Post-Modern Man

Sitting here on a Saturday morning while the family slumbers I was poking around the Web while drinking my coffee and knitting my scarf and I realized a few things that have probably been wandering through the recesses of my mind, but have managed to cling to faceless anonymity amidst all that transpires on a daily basis.  Without all the typical political and critical trappings that often prompt me to post, here is my brief list of revelations and observations with a miscellaneous statement or two thrown in:

1. I am a true jack of all trades and master of none.  I sometimes see myself as a type of Antonio Salieri, who after creating something good and special looks to the skies and thanks the powers that be for my gifts.  Then I witness true greatness and see the amateurishness of my output for the hack work that it is and cast my gaze once more to the heavens to repeat my thanks with an oily coating of sarcasm and sardonic amusement.
2. Beyond the handful of people I love and respect, I find the majority of the human race to be a tiresome lot.
3. I have the strange ability to recall huge sections of dialogs from movies, books and past conversations, though these superpowers fail me when I really need to remember something of great import.
4. As I was knitting, my nearly depleted skein does not release it’s yarn as easily as it did when it was still big and full of loops.  As a result of this, I noticed my skein creeping toward me as I did each stitch until it resembled a strange caterpillar inching it’s way across the couch cushion as if attempting to get a better look at what I was doing.  For some reason it was a little unnerving…
5. I am hypocritical and caustic and critical… I try to be a carefully considerate person who always says “please” and “thank you” and I hold doors for people and say good morning to strangers and known persons on a regular basis.  I like to think that I am a good person, but in reality I switch gears constantly from thoughtful and nice to nasty and hateful at the drop of a hat.  If I say an optimistic and cheery good morning to someone and they glance up and say nothing in return (meaning they heard me and chose not to respond in kind) I henceforth refer to them as a mute.  Or a f@*%ing mute.  ”Good morning…” scowl or blank look from the recipient “…you f@*%ing mute”.  Having said all of that, I still think I am nicer and more considerate than most others I come into contact with.
6. The fact that some people love certain things that I find absolutely stupid compels me to wonder about the nature of free-thinking individuals.  There are certain elements of existence that baffle me when it comes to aesthetics and the tastes of the common man/woman.  Here are a few things that just seem so pointless to me:  

• Professional Sports – Don’t get me wrong, I was fairly athletic growing up and am still a pretty capable individual on a number of playing fields.  This comment is not coming from a skinny or obese poster child for inactivity and sloth.
• Rap Music – Again, I can appreciate musicianship where it is evident, but the genres are just so unappealing in general that I don’t understand the draw.
• Peer Pressure – At any age, to do something just because people want you to (not related to doing work for your boss or company) just makes me shake my head.

I’m sure I could go on, but I am making a conscious effort to keep my future blog entries a little shorter.  I recall the final scenes from the debatably good movie Clue…

Tim Curry – “To make a long story short…”

The assembled guests in unison – “Too late.”

Well, I tried.

Unless you have a weak grasp of the concept of sarcasm, you can identify my stance as definitely anti-Walmart.  I am not saying that I am anti-China when it comes to the manufacturing and exporting of goods as they have as much a right to make and distribute as the next country.  My problem lies with the American people who shop at Walmart, not because it is necessarily geographically more convenient, but because it sells cheap goods at low prices.  The age-old addage “You get what you pay for.” comes to mind when you consider what you are getting when you shell out your hard-earned money.  Let us examine some unseen benefits:

 1. Your reduced cost is in part a result of buying goods manufactured in a country where there are fewer safety, environmental and health regulations in place.  The result is that the workers making the goods have a much higher instance of industrial/chemical illnesses, the goods themselves have a higher probability of being tainted or requiring recalls when pets get sick or children get injured.

“I’m scared to death. We are dependent on our government inspecting things,” said Joyce Simple, a church secretary, interviewed on a recent shopping trip to a Wal-Mart in Houston. “I would be careful of anything that came from China.”

“Here we’re buying all of these products from China and they’re not adhering to our standards. It’s very disturbing,” said Joanne Metler, a community college teacher in Chicago.

 The good news is that the savings generated from the lax or severely reduced industrial standards are passed on to you.

2. The labor used to manufacture the goods you buy so cheaply at Walmart is often comprised of a combination made up of your standard working class mixed with children as young as eight or twelve years old.  They work sometimes up to 15 hour days in plants where there is little regard for safety or human rights and with no appreciable health benefits aside from the lowest government standards.  Granted, labor laws and child welfare mean different things depending on where you are or what country you are in.  I suppose that the Walmart shoppers who reap the benefits of low costs partly derived from underage workers and deplorable conditions can compare a twelve year old laborer in China to the typical twelve year old in Darfur who (depending on gender) deal daily with rape, murder, maiming and even worse working or living conditions.

Perhaps the US could back a communist regime in the Sudan or the Ivory Coast, and then when the government has the populace under control we can import even cheaper goods from areas where there are no human rights at all and the workers lose a foot if they don’t meet their quota during a 15 or 18 hour shift.  The possibilities are endless, but for now we will have to make do with cheap goods that travel from China, (through very lax customs agents) to Walmart, to you.

“Ultimately, the U.S. consumer is attracted to cheap Chinese goods. As long as they keep the price low, U.S. consumers will keep buying,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com.

I’ll continue this at a later date, when this nauseous feeling has subsided a bit and I no longer taste the bile resulting from such a disgusting topic.  In the meantime, save money by shutting off lights when not using a room or during daylight hours.  Maybe you can make your own coffee instead of getting your coffee at Wawa or 7-11 and save a few bucks instead of shopping at Walmart because the prices are so low. 

Detestation is justifiable if you’ve been driven to apoplectic rage by a company’s totally uncaring customer service responses. I’ll try to be as brief as possible. Many years ago, our family started using T-Mobile as they had the best deal for mobile-to-mobile calls and loads of minutes. Sure, cell reception was a bit spotty, and customer service was nothing to write home about, but I was anti-Verizon because they had acted a bit domineering in their role as a local land-line provider. Lots of odd charges and service that (while ok) did not warrant such a high cost. So, T-mobile was the brand of choice and all was fine.

Fast forward… I took a job in Princeton and found that my cell service was so bad I could not get a signal of worth at work or on my lengthy commute home. I would occasionally get two bars, but would lose them fairly quickly. I complained and blogged and eventually switched phones and ultimately improved my situation. The phone I had been using was one of those first gen PDA types, and when I switched to a cheaper no-frills Nokia, I was mollified to a great extent as the signal strength seemed a bit more robust.

Fast forward even further… Time to trade in the crappy old phone for a newer one and ended up getting a RAZR. Sure, the consumer groups thought they were shite, but I still liked the look and feel and with a rebate to boot, it seemed like a good deal. The rebate, which played an integral part in getting the phone, was only mentioned at the point of purchase and on their website but was never actually sent. After realizing that the rebate was somewhere in limbo, we contacted the customer service department to find out what the deal was. They said “Talk to the rebate center.”

The rebate center said, “No, no… call T-Mobile back.”

The T-Mobile customer service department said “I don’t know what they are talking about. Call the rebate center back.”

After numerous back-and-forth calls, I asked T-Mobile to either take care of the situation (since the never-received rebate had by this time expired) or I would leave their ranks at the conclusion of my contract. They did not seem to care one way or another and did not sound in any way interested in keeping our patronage stating that “When you are going to get a rebate for merchandise that you purchase, it is up to the customer to apply for the rebate.” WTF? I’ve sent in rebates before, but I’ve never had to “apply” for one.

Nowadays, I count down the months until our contract is up and in the mean time tell anyone who asks “What cell service do you use?” that I am disgusted with T-Mobile and can’t wait until they are no longer my carrier. I’ll use two tin cans and string before I recommend T-Mobile to anyone.

This is the last thing they sent me in a follow-up email following my extremely unsatifying experience:

“It has been my pleasure providing you, Thomas a loyal, valued customer since December, 2002, with T-Mobile’s World Class service. Thank you for being a valued T-Mobile customer, we appreciate your business.”

The clock is ticking T-Mobile.

In a musical landscape that is currently as bleak as the surface of the moon, it is a great pleasure to find something as thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining as Roger Joseph Manning Jr.’s “Solid State Warrior” or “Land of Pure Imagination”.  To say that it is the best artist release of 2006 is an understatement, though the field lacked any real competitors.  Still, I purchased the original “Solid State…” Weed files when they were first released and then recently bought “Land of Pure…” off the Not Lame site and have enjoyed every masterfully crafted song in the catalog.

Not too long ago I worked a bit with the folks in Eric Dover’s Sextus camp after I had heard a few MP3s of his on mp3.com.  I loved the songs “Need a Push” and “Crazy For You” and contacted the webmaster/webmistress to see if I could help contribute to their efforts.  Long story short, I created a logo which was used for some t-shirts and other merchandise and enjoyed creating some image treatments and the like.  Sextus, like RJM Jr. released initially via Weed and it was at this point that I first felt the tingle of unease.  This is where some of the luster left the relationship with Sextus.  Firstly, “Need a Push” was cut from the release which bothered me to a great extent.  Then I heard the new version of “Crazy…” which was softened considerably from the much better demo version.  These issues were followed by mishaps in CD production as well as a seriously botched website that to this day still has an “under construction” GIF gracing it’s real estate.

With Eric Dover’s efforts languishing and Andy Sturmer still off in La La Land with Puffi Ami Yumi, it fell to arguably the most talented of the bunch to craft a collection of songs to eclipse anything since Imperial Drag (with the exception of anything from Supergrass) in 1996.

“Solid State Warrior” has elements to satisfy any Jellyfish/Imperial Drag fan.  From the epic Land of Pure Imagination, with it’s sweeping chorus to the closing Till We Meet Again, everything in between is superbly arranged and implemented.  My personal favorites are Creeple People (great Drag-like groove), The Loser (upbeat and clever), Sandman (the harmonies are freaking AMAZING!!!) and Too Late For Us Now (magnificent both musically and lyrically).  The new release (retitled “Land of Pure Imagination”) replaces three SSW songs with three newer efforts that, while not as appealing to me as the removed songs, are lovely in their own right.

Suffice it to say, Roger Joseph Manning Jr. has released a spectacular collection of original songs that I cannot recommend to a higher degree.  In 2005 the CD of the year was Road to Rouen from Supergrass, and with RJM Jr.’s releases we are averaging one (maybe two) worthwhile CDs a year.  Considering the hundreds/thousands of artist CDs released per year, the record/music industry is in worse shape now than it was during the few years preceding the Beatles. 

Thank you Roger, for making 2006 a musically noteworthy year. 

I recently heard/saw a story on NBC that exposed a serious threat to America’s future:  A shortage of classroom teachers.  I was once an aspiring teacher, but have long since abandoned the public school teaching profession for a number of reasons, many of which have thinned the teaching community to dangerously low numbers.

Nepotism – Several districts in the area will hire from a small pool of under-qualified would-be teachers who are either related to or friends with a school board member or administrator.  I actually overheard a conversation in a school in southern Ocean County where the office workers commented on the two hundred applicants trying for a teaching position who were “wasting their time” because the niece of the superintendent was getting the job.  Toms River, Berkely Township, Lacey Township, and many other districts have common knowledge (though not advertised) policies where it is isn’t what you know as much as who you know.

De-clawed/Neutered/Powerless Teachers – Between the “Winter Recess” vs. “Holiday Vacation” stupidity and students getting away with murder because they are “Clinically Over Agressive” or suffering from “Chronic Social Regression Syndrome”, teachers have had their ability to discipline stripped from them by overzealous parents and weak, cowardly school administrators.

Low Pay  – No big shock there…  Our country pays teachers fairly poorly overall (except in incredibly wealthy districts) and as a result they set the bar for incoming teachers firmly in the “Mediocre” range.  If they used merit pay increases with reachable objectives, things might be different, but as it stands even the worst teacher (often a school board member’s unqualified son or daughter) will get steady pay increases and even get tenure in three years.

Incentives aside, it is going to take a major shift in our nation’s thinking to get our country back on track.  Keep the parents out of the schools (unless it is absolutely justified) and keep potential teachers from teaching in districts where they have relatives or friends on school boards since it is a blatant conflict of interest.  If you give good teachers more power, the low pay will seem less of an issue than it is now.

Example:  I was actually threatened by a parent in front of a superintendent who did nothing to support me.  I disciplined his daughter, and another girl for calling another student a “dirtbag” and he requested a meeting with myself and the ranking administrator where he told me he would take care of me personally if I ever did something like that again.  He said that his daughter was right and that the other student WAS a dirtbag and I’d better not try to discipline her again.  Yes, Superintendent Fogg was a poor administrator indeed.

I could continue discussing my opinions regarding the sorry state of our nation’s school system, but it is just making me more and more disgusted.