You can't explain Nice

I was on my way home from the gym and a bunch of errands when the clutch on my Honda finally gave out.  I had foolishly been putting off having it fixed for weeks, adding more brake fluid to keep it going, but when it wouldn’t go into gear approaching the intersection of Park and Taft Streets, I rolled it halfway onto the grassy median, a couple car-lengths before the stoplight.  I didn’t know what else to do…

I immediately called my roadside repair service, which I’ve paid for every month for years and have never used, and waited.  And waited.  For almost two hours, calling every twenty minutes to be put on hold, transferred around, and finally told that it would be twenty more minutes before the tow truck arrived.  But during that time, as I played games on my phone and read my e-book, I found out something awesome.  Most people are nice.

It’s rare that I’m in so vulnerable position in a car, parked with flashers flashing, half-in and half-out of a busy lane of traffic, worried that someone would crash into me on general principles of road rage.  But to my astonishment in two hours, only one person angrily honked at me, and that was a school bus driver, who also screamed curses at me as she sharply cut in front of me to turn left.  (I know that’s a stressful job, honey, but take it out on the kids, will ya?)

In that two hours, at least a dozen people, all strangers, slowed down or actually pulled over and stopped to ask if I needed help.  These included young people, old people, men and women, black people, white people, a FedEx driver, a school crosswalk guard, and finally a policeman who finally helped me push the car fully onto the grass.  I’m often not a fan of police – but this guy was so super sweet, and he really didn’t have to do it, legally.   

I know that I often do the same thing - offer to call someone, or push a car off the road, or tell someone they have a flat, or hand a couple dollars to a median beggar.   Without thinking.   Why?  Because compassion doesn’t need a reason.

even more Communistic Cast

Well well well.  I recently quit cable TV cold turkey, and it has been something of an adjustment - but I'm happier every day that I'm not paying these greedy bastards any more of my hard earned money.

Besides spending more time doing more creative and productive work generally, I have proven that every bit of media I care to watch can be watched without Comcast, and watched at a time that I choose.  But of course, the tete a tete with Comcast is not over.

I found out that they've been over-charging me for "high speed internet" for more than ten years, to the tune of $10 per month (plus tax).  I've been monitoring my average download/upload speeds, and it's far below the level I'm paying for.  When I pointed this out to a phone representative from, I assume, Bangladesh, I was told that I would be given a "promotional rate" from now on.  That's not good enough, considering I've over-paid them about $1200 so far - but it will have to do for the moment, as I can't prove that they've been short-changing me in that regard; I only noticed it recently.  In looking at a number of blogs and complaint sites - I find that I am not an aberration, but the norm.

But as big of an idiot as that makes me, I must confess, I'm a much bigger wanker than I myself would have ever believed.  Who among us rents a "cable modem" from the cable company?!  Being in this business, I knew I was being ripped off, but Jesus, I got out the calculator and added it up today.  As a minimum, I have paid about $5000 for a modem that costs $55 at Best Buy or even Walmart.  And yes - it's the same one.  So I ran the numbers today.  If all of Comcast's 23 million subscribers have done the same thing, for let's say 10 years (and that's an absolute minimum for most people) - this company has raked in $184 billion dollars for "modem rentals" in the past decade.

People, I implore you - let us send a message to these media conglomerates - these mega-monopolies who aspire now to even charge us for viewing web sites,  charge us for every single page view - send a message and let them know, we can and will find our entertainment somewhere else!

Xfinity Later!

Like flipping to the next lame channel - Breaking up with your cable provider is easy to do!

Like many relationships, it started out with love, a feeling that we could never be apart, ever again!  How could I imagine a time when we wouldn’t be together, entertaining each other, laughing, crying, sometimes just quietly sitting like zombies, staring at one another.  How could such a perfect, bombproof, essential relationship come to an end?

Well, as many such relationships do, it ended in betrayal, in one of us expecting far too much from the other, when one of us got stupid greedy, giving less and less but demanding ever more and more. 

Yes, over the years, Comcast kept adding more and more crap channels to the lineup, and refusing to offer the most popular channels without adding extra fees.  Finally I determined that there were only fifteen channels that I EVER actually watched, and 100% of my favorite shows were available elsewhere, especially on the internet.  That was the tipping point. 

I started adding it up.  I was paying $192 for my cable TV/internet bundle, which increases at least $5 - $10 a year for no reason - and that didn’t include any premium movie channels, just basic plus a sports upgrade.  I bought that sports package only to watch the Tennis Channel, currently in a heated legal battle with Comcast for that very reason.  Now – I can get Tennis Channel online as well as ESPN, so why do I need to pay $9 a month for 40-50 sports channels I never watch?  Now I’ll pay less than $50 for high-speed internet, saving me about $140 per month total.

Now – I have streaming internet via Apple TV, Netflix, Amazon Prime and a world of cheap DVD and blu-ray disks to keep me warm at night – more stuff than I will ever have time to watch.   (If I want porn, well, I never tried Comcast’s vast selection – but I assure you there is no shortage on the web.)

Unfortunately Comcast and other cable providers are actively seeking to change internet access so we have to pay much more for our chosen content, and they also plan to heavily restrict access to everything they don’t control.  This move will likely bankrupt our nation in favor of these gluttonous media conglomerates getting even more rich and powerful – their goal truly is “Xfinity” of all media.  But hopefully before that actually happens, us cable-haters will stage a serious protest, in an attempt to break up their increasing death-grip on the world’s entertainment and information flow - instead of  meekly allowing another quiet, almost clandestine court decision similar to the one they won recently.

To be fair – I must point out that I have made some money over time by producing some of these crappy shows airing on these struggling, barely-watched networks – some of which will be swamped in the process – but that’s inevitably going to happen anyway.  To my fellow hack TV producers – beware, our days are surely numbered.

And to Comcast, U-verse, Time Warner, and all of you big, fat, rich media moguls, I offer you a twist on the time-honored breakup line:

Baby – it’s not me, it’s you.

12:30 pm, Thursday January 30, 2014

You are officially cut off, Bitchcast!

RE: Quentin's new movie "Django Unchained"

"When you try big things, you take big risks, and if you're trying to do something that is maybe above you and you can't quite pull off, then whereas before we only saw your gifts, now we see your failings.  I've always been pushing that envelope.  I want to risk hitting my head on the ceiling of my talent.  I want to really test it out and say:  OK, you're not that good.  You just reached the level here.  I don't ever want to fail, but I want to risk failure every time out of the gate."

--Quentin Tarantino, NY Times 12-23-12

I was having one of those agonizing nights of insomnia that come from where I don’t have a clue, that I finally fell into fitful asleep about 5 am and dreamed one of my vivid, Cinematic Dreams.  I’m talking a dream complete with fully developed storyline (albeit a bizarre one), actors with dialogue, even titles and credits that roll at the end.

(I had the first one at about age 5 or 6, and I only remember the title, “The Figger”.  The distinguishing feature was in fact the credit roll.  I don’t remember whether I directed, but I was definitely the lead actor.  A couple years later I would write and direct my first play, staged on my front porch with my friends Dot, Linda and Bridget as actors. The title was “Mary’s Party” and we charged neighbors 10 cents admission.  I also wrote my first book that year, written on lined paper and bound with staples, illustrated with my own crayon drawings.  The teacher made me read it in front of my third-grade class, an event I remember because it was my first inkling of the stage fright that was to haunt me for years.  I was also a poet then, and one of my first featured the lines “sometimes I hear that train outside/and I think I want to jump on it and ride/but I know that it’s here I’ll always abide”.  I was 9 years old, and already thinking of ways to get out of Tupelo, Mississippi... but I digress.)

So in this morning’s dream, I’m an adult in a girl scout troop which has a wounded baby elephant on its hands.  This elephant had been decapitated in a car crash, while riding in the back-seat of a convertible Fiat (we see a flashback of this, during the film).  Now it is forlornly standing along a wall outside the scout meeting house, its head re-attached and bound with bloody bandages, surrounded by a crowd of people, including a guy who resembles a photographer I used to work, with, who is pointing a shotgun at it, ostensibly to put it out of its misery.  Horrified, I run into the scene, grab the gun and threaten to shoot anyone who tries to kill the elephant.

I get on a cell phone, which inexplicably has a long, long cord which I walk around the yard with, stretching the cord to its limit, trying to find a veterinarian who will give me a better prognosis for the elephant.  Meanwhile the elephant’s owner shows up.  She’s a tall, pretty woman who tells me that she can’t afford the medical treatment this elephant will need, because she is fighting an immune system disorder herself, and agrees that it should be killed.  Her huge eyes convey a real sadness and pity for the creature.

I give a moving speech to the crowd, pointing the gun at each of them, screaming things like, “Should I just kill any one of you, because we can’t afford to treat you?!”, with great passion. I still have the phone to my ear. Finally the scratchy voice of a vet comes on the phone, he sounds like he’s driving in traffic, I can barely hear him.  I recognize him as one of those guys in that Animal Planet series, Animal Cops.  We see cutaways of him driving as he asks me a series of questions; one of which is, “Can the elephant hold its head up?”

I look over and see that the elephant is in fact attempting to change its own bandages, all by itself.  I tell this to the vet and he says, “that’s a good sign.  I think he’s going to make it.”

Then I see someone walking toward the elephant, with a syringe.  The photographer puts his hand on my shoulder and says, in a tone that I don’t understand, “It’s all been decided, J.C.”  I wonder what the syringe contains – antibiotics or a kill shot.

Before I can find out, my cat jumps on my ass, waking me up. Head groggy  and achy from the sleeping pill that didn’t work - and neck kinked to high hell, I realized, I was probably just waiting for a call from Greg.

Men, Plural
--a seriously scandalous serial essay
by J.C. Summerford
Copyright January, 2012

(Note: for bkg info, click the word NOW)
The headlines scream rape, child abuse, imprisonment, kidnapping, slavery, and at the least – inequality and emotional battering of women.  I’m talking about the Mormon practice of plural marriage, or polygamy.   Mitt Romney and the “modern” Mormon church can protest all day long that polygamy is “ancient history”, an antiquated practice long outlawed by their super-secretive clergy, but the practice remains one of the main tenets of Mormonism, set down in its original scriptures by the church’s founder, Joseph Smith, way back in 1830.  (Does that fit anyone’s definition of “ancient”?) 
NOW

Some nay-sayers claim that Smith created the whole church just so that he could boink as many women as he wanted in the name of – well – in the name of himself, since he was the Self-Appointed One.  (Nevermind that just prior to finding the “golden tablets” of Moroni in a wooded area near his house, he had been arrested for trying to pass himself off as a “seer” by reading people’s “future” using a pile of stones he found in the same woods.)
NOW

But for whatever reason, more than thirty women, aged 16 to 56, decided that he actually was some sort of deity, and they would settle for taking turns with him - we’re assuming this lined up as one for each day of the month - and being slaves to his every rule and whim.  (Well, to some that may seem preferable to the prevailing Christian principle of marrying one man, and bearing full responsibility of training and nagging him; plus it might be somewhat of a deterrent to the wandering eye.  Although we think it plausible that with his libido, Smith could have proportionally serviced hundreds of mistresses to boot.) 
NOW

The reason for plural wives?  Well according to what Mr. Smith made up, only through polygamy can Mormon men achieve their ultimate goal – becoming kings of the after life.  When a polygamist dies, Smith decided, God will bestow upon him his own Planet to rule.  (In fact, we suspect that Planet Joseph is even now circling some distant star, where Smith endlessly fucks an unimaginable horde of alien women of all sizes, shapes, colors, tentacles and atomic structures - in an eternal intergalactic orgy so extreme it puts to shame Captain Kirk’s lustiest day dreams. Come to think of it, maybe this is the rationale for Newt Gingrich's moon colony - he is a closet Mormon.)
NOW

So, you think, that Joseph Smith must have been a looker!  Or at least in possession of a HUGE schlong, in fact it must have been a LENGENDARY package, surpassing even that which we imagine when we gaze at Shaquille O’Neill, right?  (Well, maybe that’s just me.)  
NOW

Check out this photo, which is claimed to be the only one ever taken of Smith:

I say – this guy was pretty hot.  Look at those languid, puppy-dog eyes; those pouty lips!  But would I agree to share him with 29 other ladies?  Would I agree to become his child-farm, house-slave, and second class citizen, just to tear off a hunk of that rad meat?  Well, no.  Because actually, polygamist wives are far less than sex slaves.  They are essentially pitiful man-pets, told what to do and when and how to do it; praised when they’re “good” and “sweet”; scolded and punished when they’re “bad”.
NOW

But what if the tables were turned?  What if a woman could marry lots of men, and use them however she pleased?   During the next few episodes of this web series, you will enter the topsy-turvy world of “Men, Plural” – where one lucky female marries a series of men, and perhaps a woman or two.  Why?  Because like Mormon men, this woman aspires to utopia on earth – and of course, eventually, her own planet. 

Watch this space!  More "Men, Plural" soon!

To comment on this series, and to suggest storylines, plot points or characters (highly encouraged) - visit me on facebook

For more information:
Jon Krakauer:  Under the Banner of Heaven

The UN-Blog

A recent beer commercial featuring the "most interesting man alive" showed a closeup of his business card, which displayed "I'll call you".  I need to have a card printed like this, for real.  For some time now, I've been of the opinion that the New Cool is that nobody knows where I am, and nobody knows how to contact me.  It's the polar opposite of the uber-connected celebrity wannabee.

Of course, to back-track, I've never had, nor wanted, thousands of "friends".  I put that in quotations because in truth, you will never in your life have more than a handful of people who truly care about you, and if you don't understand that right now, you eventually will.  This re-invention of the term "friend" is one of the things I object to, when it comes to social media. 

Now to avoid the inevitable "fuddy duddy" label, I will admit to having Twitter and Facebook accounts, and this blog, and a website - although I use them rarely (point of fact, I have posted exactly twelve blogs in more than a year at this location).  The day I believe social media is a good way to market a meaningful project, I will become more active for that singular purpose - and one day it will probably come to that.  For now, I just feel like my creative visions and hallucinations are valuable commodities, along with their concurrent printed words and images.  I'm not giving it up for free.  Now - were not talking about my sex life here - which actually IS free but non-existent and therefore irrelevant.

So as a method of vomiting up volumes of personal observations, social media possesses no appeal for me.  Sometimes I test the waters, posting a photo or text or two, to see if anyone is actually listening.  It's amazing to me how many people respond, in my purposely limited network.  (I have exactly 100 friends on Facebook, and that's a fine number to satisfy my OCD.)

And it's not just a matter of money.  I like money, but its only purpose in my life is to fund my next personal creative objective - not to buy objects, and certainly not to make people "like" me.  Maybe that's the ultimate "cool" - that nobody likes me.  I might unwittingly become the "Next Big Thing".