Full Text of Ian's Weekly Commentaries
Ian Shoales. We can all breathe a sigh of relief. The other shoe has
dropped, along with Darva Conger's clothes, ending months of suspense. Yes, a nation held its breath, wondering if the briefly wed to a millionaire Conger was going to disrobe for Playboy Magazine or not. Well, I guess it wasn't a question of "if" but "when." August, 2000, if you're interested. She joins the legions of women who pretend to agonize over the decision to accept a five figure cash emolument in exchange for being professionally photographed bare naked, all imperfections airbrushed into oblivion, for the gawking pleasure of a diminishing demographic of the kind of guys who like see the kind of gals like Darva Conger with no clothes on.
Penthouse and Playboy used to run neck and neck in bidding wars for these gals. Tonya Harding, Paula Jones, et cetera et cetera-- which softcore conglomerate would drape them with cash and undrape them? But Penthouse has fallen on hard times. And Playboy's gotten more creative in its pictorials-- candid shots of movie stars sunbathing on French beaches, snapped without their permission, photo shoots of starlet warhorses like Joey Heatherton or Nancy Sinatra. Sexy senior citizens, you might say. She's almost niney, and she looks FABULOUS!
Who will the talent scouts at Playboy go after next? I'd say WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE winners, except they don't need the money, and I don't know if the kind of guys who like to see the kind of gals like Darva Conger naked want to see WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE losers naked. The losers on SURVIVOR maybe. Photograph them on a deserted beach, looking pouty and fierce, holding a speargun. Oh yes, I am so there. And there's always the pool of supermodels, professional wrestlers, beauty contest winners, and amply-endowed gals who play perhaps too much volleyball.
Who's next? There's always those actresses who fairly reek of being well-known for no apparent reason, and wish to remain well-known at any cost. Jane Seymour. Minnie Driver. Gwyneth Paltrow five years from now. And there are still oodles of female pools to be plumbed. We might see Toll Plaza Babes Naked, Cafeteria Servers, on the beach, pouty fierce, holding spatulas, women of Silicon Valley-- nah, that would be kind of thin, wouldn't it?-- the girls of mass transit, Hotel maids unclad, the gals of the Supreme Court disrobed, lady lawyers as you've never seen them before, real estate agents, totally nude! I can't wait. Well, maybe I can. I gotta go.
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When I was a kid, the air fairly throbbed with promise of the future--
floating cars, jet pack rocket belts, video phones, the kitchen of
tomorrow!
The future, to steal a phrase from Dashiell Hammett, was as real as a
dime. But for some reason, none of these promises of the future were kept--
well, some were, like the videophone, but the public has responded with lukewarm indifference.
One of the troubles with a vision of the future is that it seems like a
dusty figment of the past as soon as it's thrown into the culture. Buck Rogers of the 21st Century is way 1930's. Barbarella and Star Trek are way sixties.
Star Wars may make billions well into the 21st Century, but it will always
scream seventies to me.
A recent New York Times Magazine article devoted itself to, well, the
kitchen of tomorrow among other things. The kitchen of tomorrow, it seems, will be run by a scanner, which will cook your food, buy your milk, and store your recipes. Whatever. The Magazine was about other tech breakthroughs of the 21st Century, some actual, some just foolish dreams-- talking Teddy bears, self-cutting lawns, intelligent cosmetics, crashproof cars, killproof
guns, accurate weather predictors, e-books, genetic report cards, limbs that grow back, and Web-savvy wristwatches. Well, okay, but it all seemed so, well, retail, so nineties.
It's all cell phones, and DVDs-- isn't anybody working on the rocket belt any more? Even on the mundane level, the future's kind of disappointing. A guy I work with and I were talking about the new economy the other day. We were a little frustrated by our work-- the business model changed every day, the architecture at our site was extremely buggy. Though the site itself looked "cool," to use the lingo, as near as we could tell, nobody was coming to visit. We decided that the dotcom economy was an analog to interior decoration. Every day, we change the color of the refrigerator, buy a newer, smarter stove, put in new tile, a brushed aluminum sink. It really looked great. Fit for Architectural Digest, or Martha Stewart. Sooner or later, however, you gotta cook something, don't you? Sooner or later, you gotta lay in some food. I gotta go.
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Ian Shoales. It's come to my attention that there's a bit of controversy
around our telephone bills.
The telephone has sort of got lost in the shuffle in the Internet hype, but it has become more firmly embedded in our lives than the Internet ever will. After all, we don't have Internet service providers calling us up every damn night trying to get us to switch. No, that honor still falls to long distance service providers.
There's one of them, which I won't name, okay I will, it's MCI, that actually has the nerve to send you a computer-generated call, and then ask you to HOLD and wait for a salesperson. Now, that is cheeky. But the real cheek, it seems, comes in our phone bills.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, complaints against long distance
companies have "roughly doubled in the state from 1997 to 1999," because of
false charges, charges that change abruptly, well, you know.
I'm looking at my phone bill. I'm not the kind of guy that does this, as a
rule, but I thought it might be destructive. I mean, instructive. I was charged the Resident Flat Rate Service. Okay. Then the charge for not putting my name in the phone book-- you'd think that would be free, not having them put your name in the book, save them a little effort, you know, but no-- twenty eight cents a month the bloodsuckers bill you. Then there's the number portability service charge. I don't know what that means. But it' s thirty four cents a month. Okay. Charges for Network Access for Interstate Calling, Imposed by the FCC-- 5. 19 a month. the California High Cost Fund Surcharge-- twenty eight cents.
On the bright side, the California Teleconnect Fund Surcharge is literally
just a penny a month. What I get for the penny, I don't know. Their thoughts? A Wish? The Universal Lifeline Telephone Service Surcharge sets me back a nickel. The rest are taxes, near as I can tell, except for the California RelayService and Commications Devices Fund-- which cost me two cents for the month. So I'm thinking, wow, what a cash cow. No wonder everybody's pestering meat dinnertime.
So here's my idea for a new charge. Three cents a month. And what are you paying for? The Surcharge Foundation Organizational Fund. This will be the group that creates the organizations that will add to your monthly bill in a constructive fashion. Don't worry. Government and corporations are working together on this. And that's what it's all about, really. Excuse me, there's the phone. I gotta go.
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Ian Shoales. What is the deal with WIRED Magazines obsession with androids? This is one of the computer-related obsessions that I frankly don't get. Maybe it's a GAMER thing.
Here's the quote from the blurb in WIRED's September 2000 issue for its
latest drool fest over the glamour of amputation, "When you reach for a hand to hold, that hand may well be a thermoplastic animatron, enlivened by a network intelligence increasingly indistinguishable from our own." I have to admit. I didn't read the article. The blurb pretty much stopped my in my reading tracks. Who the hell wants this?
Say, you're going for a walk on the beach, do you want the callused yet
strangely tender hand of a lover, or the hand of a thermoplastic animatron? I
rest my damn case. I mean, yeah, you could probably program a facsimile of that experience, as well as sex, dying, eating, and anything else. But isn't that a lot of money to spend on something you can get for free, if you, you know, get out of the cube once in a while?
Some segments of the wired community are enamored of virtual prostitutes.
That is, they've turned the idea of paying for sex, formerly a seedy activity, into a seedy activity that has had the seeds removed. What is this glee in disposing of our bodies? The idea that the computer can become our bodies? Why would you want this? Your body is a temple of the holy ghost, or not, depending on your personal beliefs. But still, it's there. It ain't broke. Don't fix it.
I know you're engineers, but good grief. Your hand is more than just a thing that tightens bolts, you know. It's more than a simple data entry machine. Your hand has fingers. And look at your partner there, naked in the moonlight.... Oh, you don't have a partner? Well, imagine one! Don't program it yet. I gotta go.
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Ian Shoales. Does anybody remember, before this whole Internet thing blew
everything else out of the water, that the next big thing was going to be the
television of tomorrow-- the telecomputer.
Why we would want this is a mystery, of course, as is the Internet itself,
really, but a lot of companies were spending a lot of money on a thing that probably would have ended up, in the best of all possible worlds, a digital VCR that would offer up any movie, any time. Come to think of it, that's the promise of broadband too, isn't it? If the Internet can deliver that, well, there might be hope for that monster puppy that devours everything and just leaves messes in the hallway in return after all.
Think of it, the finest engineering minds in America are, even as I speak, trying to make it possible for you to watch ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN at 2:37 a.m.
No wonder the French hate us. Well, come to think of it, they'd be viewing THE NUTTY PROFESSOR at 2:37 a.m. if they could get away with it.
No wonder we hate the French.
Anyway, I 've been giving a lot of thought to this. The way I see it, the bottom's going to drop out of the World Wide Web any day now-- we'll get tired of the jargon if nothing else. Everything about it is sort of creepy. We talk about how how "sticky" a site is, how many "eyeballs" it gets, it's the World Wide WEB-- sounds like one of those haunted houses you put in a garage on Halloween doesn't it? We'd better get some movies soon, or we'll drop the whole Internet like a bad habit.
The telecomputer is not the way to go, however. I mean, that's WEBTV isn't it? Maybe AOL five years from now. I think we should think a little smaller. We're always trying to mix things-- a watch that doubles as a calculator, a toaster-oven, a knife that's also a screwdriver, a television that's also a computer. Let's keep it simple-- the programmable shoe. What do you want? A stunning spike heel, a running shoe, a sturdy Florsheim, a fuzzy slipper? A simple vocal command, and your footwear immediately conforms to the style and comfort you desire! How? Well, I'll leave the practical side of it up to you. All I'm saying is, this could make somebody a lot of money. Me first, okay? I gotta go.
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Ian Shoales. When W.-- as we like to call him-- announced that his choice for vice presidential running mate was Dick Cheney-- journalists everywhere did something typical. The performed an act they do from time to time. They sprung an unfamiliar word on us, but acted as though it's a word we use all the time, even though most of had never even heard of it before they sprung it on us.
In the past, such words and concepts as nuncio, wiggle room, and spin were breezily dropped into the public discourse, as though we should all know what they mean, even though these words and concepts were only employed and coined by aging post-prep school opinionmakers, and their ilk.
This time, the word was "gravitas." Dick Cheney supposedly has it, which makes him a good fit with W. who has about as much dignity as a balloon or Frisbee, except he wears expensive suits.
I don't want to get into politics here, except to say if somehow you could merge W. and Al Gore into one person, you might have perhaps one sixteenth of the components necessary for a compelling personality. Maybe. So I'll restrict my remarks to Dick Cheney's gravitas.
Gravitas, as I understand it, is Latin for gravity, meaning not the magical force that keeps us from flying off into the vacuum of space and imploding, but a certain-- presence, a somber quality, usually leavened by both leaden humor and wisdom up the old wazoo. Socrates, I would suggest, had gravitas.
Nietsche, to name another philosophical figure, does not. Oliver Wendell Holmes had gravitas. Judge Judy does not. Most men with three names have gravitas, except William Jefferson Clinton. Many convicted criminals, for some reason, have three names, but they generally are gravitas-free.
You want real gravitas-- James Earl Jones. Dick Cheney? Sorry. I mustremind you that his name is Dick. Guys named Dick, Dicky, Rick, or Ricky do not have gravitas. Dick Cheney is a conservative bald guy from Wyoming. For good or ill, I say we leave it at that. I gotta go.
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Ian Shoales. Much attention has been paid over the last year to on-line
publishing. Of course, a year is an eternity in Internet years, which are
beginning to resemble dog years, that is, a measurement of time which is greatly accelerated, relatively speaking, and has little to do with how human beings actually spend their lives.
And of course, dogs, unlike the Internet, can be taught new tricks. Oh sure, the Internet can also be taught new tricks. The only trouble is, the trick the Internet winds up learning is not the trick we set out to teach it, and usually ends up being the same old thing it was doing in the first place. E-publishing is a perfect example.
I use the Internet for research quite a bit, and as an archive it's pretty
handy-- the ancient Greeks, Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot-- it's all there, and easily searchable. But when I go to literature online, it's to find a quote and get out.
Does anybody seriously believe that in the future we're going to spend our
leisure time curled up with a laptop reading Tom Clancy's? Does anybody
seriously believe we're going to download the latest John Grisham into our
palm-sized e-reader and take it with us to the beach? What if you drop it? If
you drop a paperback, you can just shake out the sand and pick up where you left off. Drop your e-reader in the sand, and you're out a couple hundred bucks. Yes, you can print out a novel on your printer, but that winds up costing as much as a brick and mortar book, plus you have to staple the pages together
yourself.
From a writer's point of view, the Internet is very attractive. It's
just you and the reader-- no editors, no publishers-- just the two of you
cozying up in cyberspace. But the thing is, without the editors, your manuscript is a bloated piece of garbage so crammed with typos it's unreadable.
And without publishers, there's no publicity. Yes, you can post your
manuscript on your website. Who cares? You can photocopy your novel and leave
copies of it to laundromats too. That doesn't mean anybody's going to pick it up and read it. So where does all the excitement about e-publishing come from? For one thing, everybody's excited about e-publishing because everybody's excited about e-publishing. That's the way the Internet economy works. It's called virality. Everybody gets simultaneously hysterical about a phenomenon that may or may not have value-- articles are written, business models drawn up, ventures launched, opinions shared-- and then all of a sudden, it's over.
And what got everybody excited about e-publishing in the first place? Stephen King. Stephen King uploaded some stories on the Internet. Good for him. But he's Stephen King. Everybody knows who he is. He doesn't need publicity. An editor
maybe, but not publicity. What about writers like, well, me? Tell you what. Come to my e-business, www.helpme.com, I'll hand-deliver my epic novel to your door, along with a pizza, some dogfood, airline tickets, and an MP-3 of me whining about the sorry state of modern culture. The cost? Hey, I'll pay you. That's the way it really works. I gotta go.
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Last August, the business section of the San Francisco Chronicle informed me that two Seattle entrepreneurs are going to launch their own version of Kozmo.com, or
Webvan, called "iToke."
For around nine bucks per gram, two gram minimum, iToke will deliver marijuana to your door. Well, if your door happens to be in the Netherlands anyway.
According to the Chronicle the hope is to make pot respectable by "repackaging it, by commercializing it, by making it an actual product." It's been a while since I was cannabis conneisseur, but back in the day I could tell you the difference between Thai stick, Michuokan, Maui Zowie with one whiff.
The only reason we HAD credit cards back in my college days was to separate the seeds from the smokables. I'm sure prices have gone up since those hazy
days, but I'll bet that the aromatic herb is still sold by the baggie. And I'll bet there are still longhaired guys out there named Smoky and Hippie Bob who can debate the finer points of body rushes and head trips for just as long as the buzz is maintained.
But how does all that fit into a marketing plan? Who is the consumer here?
Will they sell the pot in cute little spice jars with fancy labels? Or will they sell buds wrapped in gauze, like pot pourri. Will they market their products like fine wines? "This is a heady little smoke, with a woody aftertaste, but we think you'll be amused by its presumption." And why are they stopping there? After all, after the high comes the hunger. What we used to call The Munchies. Where's the pizza? The chips? The popcorn? The cookies? And tunes, man. You can't get stoned without tunes. And party games! I remember the one we used to play. We'd all close our eyes, one of us would leave, then we'd open our eyes, and try to figure out who was gone. Oh, it was hours of fun.
The fact that iToke isn't addressing any of the core needs of its central
demographic makes me take a dim view of its success in the marketplace. Well, to be fair, I'll bet they did have a business model. Then they got stoned and forgot where they left it. I gotta go.
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An outfit called the Internet Underground Music Archive specializes in helping unsigned musicians post MP-3 samples of their music, artist photos, and public relations information on their web site. Seems like a pretty handy service, and more power to the folks that run it, but they recently sponsored a contest asking that soon to be parents name their child after the site-- IUMA, that's I U M A. Iuma Dylan-Lucas Thornhill is the first so named, and the proud parents took home five thousand bucks in exchange for turning their child into a living advertisement. Dad Travis is also a musician, and his band Opus has some music on the site.
I'm not so sure this is a great idea. Halfway Oregon changed its name, you may recall, to Halfdotcom in exchange for, I don't know, something. I'm not sure that halfdotcom the business or halfdotcom the town got much out of it, beyond mild sneering from the media. Of course, there's nothing new about this.
Wendy as a name didn't exist until J. M. Barrie invented it for Peter Pan. Parents fond of the book made the name popular. Shirley was a boy's name until Shirley Temple came along. And, of course, there have always been Elvises, and Colins, and Franklins, and Abrahams named for the presidents, generals, movie stars, and heroes from whom we hope a little greatness will rub off on the offspring on which we bestowed their monickers.
It's all part of magical thinking, I suppose, calling your kid Moses or Jesus or Mary or Theresa, but hey-- we gotta call our kids something, otherwise they'll go through life as "hey you," or "lunkhead." But when magical thinking meets capitalism, well, I don't know. I'm as libertarian as the next guy, but this is taking the free marketplace a bit far, isn't it? What's next? Netscape Nelson? E Bay Bronson?
Sure Yahoo Jones has a certain panache to it, but that's because dotcoms tend to have snappy names that reveal little or nothing about what the dotcom actually does. And this would never have worked in the old economy. Have you met my son, American Telephone and Telegraph Shoales? And this is his sister, General Electric Foods Shoales, and over there, the baby of the family, Westinghouse IBM Johnson & Johnson Shoales and the twins Ford Motor and Chrysler Shoales. Hey, you couldn't have PAID me enough money. Well, then again, maybe you could have.
Til next time, this is Time Life Warner America On Line Shoales saying, "by by." Until your check clears, however, I'm still Ian. Got it? I gotta go.
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