working…”  Which she has been for a very long time.  Again, the syllables thing.  Still, I congratulated her and told her I was proud of her and she was very excited.  An actual job in her field of study.  One that could lead to an amazing career path.

As I rode the bus home last night, I thought about this some more.  It was only a few years ago that she was on her path to becoming a dancer.  Well, she WAS a dancer.  No denying that for a short time she was a professional dancer (she got paid!) and was in MAJOR Ballet productions for Pacific Northwest Ballet.  There was also no denying that it was hard work.  Hours upon hours of rehearsals, practices, classes.  Six days a week all for her to follow a dream.

At one point during the ballet school year, you meet with the director of the school (or a main instructor) and they have a “come to Jesus” moment with you.  Basically what the person said to us was that Michelle could “Make a living being a dancer.”  But…she wasn’t a PNB “type” of dancer.  She is relatively short and is not very flexible.  But what she makes up for in flexibility she has in strength.  She could still take classes, she could still perform in small roles, but she wasn’t going to go much beyond that scope.  Where Miriam, my wife, heard “defeat,” I heard “make a living being a dancer.”  That, somehow, even if it wasn’t ballet – there would be opportunities for her elsewhere.  And, at this point in her life (still in high school), there was a future laid out for her:

What schools would offer her a dance scholarship?

Where should we go to investigate possible dance opportunities?

What steps should we now take to help her accomplish her dream?

What can we do, as parents, to ease this process and encourage her?

Part of the next steps was for Michelle to take part in a Summer Dance Lab in Walla Walla, WA.  Summer Dance Labs are intense programs opening up dancers to other types of dance and other types of teaching/instruction.  Heck, she even won a scholarship – so one summer she went for 2 or 3 weeks, the following summer she could go for the full 5 weeks.  For those weeks she was truly in her element (and far away from her annoying parents).

Then her hip started to hurt.  General soreness turned to pain.  Pain turned to lack of movement.  Lack of movement turned to lack of being able to dance.  Unable to dance to Michelle at the time was like being unable to breathe or eat or watch “Teen Mom.”  She needed this to survive.

After talking to a doctor and x-rays – it was determined that she would need hip surgery as she had a torn labrum.  After the first surgery (emphasis on the word FIRST) the doctor told us that she could continue to dance.  After the second surgery, it was obvious that she could not continue to dance.

What do you tell your child who has spent the past 10+ years of her life (and is barely even college age), that what she’s been working towards, fighting towards, given blood sweat and tears for is now out of her grasp?  Granted, she knew that she’d never be a Prima Ballerina but where do you from:  “She can make a living being a dancer.” to “She can continue to dance.” to “Ow, ow, ow!  It hurts when I do that...?”

How would she handle this new reality?  Going from six classes a week and hours of dancing to now just counting fuetes (sic?) from the audience?  Spilling gallons of sweat and breaking pointe shoes to watching her ballet friends on Facebook move on to college or jobs at other ballet companies?

Would she become clinically depressed?  Would she hide in her room?  Take a razor blade to her “Dance Dance Revolution” Dance Mats?  I’m sure she cried, but I didn’t see it (clueless is as clueless does).  I’m sure she yelled at God (I know I would).  I’m sure she thought she could work through it, suck it up, deal with the pain, start over, try again, pull herself up by the ballet straps, deny the doctors, deny the instructors and muscle through.

As a father who barely can stay awake through a ballet program (and by barely, that means I usually fall asleep), what could I do?  What could I say?  What lack of syllables could I provide to her?

She regrouped.  She focused.  She went to Community College.  She transferred to Western Washington as a Jr.  She lived the dorm life and enjoyed it.  She got her degree and then applied to grad school.  Where dance had been her world…now community counseling was her world (with probably less crazy people than the ballet world).  Working nearly full time already, she took on a course load that would choke a horse.

As part of her third year at school, she had to intern somewhere…while still doing her other job(s).  Where she interned liked her and when an opening became available she was offered a job.

She moved out.  She graduates with her masters in a few months.  She turns 26 in June.  She pays her bills.  She’s in love.  She has successfully reinvented herself.  She has moved forward – bad hip and all.

Will the job be perfect?  Will she be happy in it?  Will it turn into a career as opposed to a “bill paying job?”  We will see.

It’s not so much that I’m proud of her getting a job.  I’m proud of her overcoming the adversity placed in her way.  Good job, Michelle!  (note:  four syllables)

Abby Lee Miller (Dance Moms) and the Abuse of Dance

Please Note:  I was going to insert a lot of interest and cool photos with snarky comments underneath each one but, for some reason, it will not load photos.  Sorry, you're just stuck with...words....

There was an episode of “Mythbusters” where they strapped a large iron “cow-catcher” on the front of an enforced semi-truck and plowed it through two lines of cars at full speed. This amazing moment was caught on multiple cameras and shown in super high speed slow motion – over and over and over again.  It was great to see because from every angle you could see the complete destruction of these vehicles.  Like a hot truck knife through cars of butter.  Heck, they could have just shown it for 40 minutes straight and I would still be fascinated.  And that’s how car crashes work.

 

Welcome to the new season of “Dance Moms” – one of those reality shows I barely watch as I wander through the living room or hear in the background while I try to beat Michelle’s high score on “Bejeweled”  (not ever going to happen – but I’ll try).  This reality show, like the others that Miriam and Michelle watch are, pretty much, in one ear-right out the other with me.  I know most of the players and understand the basic plotting and storylines but committed to watching this car wreck?  No, I’ve got better things to do:  like play “Bejeweled.”

 

Last night, though, I was playing on my phone when Miriam watched the season premiere of “Dance Moms.”  Now, if you don’t know the basic plot of reality show “DM” here’s the breakdown.  Abusive, screaming, non-compromising, win-at-all-costs, Abby Lee Miller (of the Abby Lee Dance Studio) buts heads repeatedly with the four or five (I can’t remember) moms and their daughters as she tries to groom these girls to be top dancers.  As the seasons have worn on a couple of the prominent mothers and their daughters have dropped out due to Abby’s abusive (both verbally and mentally) coaching of the girls.  ALL the mothers at some point or another have yelled at ALM and she has yelled right back.  ALL of the mothers have threatened to pull their child out of the studio at some point or another.  One mother even did a couple seasons ago, only to come back – tail between her legs – and now one her daughter is one of the best dancers.

 

As the formatting of the show goes, each episode focuses on a dance recital, they get the “pyramid” treatment (to show who did the best and who did the worst), given their assignments in regards to their respective dances (solos, group dances), rehearse, go to the competition and, most likely, win.  And, I guess, that makes the week long yelling and screaming worth it in the end…or does it?

 

Abby Lee Miller has parlayed the success of this show into two other shows, one a dance competition and another a “help me fix your studio” show. Both, you can be rest assured, show Abby in her typical yelling light.  If it’s not “in your face” than what’s the point?  If it’s not a car wreck?  Then why watch?

 

Ahh, but there’s a twist to this season.  They’re playing up the fact that ALM is getting sued by a former parent.  Papers are being filed and ALM is upset.  WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN?!  Much like the modified semi-truck barreling 60 mph towards two rows of unsuspecting cars – what’s going to happen?!

 

It isn’t so much the plotting that I found interesting.  And I’ll admit that they’re shoving a week’s worth of footage into 42 minutes (and 10 of that is mostly performances) so there’s always the question of editing – what they’re choosing to show besides what they’re NOT choosing to show – but I digress.  What plotting I found interesting was the response of the mothers in last night’s show to the law suit against ALM.  The response was basically:  “This is an attack on our daughters and we have to fight.”  Really?  Is it an attack on your daughters?  Or is it an attack on ALM?

 

ALM is now a brand.  A brand she’s put out on three different shows and multiple appearances on other TV shows.  She’s rolling in the money and it doesn’t surprise me that there is a lawsuit against her – but I don’t even know what the lawsuit is about (nor do I think the other mothers know either - see the end of this blog for more info about the lawsuit(s)).  But there was a quick move by one of the mothers (the most intelligent of the bunch in my opinion by the way) to just say that this is an attack against them.

 

I harken back to a couple years ago when assistant college football coach Jerry Sandusky was found guilty of sexually molesting boys.  A lawsuit was filed against the school and Jerry and people were incensed.  Not so much that this guy was a habitual child molester and left a wake of victims in his hellish path – but how it affect the school?  The football program?  The other students?  This wasn’t an attack on Sandusky – this was an attack on the SCHOOL!  These people were, in my opinion, taking the same opinion that the mother is taking in this lawsuit against ALM.

 

Now, I know, comparing ALM’s coaching methods to a pathetic human being like Jerry Sandusky might be a bit of a stretch but what I’ve seen in terms of ALM’s handling of children (and some of them very young) is abuse.  Mental and psychological abuse.  It may not be sexual abuse or physical abuse but it certainly pushes the many envelopes of mental and psychological abuse.  Maybe this lawsuit is really about that?

 

Certainly, though, ALM has the best interests of the girl’s at heart…right?  She just wants to make them better dancers (and win more competitions) and she’s just “preparing them for the hard road of professional dance.”  Sorry, I call bullsh*t on that.  THESE ARE KIDS.  And there are certainly ways to get your point across than yelling, screaming, insulting, pitting one against the other, etc.  Like, I don’t know, making one of the dancers bark during a performance…really?  Or having the kids rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and then just not do the performance after all – while, of course, chastising another dance instructor when she pulled a dance at the last moment.

 

My overall problem with this thinking is that I do not see the roots of ALM’s success.  Oh, sure we HEAR about how she’s coached a number of Broadway dancers but have we seen any of them come and talk about how they survived the same years of mental and verbal abuse and how that prepared them for the big time (maybe they did an episode or two about this and I just missed it as I was reading my paper and not paying attention).  My point is that there’s no track record to justify this type of behavior towards kids!  (Note:  one dancer now has her own show but is that because of ALM or in spite of ALM?)

 

Look at another reality TV star and his multiple shows:  Gordon Ramsey.  He’s like the Benedict Cumberbatch of Fox Reality TV.  On his show “Hell’s Kitchen” he berates and verbally and mentally abuses the contestants but there are some subtle differences.  The biggest one is that these are adults.  In his show “Masterchef Junior” – he deals with kids in a constructive thoughtful way to push them to give their best.  Yes, one moment in the last season you could see him holding back from his normal gruff persona but he was still under control when it came to kids.  Another difference is that you can’t deny his success – multiple restaurants all around the world.  Michellin awards.  He is tops in his field.  And, finally, the people he propels and pushes go on to run his restaurants – or work in his organization.  There’s an actual pot of gold at the end of this obscenity filled rainbow.  ALM can’t guarantee an iota of that to her young charges.


Oh, and one other "cringe inducing moment" was at the end of the competition where Abby Lee Dance Studio won yet again, the MC came up and talked about how wonderful Abby Lee is and brought her up on stage to show her all the love.  Imagine if someone did that with Jerry Sandusky after his years of abuse.

 

I’ve been a “Dance Dad” and was on the board of a local dance company for a number of years.  Though I know some of the moms had issues with the director of the company – those concerns where left in the board room.  And, trust me, if that director verbally and mentally abused my child like ALM does to these girls?  I may have sued, too.

Oh, and here are the details of the lawsuits: 

A lot of last season and last night’s show were under a legal cloud. Former Dance Mom Kelly Hyland and her daughters Paige and Brooke first filed a $5 million complaint against Miller and the show’s producers Collins Avenue Entertainment in mid-February last year. That nine-claim complaint, which included an assault claim, came out of a November 22, 2013, faceoff between Miller and the elder Hyland over the “bullying and insulting” way the former was treating the daughters on the show. With the younger Hylands looking on, the two women screamed at each other, with Miller lunging forward and Hyland then slapping her. In typical reality TV style, the incident was shown on the series last year.
Paige Hyland filed her assault charge against Miller in October. On November 17, LA Superior Court Judge Ruth Kwan threw out the defamation and emotional distress claims. The breach-of-contract claims against Collins Avenue can still move ahead.

Net Neutrality and Miss America 1994

I turned 50 this year.   You only turn 50 once.  You also only turn 40 once.  You also only turn 30 once.

Now that the issue of “Net Neutrality” has come up again recently, I want to write about the time I turned 30.

How does my 30^th birthday, 20 years ago before the Internet truly existed, have to do with “Net Neutrality?”  I will explain.

Twenty years ago my friends Alan and Audrey offered to throw me a 30^th Birthday Party.  I’m all for anything that showers attention and, potentially, gifts on me so I jumped at the chance.  With any party they wanted to know what I would like in terms of festivities.  The only thing I really wanted was a pinata filled with little bottles of alcohol (preferably in plastic bottles) for everyone to enjoy.  I can’t recall any other requests I made...except when I got there.

Mix these....

...with this.  Fun ensues.

You see – Audrey and Alan live in a nice house in a good middle class suburban neighborhood.  They had, or possibly still have, a hot tub, a nice back yard, a good deck and large storage garage.  At the time, in 1994, they also had a satellite dish.  We’re not talking about a dish about the size of a large pizza but a DISH about six feet around.  These dishes were on mounts upon which you could alter the direction of the dish to pick up the various satellites floating around the sky. If you had one of these dishes you, literally, had access to thousands of channels of programming.  There was also an enormous guide that would be published telling you where to point the dish to get whatever channel you sought (I searched for an image of one of these guides...could not find one).

When I arrived for my festivities, I asked if they were watching the “Miss America Pageant.”  I don’t know why this was of any interest to me.  Who cares who won (Miss South Carolina – Kimberly Clarice Aiken).  But what made this fun was simply the fact that Alan and Audrey could get the live feed from some other part of the country.  I was completely fascinated by this.  That you could ACTUALLY watch something live and not “tape delayed.”

Miss America 1994.  Pretty.

Soon after I found myself wandering down to the local bar to watch the Mariner’s play from home (when the games never used to be broadcast) because the bar would pick up the feed back to the other team’s town (probably without the expressed written consent of Major League Baseball).

I wanted, nay, begged to have a great huge satellite dish to enjoy shows like “Saturday Night Live” actually, you know, LIVE.  Cable was quickly becoming a tad stale and I wanted the freedom of just looking for channels around the globe.  Pick up that feed, watch things live, enjoy the power of the dish.

Until....

It became regulated.  Next thing you know the “Dish Network” people showed up and the freedom of the satellite became just a different kind of cable network....with a dish instead of cable.

Little Dishes

When I would investigate the possibility of still having access to live TV I would ask the nice salesperson:  “Does this dish thingy get live feeds from around the county and the world?”  “Uh...yeah...I’m pretty sure it does.”  (note:  it didn’t).

This is what I fear will happen if we lose Net Neutrality.  That it will just become another service to be regulated and paid for and we won’t get what we want...at all (unless you’re willing to pay for it).

They want your money and they're willing to regulate the internet to get it.

So does Verizon.

 

And this.

I truly feel that if the large corporations get their way you’ll be paying for bronze, silver, gold levels of internet service – forced to go to only a certain number of web pages, forced to view their advertising for their paid-for sponsors and whatever freedom and enjoyment we had will be kicked to the proverbial dustbin of higher profits and lower service.

They're replicating.

Hopefully this won’t happen and the “information super highway” will still be able to be driven by everyone, not the select few.

 

Uh....

This explains it better than I could - and there are pictures:

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/net_neutrality

Potato Chips and a Experiment in Human Behavior

With the wake of the recent election upon us, I was reminded how a recent trip to Costco turned into a very interesting human experiment.

My friend Stephen and I meet for lunch approximately once a week.  Sometimes it’s just me and him, other times we have other friends join us.  These lunches typically include talk of politics, work situations, book club, trips, etc.

One morning Stephen called me up and said he needed to run down to Costco and would I join him.  We’d get lunch there.  Now it’s very difficult for me to pass up a $1.50 (WITH DRINK!) Costco hot dog and I jumped at the chance.

There was only one slight problem – we were going to Costco to buy stuff – not just have lunch.  That meant shopping and Costco in the middle of the day (hell most any time) is filled with people and this meant wandering the store while Stephen picked out food for a party he was having (nice cheeses, a case of Pellegrino, etc.) .  If I was going to have to go shopping then, hell, I was going to take advantage of that.  So I bought me a big bag of their low-salt kettle potato chips.  These are very high on the “yummy” scale and they’re also something I’m not supposed to buy and bring home because Miriam finds that she eats them...all.  Bought?  Yes.  Taking them home?  No.  I would buy them for work and share them with my co-workers.

Yummy Lightly Salted Goodness

Back to work, I opened the bag and placed them on the counter in the kitchen.  I took a handful, closed the bag with a binder clip (it’s a big bag!) and snacked on them at my desk.

A little while later I walked by the kitchen and there was the bag on the counter and it was open.  Someone had taken some and left the bag open, so I sealed the bag (after taking a few more) and went on my way.  An hour later or so I walk by and the bag is open again.  Once again I went in and sealed the bag.  Let me remind you:  IT’S A BIG BAG and, of course, if you leave it open – they’re going to go stale.

This continued the rest of the afternoon.  See open bag, close open bag.  See open bag, close open bag.  See open bag...you get the point.

It was at this point that I realized that an experiment was taking place.  Now, granted, I had no idea who was leaving the bag open but I assumed it was the attorneys I work with.  For a long while we had an attorney who would leave the wrapper to the microwave popcorn on the counter and one of us staff members would end up throwing it away.  When we finally brought this up to the attorney he literally had no clue he was doing this.  Somewhere in his world someone would come along and throw it away (which, of course, someone was doing).  Once we mentioned this he clued in and began throwing away the wrapper...but it was the simple fact that he didn’t realize he was doing this that made me wonder.

Back to the chips.  This, too, was making me wonder.  Why was it that I was so concerned about the potato chips going stale but they weren’t concerned about it?  I mulled that around in my brain for awhile and then finally came to a conclusion:  They didn’t care because they didn’t have to care.  Simply:  A $5 bag of potato chips is no big deal to them.  They make good money (deservedly so and I love the people I work with) and a $5 bag of chips isn’t important to them.  Why is it important to me?  It’s a $5 bag of potato chips that I don’t want to go stale so that I, and the others around me, can enjoy them to their non-stale fullest.  Of course if I saw the person leaving the bag open and said:  “Oh, hey, could you close the bag when you’re done?”  They probably wouldn’t even realize they were leaving the bag open.

To tie this into this national election – I’ve been thinking about the issues that face this country and our politicians we elect to the process.

If we look at core issues facing this country, I would say that these are the top ten (in no particular order):

1.      Job Creation

2.      Education

3.      Affordable Health Care

4.      Outside Threats to Our Safety

5.      Women’s Reproductive Rights

6.      Gun Control – or lack thereof

7.      Income Inequality

8.      Environment

9.      Infrastructure Issues

10.    Equal Rights

"What's a wealthy politician to do?"

Now compare those issues with this information from the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics (from January 2014):

Of the 534 current members of the House and Senate, 268 had an average net worth of $1 million or more in 2012 – up from 257 members in 2011. The median net worth for members of the House and Senate was $1,008,767.

The wealthiest member of Congress? That's Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, who had a net worth between $330 and $598 million.

The reports found that there wasn't much distinction between the two parties – congressional Democrats had a median net worth of $1.04 million as compared to about $1 million for Republicans. In both cases, the averages are up from last year, when the numbers were $990,000 and $907,000, respectively.

Let us not forget that, also, our politicians are given typical perks of their jobs:  staff, health care, transportation, protection, etc.

In comparing the top 10 issues to the fact that the median net worth of our politicians is over $1 million – something becomes increasingly clear – at least to me.

Before, though, you start bashing me on “wealth v. poor” there is some HOPE that the politicians we elect in this country will have some basic understanding of where they (or their parents) came from.  We’ve all heard about how John Boehner lived above a bar.  Most recently I heard McConnell suffered from childhood polio.  But I’ve also heard how McConnell inherited his millions.  John Kerry married the heiress to the Heinz empire.  This is not GOP v. DEMS this is just stating a very clear and reasonable fact:  They’re all, pretty much wealthy and you and I are, well, not. 

Rich guy

Rich guy with REALLY rich wife (it's probably not a coincidence that her coat is Ketchup colored)

 

Then if you compare the issues facing this country like healthcare, reproductive rights, income inequality, the environment, etc. and wonder why the elected official doesn’t seem to care it’s simply because they don’t have to.  There HAS to be some disconnect going on between the lives and reality of our elected officials and to those to whom they serve.

A few months back a storage facility for some treatment plant dumped a bunch of waste into a stream that provided drinking water for a community.  The owner of the company, some wealthy guy, came on TV to talk about it and, in the process of talking, took a drink out of a bottle of water.  It subtly made my point.  Why did he care about the community?  He didn’t - he was actually from a foreign country.  Besides he can buy all the clean bottled water he wants – but what of the poor and hurting who can’t?  Well, for that guy, “not his monkey, not his circus” and off into his private jet he goes.

We have ten bags of potato chips open.  We all have various levels of concern over those chips getting stale and we have many wealthy politicians who don’t care because they don’t have to.

Social Media Destroying Connections?

It usually starts out relatively simple.  Someone on Facebook will post a video clip of something and then say:  “OMG you’ve got to see this!”  And...I’ll pass right on by.  Then another person completely unrelated to the first person will post the same video and say:  “Brilliant!”  And, again, I’ll pass right on by.  Within the next few hours, though, it will spring up more and more.  This time from another person.  Or Huffington Post or even a friend of a friend’s friend and it’ll be:  “So true!!  Take a look at this!”  And, finally, as if having to go to the dentist – I will click on the video to watch it.  Partly because I want to see what all the fuss is about and partly because I don’t want to be the one person to NOT watch it and feel like I’m missing out on something AMAAAAAAzing!

This happened this week with a video called “Look Up.”  This music video is kinda “rapped” by a British Guy (and when I say rapped by a British guy – I mean he just rhymes really really slowly – referred to as spoken word poetry or, as I like to call it:  White People Rapping.  And the fact that he rhymes really slowly it is as if he’s talking to someone who won’t GET IT).  The plot of  the video takes to task all of us people who don’t look up from our devices.  Our computers.  Our laptops.  Our smartphones, etc.

Of course the irony being that many people watching this video and posting it on Facebook are watching it on their cell phone or their lap top or other device.  And the other irony is that the technology that this song is dissing is the same technology that is, probably, going to make the video makers quite a lot of money.

Destroying your chance for a relationship?  Maybe?

Now, I don’t want to be too hard on the message here as it’s a good one and the story the video tells is about a young man who is looking for an address.  Instead of using a smartphone, he’s going completely old skool and using paper.  Because his handwriting is terrible (or something) he has to ask a hot gal passersby for information.  Three minutes later they’ve lived a full and wonderful life with marriage-child-death-love-happiness-sadness, etc.  Then the twist shows him using, not a scratched on piece of paper but a cell phone and, sadly, she just walks on by and they don’t “connect” neither spiritually, physically, sexually or whatnot (ESPECIALLY not whatnot!).  And then the British guy tells us again that we need to ‘LOOK UP!’  Okay, I GET IT.  Put the damn phone (laptop/smart-phone/cell-phone/GPS/tablet/Kindle) down and connect with the world around you.

It's hard to hold flowers on your wedding day, if you're holding a cell phone.

But here’s the rub...the overall subtext of the video is that we are becoming less social in our world of social media (I think he actually “raps/rhymes” about that).  That it’s pushing us farther and farther away from true connections.  But is it?

These are just electronic devices bent on destroying your social life.

I have a friend who refuses to use any and all types of social media.  Be it Twitter or Facebook or Snapchat or MySpace or...  He refuses to have a cell phone or a tablet.  His answer is not that he wants to connect with people face-to-face but that he doesn’t want the government tracking his every move.  And that’s a legitimate concern.  But, he’s telling me all this on a computer.  Which makes me assume that when the first books were published there was someone who was like:  “Hortence!  Jedediah hath postponed his gathering of wood and is just partaking in READING!  Does he not knoweth that reading will lead to evil?  Certainly it can’t lead to anything good, unless, of course, it’s the Bible!”

Books, just a downward spiral to loneliness and depression.

And then, when the radio was invented and placed in every home, I could see furrow-browed parents lamenting:  “Doris, Elmer Junior is on to his fifth hour of listening to the RCA radio.  He needs to go outside and play, I swear that kid isn’t going to accomplish much listening to “The Shadow” and “Edgar Bergin and Charlie McCarthy” all day.”

Oh, yeah.  You know she died old and alone with only her 52 cats, all because of that damn radio.

Certainly, we knew how the TV turned out.  Parents around the country frustrated at the box.  Calling it the “boob tube,” it was turning us all into couch potatoes – festering starches growing directly into the couch like some sub-human mutant half-human/half-couch/all-potato hybrid freak.  Hell, we even ate TV dinners.  Certainly our ability to interact with others was going to suffer greatly.

The downfall of society as we know it.  No one will interact with anyone again...EVER!

But...wait for it...the PC was just on the horizon – but before that it was the Nintendo and Atari and gaming systems solely designed to turn us into more freakish bits of nature – hiding us in our rooms like Golum, calling our Super Mario Cartridge “Precious.” Certainly we weren’t going to interact with people, right?  Certainly we were going to just lock ourselves in our rooms and forget to be social...right?

Yeah, they may be connecting now, but his love for Pong will be too much for her...

Since I grew up in an age where phones had cords and this rotating thing you actually had to rotate to call someone and have merged, semi-successfully into the world of PC’s and smartphones and gaming systems (I’ve had, over my years an Atari Pinball Game, a Nintendo 8-Bit System, an Atari 5200,  Playstations 2 and 3, three pinball machines and a handful of electronic devices from Gameboys to Coleco “football” – seriously just red LED dots) – I think I can consider myself learned (note, I didn’t say expert).

Seriously.  Red dots.  And it was fun.

So where has this world of Social Media taken me?  Over the past couple years I’ve been able to re-connect with people I, seriously, thought I would never connect with again.  Richard, my mentor.  Taso, my other mentor.  Mike who I bullied in High School – finally got a chance to apologize.  Jeff, a high school buddy, who I found out had married his partner and is very happy.  Monika, the girl I had a total crush on in Jr. High School.  Still seeing her photo makes my heart skip a beat.  And so many others:  good friends from my past, church friends, writer friends, acting friends.  Certainly you can call me crazy and say that these “relationships” don’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things.  And I would tell you to kiss my a**.  It’s certainly far more than me just wondering quietly how so-and-so is doing, when I can see what they had for lunch...or read their political views.

It's all this thing's fault no one connects anymore.

And what of the outpourings of support I read when someone’s pet or parent has just died?   Or the support we give to performances that we’ve seen or photos of someone’s garden or when someone posts that they’ve lost 50 pounds?

But, I know what you’re asking:  Aren’t there some serious issues at play here?  Well, I would assume that there are some serious issues when the electronic device starts to take over some aspect of one’s existence.  I know I became a bit panicked the other day when I realized I left my phone at home when I went to get Miriam from her work.  And, yes, I’d like to see studies done when it comes to those who are extremely introverted or extroverted and how they connect and use electronic devices.  But, honestly, I see no real sustained issue here.  So what, that when I look up on the bus and see that most of the people are staring at a device.  10 years ago I looked up on the bus and most people were staring at a book...and we seemed to go through that stage okay.

Looking at the video it implies, in some way, that if we don’t stop looking at a device we’ll never find love.  I only have to look so far as my friend Shannon’s facebook page (and the photos of her handsome husband and beautiful daughter) to see how connecting through a computer can work.  She met her husband through an on-line dating site and, just like the video, they looked up (probably at a computer screen) and got married and had a child and this has been years ago now.  Who’s to say that you can’t make a “love-connection” through a screen as opposed to accosting someone on the street because your 55^th ave. looks like 53^rd ave?

Or this thing's fault...

I don’t fear that Social Media is keeping us away from connecting with other people.  I just see Social Media as connecting in a DIFFERENT way with other people.  Like the examples I gave above, there is a beauty about connecting – even if just for a moment, just to think about another person, just to relate to someone’s struggle.  That’s connecting.  And, besides, until they make a computer or a tablet or smart phone that has sex with you and can cuddle with you at night, hold your hand, cry on your shoulder and make you feel like you’re the greatest person in the whole wide world...I wouldn’t worry.  Still...they might have an app for that.