Winter Lights on Broad St.

This isn’t a piece on marketing but if I can remember correctly, there are four or five types of people who are responsible for new technology or the diffusion of a new product into the market place.

There are the Innovators who will go out and buy the latest gadget at no matter what the cost because they need to be the first on the block to have it. They are daring and will be the ones who will buy a flat screen TV for $12,000 and think of it as money well spent, mainly because they have it like that or are at least willing to make others think they have it like that.

Then there are the Early Adopters who are eager to explore new options and embrace new technology but will wait a little for the price to drop and for others to experience whatever problems there are with the product. Then only after the manufacturer has ironed out most of the kinks, an Early Adopter will make his or her purchase.

After that there is the Early Majority who will obtain items when they believe everyone else is buying them and the Late Majority who will buy it once it’s reached the clearance shelf because a newer and better model has come out. There are of course the Laggards who really have no interest in new technology for one reason or another and only make a purchase only because they have to.

I fall on the border between Early Adopter and Early Majority. I like to have the newest little electronic gadget with as many bells and whistles on it as possible but I don’t want to put up the first born for adoption in order to pay for it; that is if I had a first born. So if, like Bob Barker used to say, the price is right I’ll be there with money in hand and a childish glee in my eye. If not, I will wait until the regular price has dropped to as low as possible and get it or add $50 and get the newer and improved version. This is what I did to get my new pocket high definition camcorder.

I had lost my regular digital point and shoot camera that I shot short videos with the day after Labor Day and I replaced it with an SLR (single lens reflex) camera that only shot stills. Thus I needed to get a camcorder but a good one would cost over $800 and even more for the even better ones, although they’ve dropped to $600 now. But Cecil B. DeMille is not my middle name; there would be no grand sweeping epics on screen done by me. I couldn’t justify spending that much money for something that I would hardly use and when I did it would be for, let’s face it, shit shots.

So I found the Vado HD that fellow Blogger Alfii purchased last month and after he posted a video that he had shot. I thought well that’s not bad a looking video for under $200, and in fact it really isn’t. It’s not true HD, the pixels are too low, and there is no image stabilizer so you will never see anything you shoot on Public TV getting some sort of prize or award. But it’s good enough for YouTube and other video online sites where you want to show what happend at aunt Berth's last barbeque.

Here is my first test video that I shot last night. True I copied the theme from someone else, but like I said, I’m not Cecil B. DeMille and this ain’t The Ten Commandments. Come to think of it even the title is a misnomer, because these lights have been up since the middle of summer. Oh well, like I said it's just a test, it is only a test.

Feeling Kind of Blue

It was either yesterday or the day before that I first read one or two blogs about Larry Flynt and the guy that does Girls Gone Wild, the one that was in for tax evasion I believe, decided that they were going to approach the Government and ask for some of that Troubles Assets Relief Program (TARP) money, or what used to be known as the "bailout."

I didn’t believe it of course until I saw the same story was being reported by CNN and MSNBC and I thought what kind of nonsense are they playing at now? Apparently because of the economy, sales of porn DVDs and other forms of blue entertainment have fallen 22% and they will be asking Congress for $5 billion to tide them over and help them through the dark days of this recession.

I wasn’t going to comment on this because I take care of my porn needs over the net with a few free sites especially on those nights when I can’t fall asleep easily and I need a little…incentive shall we say. Also I know, and I hazard a guess that you know too, that they don’t have a snowball’s chance of seeing anyone on the Hill about it and that the story would be over by the end of the week. But then I thought, supposing Larry’s not really looking at getting money from Congress, but what if he is instead looking to be turned down so that he could sue them in the courts for, I don’t know discrimination against a legal industry, the adult entertainment industry. After all if banks can get money for being careless with their loans and investments, and the auto industry can get money to build cars that no one is buying, then why can’t the porn industry get money to keep the nation happy?

If you’ve seen the movie The People vs. Larry Flynt, then you know there is nothing that would please my boy more than to be able to get up in court and state that the right for easily affordable, cheap and sleazy sex is being taken away by the government and that he wouldn’t mind being the one to put that right.

…And justice for all? If not, then I can't wait for the show that's going to come.

Remember M*A*S*H?

I mean to respond to something mentioned that was brought to my attention by RunningMom, but later on this week.

West Philly is not really my hang out. It’s just some place I used to work in and then live in when I was involved with someone. I still get my haircut there even though it’s now completely out of my way and occasionally I will catch a movie outside of the University of Pennsylvania. They have a terrific theatre, but it’s become popular with the locals and so depending on the film, you will see many of the wrong sorts of people; don’t pretend to be shocked, you know I’m a snob when it comes to film and if you’re reading this you probably are one too.

I remember I would sometimes go to a speakeasy in West Philly after the regular bars would close. It was on Sansom St and in someone’s basement. You would have to line up outside and they would let you in small group by small group as they figured out how much room they had left inside. The place was always packed with people, well actually men trying to get their "last chance" groove on for the night one way or the other. Some nights it was so crowded and filled with smoke, I would start to cry because my eyes burned so badly, and I smoke. How I miss those days.

I had an Ex who would criticize me for sometimes slipping into a West Philly accent or speech pattern and he may or may not have been right, I don’t know. But what I do know is that sometimes I will subconsciously mimic the way people speak in order for to fit in wherever I am. In other words there is a little piece of Philadelphia in me and I am sure then, that there was a little piece of Philadelphia in John Pryor.

A few months ago I wrote something about the piece ABC News had done on Killadelphia. That was the term they had used to explain how doctors were using techniques that they were learning in Philadelphia to save lives from gunshot wounds and other traumas and taking those skills to the Middle East to do the same there. Dr. John Pryor was one of those physicians from (HUP) the Hospital University of Pennsylvania who saved lives in West Philly and then saved them in Iraq. Dr. Pryor lost his life on Christmas Day 2008 in Mosul during a mortar attack in a safe zone.

The year before, Pryor had written something for the Washington Post:

“In Iraq, ironically, I found myself drawing on my experience as a civilian trauma surgeon each time ‘mascals,’ or ‘mass casualty situations,’ would overrun the combat hospital…As nine or 10 patients from a firefight rolled in, I sometimes caught myself saying, ‘Just like another Friday night in West Philadelphia,'...”

I am sure that Philadelphia will miss John Pryor in many more ways than one. But I also wonder, how many more people will die in Iraq and how many more will die in West Philly because he is no longer there to save them.

This monstrosity of a war must stop.

And Now A Resolution

I don’t actually believe in New Year Resolutions. I think they are just something that you set up for yourself so that later on in the year or the week, you can look back on yourself as a failure or as someone without determination or will power.

When I was quitting smoking I would feel that way. I would stub out my last cigarette on New Year’s Eve, walk about free and clear on New Year’s Day and then go into a store on the 2nd and without even thinking, buy a pack and light up as soon as I walked out of the door. Can you say loser?

Loser!

I believe that if there is something that you really want to do then you wouldn’t have to set a certain date in the year for it to start happening, you’d just do it. However, this year I may have found something that I might be able to get my teeth into.

A few years ago, I bought a book by Ernest Hemingway called Garden of Eden. If I can remember correctly, it was about an author, his wife and a girlfriend that Hemingway started writing in the 40’s. Then Hemingway put the book down and picked it up again 10 or 20 years later to finish it. I guess he must have filled his time with big-game hunting, bar hopping or electro shock treatments. Anyway, so I get to about a third to halfway through the book and it changes suddenly. I don’t mean it evolved into a wonderfully new and welcomed direction. I mean that the entire flow and style of his prose had just for no reason changed. It was the same story and I didn’t like it.

I figured that this must have been the point that Hemingway picked up his story again. And recently I thought, that’s how I write but without the excuse of a 20 year vacation. You see, I have never really been proud of anything that I’ve written. I’ve been pleased with one or two pieces, but I will always go back and think there may have been a better way to have approached something, to have made it even better.

Also, I don’t often edit my stuff once I’ve written it, and to tell you the truth there isn’t much of a proofread either. I may change a word here or there once it’s published because I’ve noticed I’ve either missed something or misspelled something else. Nevertheless I’m usually just so glad to be done with it; I will just throw it out there as is. It’s like sex for me, it may not come out to be the best that I’ve ever had but the sheer joy of ejaculation will more than override the fact that I didn’t suck on this titty here or grab a hold of that butt cheek there. But like Hemingway’s novel, I'll drop ideas midstream and not head anywhere, and that probably isn’t good enough.

So this is it. This will be my resolution for the year. Even though I know that writing for the computer is different from writing for print, I will start to edit my pieces more. I will try not to bring up ideas that are dropped halfway through a paragraph or sentence. I will try to develop a steady flow through my work that will go from beginning to end. The spelling thing, I’m going to let go, if Word can’t fix it before it’s published then you’ll have no chance of me catching it.

So there it is, my first and only resolution for 2009: To try to write gooder.

Happy New Year!!!!

How much is too much Information?

I don’t get it, I really don’t. Maybe it’s a generation thing. Maybe it’s something like certain dance movements that you only do when you are in early 20’s because to do them when you are older would throw your spine so far out of alignment you’d have to walk with a cane for the rest of your life. I don’t understand why the need to share what we are doing every minute of the day with friends or even complete strangers. Now I’m not talking about people with small children who really do need to know where the kids are and that they are safe, or people who do that for security reasons. I’m referring to those of us who sign on to certain websites and log every minute detail of our lives no matter how dreary and obsequious those details may be.

About 2 or 3 months ago I signed up with Facebook because a friend asked me to. But apart from him and an organization that asked to become a friend, I have no one else listed as a friend. It is not because I want to remain reclusive or set apart from everyone else, but because I don’t really know anyone else who belongs to Facebook, so I mainly keep some junk on it that will be easy for me to find in the future and prevent me from cluttering up my computer. It’s another resource for me.

I should also mention that I belong to 4 or 5 groups that have pages on Facebook, one of which is my gym. Out of the 5000 members that belong to my gym there are about 144 of us who also signed up for this group and except for the trainers; I haven’t seen a single person that I know. But it is a source that I can use to learn things about different events going on, or schedules that I might not be aware of. Also, Facebook is an icon featured on my iPod so it’s all linked.

Recently I noticed that I had not filled out the profile part of the webpage for Facebook and that there was also a section where you could tell people what you were doing exactly at that moment. There was a field for about 30 or 60 characters or words where you could say what you were doing at that moment. You could tell people that you were heading over to the movies, or having a cup of coffee with Jill or soaking in the tub with Bob. These blurbs about your life would then be instantly sent out to your friends’ email bins, websites or sent out as a text message to their cell phones and I thought this must be how Twitter works.

But then I asked myself, why would I want to let people know about every minute of my hum drum life, it’s tedious enough just living it. And worse than that, why on earth would I want to know about someone else’s life minute by minute? So you felt a little ill after lunch, do I really need to know right away? That shit can wait, no pun intended.

Take for example I gave a homeless guy a dollar after he held the door for me at a convenience store this evening. Should I have let the world know right away? I don't think so. If it’s really that important to you we can talk and reflect about it at the end of the day over the telephone if I haven’t turned it off and if I know that’s what the conversation will be about it probably will be off.

I know that there are many people who have signed up for Twitter and I guess similar programs and I don’t mean to point fingers at anyone because it’s not about them, or even you, it’s about me. I like to be up on gadgets and trends and stuff, but this one… I don’t get. It's funny that I’ll show you a picture of my behind and maybe more in a heartbeat as long as the picture looks good, but Twitter somehow seems like it’s too much of an invasion of my privacy and that just doesn’t sit well with me.

Am I wrong?

The Can

It's late and I still haven't finished writing something I started 2 days ago, so in lieu of that a short story on video, or is this just a long commercial? Hmm....

The Can from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

Gift giving at Christmas

My first name is Ian and my middle name is Kevin and I remember when one Christmas my father gave me a small Totes umbrella and a box of handkerchiefs from Pierre Cardin, a French designer who was old and out of style at the time. The handkerchiefs were embroidered with the single initial “K” and I was furious. That cheap bastard, I swore if I didn’t look like him I would have sworn that my mother must have cheated on him before I was born because we couldn’t possibly be related.

I told someone about it later on, a friend, family member or girl-friend I don’t remember, but they said that he probably couldn’t find something with the initial “I” on it. And I said or thought, couldn’t he have dug deeper in the bargain bin at Woolworth’s or whatever cheap hell hole he dragged it from. I was upset, I was disappointed.

If I were to tell this story to my mother now, she would say that I was ungrateful and perhaps that I was the bastard instead of my father, but she would also say that I was someone who is always difficult to buy gifts for. She would say that I was too fussy and that whatever I got, it would never be good enough, and that is why she always sends me a check to go out and have a meal somewhere or get something else that I want. But I think she would be wrong, at least partially.

There was another time when I was involved with someone and he asked me what I wanted, my first pair of leather pants, after he told me what he wanted, a leather messenger bag by some designer in SoHo that no one has ever heard of since. For one reason or another he was unable to come with me to find the pants so he gave me the cash and I went to the leather store on Christopher Street in the Village; the one where they make them so tight that they tell you to take off your underwear so that you can fit into them. So after I sported my semi as the salesman felt and rubbed my thigh up while he told me it was a good fit, after all of that was done and my thrill was over, I felt kind of jilted. There would be no unwrapping of Christmas packages, no hidden treasure trove, no junk and no need for me to say “this is nice” between clenched teeth and a fake smile. All of that was taken away from me and I didn’t like it.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want to think about the things that I want. I want to be surprised by the thoughts and care that people have about me. I want to know that someone has taken the time and effort to think about what it is they can do for me and not what’s most convenient for them. I really don’t care if someone gives me a bag of shit or a Maserati, well that might be a little extreme, but as long as there is some thought behind it I’ll be a friend for life.

Oh and by the way, yes I still have the handkerchiefs. I've had them about 20 years now and it's been about 5 years that he's been dead and they are still in the damn box, but what are you going to do, it’s from my father.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Thoughts About the 3rd Reich?

I don’t know when I first started going to the movies on New Year’s Day or when I finally realized that it had become a tradition, but it has. I will go to the movies with a friend, or with a lover. I will drag my sister out to something she has no interest with or I will go by myself because I can’t find anyone to go with me. Sad some will say, but actually I prefer to see a film by myself anyway. There is no need to worry about if the other person is enjoying it, to hold hands or listen to them munch on their popcorn or listen to them slurp from an almost empty soda cup while I try to hear that almost imperceptible point in a movie that will turn it from just a film into a life affirming experience. There is no need for me to hold back the urge to tell someone to just, “shut the fuck up, and try watching the screen like I’m doing.”

I remember one time although it wasn’t a January 1st picture, but the movie was really boring for both me and my partner. In order to stop him from fidgeting, I somehow started to masturbate him. There was no else in our row and very few people behind us and I saw him shoot on the floor and over the seat in front of us as I stroked him. At the time I thought it was truly disgusting and someone was going to have to clean that shit up and then I felt really low afterwards.

Anyway, so recently I’ve been seeing the coming attractions for Valkyrie with Tom Cruise opening on December 25th. It looks like a real snappy piece of work with nice production values and if it is as good as it looks, it may turn out to be not just new but something interesting. Although somehow a movie about a failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler where everybody dies by being shot or hung by piano wire except for Der Führer doesn’t really seem to bring the Christmas spirit out in me, nor would I think in anybody else.

I didn’t think there could have been anything more ridiculous than a marketing campaign for Adolf Hitler at Christmas until I saw yesterday Heath Campbell of New Jersey in the Lehigh Valley who was suing a store for not providing a birthday cake with his 3 year old son’s name in icing on it, Adolf-Hitler Campbell.

Back in the 80’s, Hunterdon County where Mr. Campbell the child’s father is from, was known as Klan country and there was talk of inbreeding so I’m not really that familiar with the area; I’ve just driven through it because there was no real reason for me to stop and or stay awhile.

Campbell says that he is from German descent, although I'm not sure what part of the Rhineland the name Campbell is from, I still sort of understand where he is coming from and I really believe he has a right to name himself and his children whatever he wants. But Campbell seems not only to be showing himself as a racist, but I think he is going out of his way to prove that he is a stupid ass racist not be capable of living in a civilized society especially if he thought that his son’s name wouldn’t have an adverse affect on not only his son but the people around him. This is one man who deserves a beating, not because his ideas and views maybe repugnant to some, but because he is just so damned stupid.

I wonder when young Adolf grows up, what company is going to hire him and put his name on their payroll?

So long, farewell, auf weidersehen good-bye

This is silly and in the grand scheme of things completely meaningless, but I just can't get enough of watching this video. I have nothing to say here other than it's like Christmas has come early to Baghdad.


This has been a strange year.