Got a light?

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I don’t think people rant about smokers the way they used to. I know I don’t. It would be like ragging on crack-heads. I don’t know any former smokers. Banned from their offices, from restaurants, even from bars in some cities… they huddle outside buildings in their shirt-sleeves in February, stamping their feet trying to keep warm. I always wonder what they’re talking about. Are they pissed about being “sent outdoors?” Or are they embarrassed that their addiction has brought them to this sorry state of affairs?

I try not to stare as I walk by. I hate seeing their furtive, defensive glances. They remind me, for all the world, of convicts in some 1940’s movie, milling around The Yard…waiting for the screws to tell them to go back to their cells. Or street bums huddled around a burn-barrel, sucking on a butt in some bombed-out neighborhood. Curious as I am about what drives these lost souls, I never approach them. I came close recently.

I was in the airport, walking past one of those little glass rooms they’ve constructed for smokers. There they were, jammed in, staring at the floor, the smoke so thick you could barely see them. I couldn’t resist. I took a picture. I took a couple. When they finally noticed me, some waved…one guy gave me the finger. I know it was insensitive of me. Like sneaking into the amputee ward at the hospital. But I couldn’t help myself. What –I wondered– could compel someone to sit in that little smoky room?

But that sounds like I have more sympathy than I do. Most of the smokers I know are pretty militant these days. (“Fuck you! I’ll smoke if I want to.”) I mean, where do they think it will all end. What goes through their heads when they see an emphysema sufferer dragging that little oxygen bottle through the mall? “Whoa. That looks like a drag.”

This is a recycled rant from an old Website. I dug it out after noticing that more people seem to be smoking today than ever before. Seems like I see lots of young smokers. I admire their fearlessness in braving what will probably be a long and agonizing death.

DSL at home

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Did you know Tim Robbins was in Top Gun? I didn’t and I bet I’ve seen that movie (1986) ten times. I spotted him in a crowd scene on the carrier deck after Tom has spashed the four migs. Internet Movie Database lists his character as Merlin. I just don’t remember that being a speaking part. IMDB lists half a dozen earlier credits, including one of the assasins in Network.

What was I going to say? Oh, I finally got DSL (ADSL to be precise). For the past two years I’ve been paying $100 a month for an ISDN account (128kbps). The DSL is four times as fast for half as much. Life is good at 512kbps. For the last two days my digital life has been flashing through my head. 2400 baud modems. Logging on to my first BBS. 4800 baud modems. CompuServe. 9600 baud modems. Surfing the pre-graphic Web with something called Lynx (?). Mosaic (I thought the grey background was cool). 28.8 modems. Can a Neuromancer be far behind?

Minority Report

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I really wanted Minority Report to be a good movie. Directed by Steven Spielberg…based on short story by Philip K. Dick (as was Blade Runner). What I came away with were some very good scenes that –somehow– just didn’t add up to a great movie.

The doctor that replaced John Anderton’s eyes (“Don’t scratch!”). The scene in the green house with the co-creator of Pre-Crime was fine (the actress also played Helen Hunt’s “Aunt Meg” in Twister). Did you recognize Gideon, the wheel-chair bound jailer? Tim Blake Nelson from O’ Brother Where Art Thou?

Just help me with this… after living in the pool for all those years, why weren’t Agatha’s fingers all wrinkled? I’m gonna rent the DVD in hopes it includes the behind-the-scene I really want to see. When they bring in the chair for Tom Cruise to stand on so he can be eye-to-eye with Max Von Sydow (“Somebody give Mr. Curise a boost up there, will you please?”) Surely they didn’t make Max Von Sydow get on his knees or stand in a hole or something.

I think it’s just very hard to make a good science fiction movie which might be why it’s rarely attempted. Go see Minority Report but stop by Block Buster on the way home and pick up 12 Monkeys.

Mark Cuban on Webcasting

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I met Mark Cuban –briefly– during the early days of Audio.net (which later became Broadcast.com). He met us at a Kansas City hotel to pitch us on the idea of letting him stream some of our sports broadcasts. We did a deal — not a very good one– but passed up a chance to purchase 10% of his fledgling company. I came away thinking he was too slick by half. But he sure had balls and a lot of confidence and now he has billions and an NBA team. And, as Doc Searls points out, Cuban is fearless. Check out what he told Kurt Hanson about the Yahoo/RIAA deal he put together before leaving Yahoo.

Telemarketers

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Douglas Rushkoff is a best-selling author (Ecstasy Club and Exit Strategy, among others) which I would have thought somehow insulated him from annoying telemarketing calls. Guess not. He says he used to get rid of them by shouting, “I’m bleeding!” and hanging up. He has a new technique I can’t wait to try.

I confess to being a little nuts on the subject. I once told a telemarketer that I had just caught my wife and next door neighber in bed and had to hang up so I could kill them both. “Don’t do it, buddy. They’re not worth it. Believe me, I know,” pleaded the telemarketer.

While returning from a neighbor’s house later that evening, I passed sheriff’s deputy going the other way. Seems the telemarketer had gone a little beyond his prepared script and called the law.

I once asked the telemarketer if his mother knew what he was doing? “Yes, she’s very proud of me,” he insisted. “No, she’s not,” I explained. “She’s mortified by what you do but doesn’t love you enough to tell you the truth.” A supervisor came on the line and chewed my ass for abusing her guy. “See what you’ve come to?” I told the young man… “your supervisor loves you more than your own mother.”

500 Walter Street

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I sold the family home this week. Not really a home for the last few years, but the place my brother and I grew up. I actually remember some of the places we lived before Evelyn persuaded John it made more sense to own than rent. I think they paid about $5,000 for the house back in the early 50’s. Probably paid $50 a month for 30 years. Evelyn had our trash guy plant a couple of little sycamore trees and they grew to 70 foot monsters before John had cut down because he got tired of “having leaves all over the yard.” Evelyn was gone by then.

50 years at 500 Walter Street boiled down to set of mis-matched golf clubs; a box of trophies (Blane’s); some really heavy high school year books; a set of 78 RPM records from the 40’s; a couple of pounds of mold and mildew; and a lifetime of memories. Everyone kept asking me if it was difficult to sell the house in which our family had lived all those years. I said no and that was more true than not. But for two days I kept hearing Peter, Paul and Mary singing The House Song.

This room here once had childish laughter
And I come back to hear it now and again
I can’t say that I’m certain what you’re after
But in this room, a part of you will remain.

The Life Expectancy Calculator

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Have we talked about Carol yet? Some years ago Carol started greeting friends she had not seen in a while with the number of months (actuarially speaking) they could expect to live. “Steve, how have you been? You’ve got more than 300 months left, that’s great!” According to the IRS Life Expectancy Table , I have 29.5 years left but that sounds much longer than 360 months. You’d think Carol would have few visitors but she shares her macabre calculations with such warmth and enthusiasm, it’s not as depressing as you’d think. I think it’s because she never expected any of us to get this far.

If you’d rather not travel to Kennett, Missouri, to find out how much time you have left, you can find what you need online. The Life Expectancy Calculator will “calculate your future life expectancy based on a mortality table for retired individuals.” Less, I would think. The Living to 100 Life Expectancy Calculator was designed to “translate what we have learned from studies of centenarians and other longevity research into a practical and empowering tool for individuals to estimate their longevity potential.” Roy said it best in Blade Runner. I need more.

Pants on backward

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In July of 1972 I got a job working at the local radio station. Jeff Wheeler showed me how to clear the AP wire. How to cue up a 45. How to watch the clock and read and do something with my hands, all at the same time. I worked with Jeff for about a dozen years and I never heard him raise his voice. One day while I was reading a newscast, he walked into the studio with his bright red golf pants on backward. He didn’t jump around or say anything. He patiently waited until I noticed the zipper in the back. End of newscast. Jeff is still doing radio but these are not good times for him. I’m remembering –and looking forward to– better days.

An Anti-Inspirational Guide to Adulthood

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Want to send that new grad out there with a feel for what’s really waiting? Give him/her a copy of Sarah Montague’s You Can Be Anything! From A to Z. An Anti-Inspirational Guide to Adulthood. They’re all pretty good but here’s a couple of my favorites:

Fiona is a Failure. Her husband left her for a younger woman. She wasn’t good enough at making him happy and she wasn’t pretty enough to make him stay. Are you good enough so people won’t leave you?! (I hope so!)

Zeke is a Zookeeper. He works forty hours plus overtime at the zoo. He is very quiet and keeps to himself. The thinks the animals speak to him in a secret language. Like when the monkeys throw their feces, they might be saying, “Zeke, we like you best!” Do you like animals?

Everybody on the Web is famous to 15 people

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In an interview on Tom Peters’ website, David Weinberger, author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web and coauthor of The Cluetrain Manifesto, offers the following on Weblogs:

“If you browse randomly through these 500,000 to a million Weblogs, most of them that you come across will be uninteresting to you. But, so what? It’s not that everybody on the Web is famous for 15 minutes. It’s that everybody on the Web is famous to 15 people.”