Is it any wonder that I find this mentality….lacking? No one who knows me is surprised, I’m sure. I hate everything, I’m told.

What is the world, though, when the completion of tasks is more important than the task’s purpose? As usual, I can’t help but ask, “why?” Naturally, this goes over like a lead balloon in the harried, “efficiency-driven”-yet-woefully-inefficient corporate bureaucracy that is my workplace. Where the motto is “I need it yesterday no matter how impossible and no matter how completely I botched the process before handing it off to you.”

As new crises and “challenges” trickle into my inbox, I’m struck with a deep-seeded need to find the root problem. I can’t help but stare into the mountains of miscalculations that led to the inevitable crisis we now face and ask why those errors were made. I can’t help but suggest ways to avoid those errors. And yet, I’m faced with “git ‘er done.” There is never time to address the root cause, because we are so harried with a need to resolve the issues caused by the root cause. It’s frustrating, is all.

It’s like Superman arriving upon a disaster scene and being told to work crowd control. “Or I could make the earth spin backwards and prevent this disaster from ever happening.”

“…just make sure these folks don’t go under the tape, hot shot!”

Would a little introspection be remiss in the modern world? Would it hurt if, instead of asking what we are going to do, we instead asked why we are doing what we do? To what end? For what purpose? And for what need? Albert Einstein said that “bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.” It’s possibly true for a creative process, but I can’t help but think an efficient bureaucracy is the last defense against the failings of any non-creative process necessarily involving humans.  And efficiency is achieved, not by doing without question in order to “git ‘er done,” but by evaluating each action for it’s value before acting.

Unfortunately, my bosses don’t agree.

                          

So, you’ve heard the craaaazy news, right? It’s all over the place! Yes, friends, Wonder Woman is changing her look, and it is serious business! There are stories in the Washington Post, The Boston Herald, and the L.A. Times to name a few! What? It’s not like there’s anything more important to be talking about. Which is why I’m going to blather on about it here!!

Folks are up in arms about the costume change. Some say, why mess with success. Others say what’s the big deal? Some think it will reinvigorate the series. Others say it’s awfully cold fighting crime in a silk teddy. So what does this new hero look like?

80s Wonder Woman? No..it's 80s REVIVAL Wonder Woman

So, there it is. The amazing Amazonian warrior princess is scrapping her old digs for some new threads. She’s ditching the bustiér that barely contains her considerable cleavage, and trading up for some too-tight black pants, and a jacket with the sleeves pushed up. It’s a daring new look! Except for that it isn’t new at all. That’s really my only beef with it. It’s 1982 all over again.  Seriously people…costume changes are fine, but do we need to buy the costume at American Apparel?!? I hate the 80s fashion revival!!

Don’t think it’s 80s? Okay….picture the jacket as yellow, and a pair of pink sunglasses pushed up in her hair, and we pretty much have any member of Jem and the Holograms, or to be fair….Jubilee.

I see this “new and improved” look, with the too-tight black jeans and I feel compelled to think of Joan Jett. Now, don’t get me wrong! Joan Jett was totally rad, in her 80s rocker-chick way, but in the 80s! It’s 2010 now, right? Come on! I can only be glad that they ditched the more butch characteristics of the Amazonian that she had in the very early drawings…else we might have the return of Hollywood Montrose!

Let’s be honest, folks. Of all the things cool about the 80s, fashion ain’t on the list! Are these the 80s images we want to influence the look of a hero? There’s really only one 80s persona that it’s appropriate for Wonder Woman to emulate. She’s awesome, and she’s got the look we want. Join our team!!!

                          

Anyhoo, it’s a new and innovative product from our friends at LYSOL®! I couldn’t find the exact ad, but here’s a similar one for the same product:

Cool! You know, I’m as worried about germs as the next guy. I probably wash my hands 8-10 times a day! I’m downright compulsive about it! And, hey howdy, do they ever raise a good point! I never considered how many filthy, disgusting hands might be pressing down on my soap dispenser! Seriously, when do people push on a soap dispenser? Right after…..you know! And also after…EEEW! I mean…you could be getting some NASTY stuff on your hands every time you go to…wash…uh…wash your…

HEY!!!

Yep…dumbest product EVER.

                          

Saving the world one fad at a time.

Now I have nothing against these causes, let me be clear. It’s all well and good. What I wonder about is the nature of activism in America. It all seems inextricably linked with commerce. If you aren’t being basically guilted into going to a TV or corporate website to be sold their products, you’re basically just buying something for status or fun and being told that a portion goes to something. Why doesn’t a corporation just donate their product to the needy group? Nope, sorry, they have to donate one thingy they plan to donate for every widget you buy!!  Look at Lance Armstrong’s yellow bracelet fad….there was a time when it was a must-have fashion accessory, but why couldn’t the money to make those bracelets have just gone to the cause instead of only a portion? Yeah, yeah, human nature…economics, advertising, blah, blah.

What about the rallies? Are they really convincing anyone, or just making people feel like they have control. Sometimes (like with tea party rallies) I hope it’s just the latter. But then make it a big event. Get the celebrities to show up! Get the corporations to donate free widgets for the attendees! Get politicians! Get Sting to sing a song! Make signs and chant chants! But in the end, what’s been changed? You’ve rallied for the environment, and maybe got some media attention. But what if each of those 50,000 attendees just went to the EPA website and told their electric company that they only wanted to buy green energy? What if they each got 2 friends to do the same? What if those corporate sponsors switched their companies to only green energy? Or what if they invested in green tech for their corporate offices and factories? Or what if they encouraged their employees to do the same? Or if they used that cash to pay the difference in price for every employee who switched?

What if, instead of having an environmental walk/run for charity, where everyone showed up and walked/ran and drank their bottled waters and generated their trash, and had their after-party, or whatever, all those people just changed the way they lived? Maybe if they walked/ran home instead of driving to work? No, let’s drive our cars to the event where we walk in a big pointless circle to help someone. I confess, it doesn’t make much sense to me. If you want to donate to a charity, donate. If you want to help the environment, help it. What the hell does a bracelet do for anyone? What’s the point? And now social netwoirking is bringing a whole new level of conspicuous slacktivism. Today I was invited to a “1 Million Strong Against Cancer” group on Facebook. Come on…does anyone like cancer? Can you think of anything more pointless? The only thing I can think of are the “viral” status updates that say things like “change your status to this pointless glurge for a whole day to irradicate Muscular Distrophy!” In fact, allow me to present the Golden Sheep Award to those useless slacktivist pages.

Seriously, here’s a litmus test for you. Think about what you do each day, think about what the results of those things are. Now ask yourself, “if everyone did that, what would the world be like?” Is it better or worse? I find I come out pretty good on that scale when it comes to environmental, economic , and (I think) political issues. Now social health, that’s another story…..I have no clue there. Don’t look to me for advice on dealing effectively with people.

                          

The myth of the NYC Park.

Picture a serene scene. The most serene scene you have ever seen. One in a park of lovely green. (Forgive the Dr. Seuss treatment. I’ll stop.) Anyway, the grass is soft, the breeze light. Above you, the Brooklyn Bridge stands like some granite colossus, straddling the East River. It is majestic and powerful, enhancing the beauty and serenity of the surrounding park through it’s monumental architecture. A tugboat sounds a wistful horn in the distance. A gull soars overhead, starkly white against the bright blue of the sky. You are alone in a city of 8 million….lying cradled between the soft, cool grass and the warm midday sun.

Now, as you picture this wonderful scene, picture also a family of five. They stomp onto your soft delicate lawn, bickering, dropping litter, and dragging an assortment of towels, loud radios, kids, toys, lotions, hats, smells, and Teddy Grahams. They are a hurricane ravishing your oasis. They are a monster truck, tearing across your field of wildflowers, leaving a scar of mud and a cloud of diesel fumes. They march across the vast openness, and plop down, still bickering, right beside you. Your fortress of solitude is invaded, and you have been rendered powerless by the red sun of Krypton. (Okay, nerdy metaphor, but stay with me.)

Soon, a young couple arrives. They are ill dressed in spiky clothes and gothic makeup. They lie mere feet away from you, alternating between sharing a 7-11 slurpee and making out luridly. They smell funny. Their uncomfortably-tight yet trendy-in-some-circles clothing slips about to reveal rolls of fat and unsettling bulges. They grope and straddle each other openly in simulated love-making poses. You become sandwiched between them and the family of five.

Now imagine the entire park filling with more and more people. It’s overflowing. A sea of bodies covers every inch of grass, leaving each blade matted and struggling for life-giving light beneath some mass of flesh. The previously warm sun has been made sweltering by the combined body warmth of hundreds of glistening, sweaty, people. They jostle and grunt at each other like so many walruses sunning together on the rocky shore of some coastal inlet. The only oasis is a steaming concrete path that picks it’s way among the corpses, and meanders to a parking lot of weeds poking though cracks in the surface, broken bottles, and upturned garbage cans…a paradise of quiet compared to the populous garden of adipose tissue that it leaves behind. You run-walk to escape the clamor.

To be fair, at no point was my experience at the park today as idyllic as I described in the beginning of this post. It was gross from the get go. I thought I would go try to enjoy some nice weather, get some air, some sun, maybe relax a bit. No dice. The citizens of New York City will never cease to amaze me in their ability to be around one another and be seemingly oblivious to each other’s presence! It boggles my mind, because I am painfully aware of every person around me at all times. Meanwhile, they all seem to long for it! At a nearby ice cream parlor, New Yorkers happily queued patiently in a line that must have stretched 100 yards out the front door of the parlor. No ice cream is that good. I was repelled, but tot he contrary, New Yorkers seemed to instinctively join the line.

So, is solitude dead? Has it come to a point where we can only escape one another by locking ourselves away in our closet-like rooms? Even there, we jostle, and stomp, and make ourselves known to each other through a series of movements, noises, and actions…intentional or otherwise. The world becomes more and more populous, and I can’t help but think of the scenes in Soylent Green, with stairways littered by bodies, and streets so crowded that people need to be lifted into garbage trucks to clear space. Are these images to be prophetic?

The most frightening thing, to me, is that the crowds which I face daily here in New York City are nothing compared to some other places. India and Japan come to mind. The thought of a world rapidly filling with this kind of population density is anathema to nature. Will the State and National Parks of the US someday be the last remaining empty places? And will they be empty? No doubt vast throngs of tourists from overpopulated cities will surge into them upon their daily opening, leaving behind their tattered picnic blankets and single-serving meal cups. Worse, will the world sooner remove their protected status in favor of an unfettered population? Can mankind ever be saved from himself?

This post brought to you by Trojan Condoms.™

                          

I guess I’m being a little purposely obtuse, because I know that people mean it to say that things were better when they were simpler…when our focus (as a nation, as a people, as a culture, as whatever group you’re addressing) was narrowed and purposed! When people lived simply and had simple wants, needs and desires! Of course, I know that’s what people mean. But is that really what we’re after? Think hard on that. Do you really want to take what humanity has wrought over the centuries and chop the tree off at the stem? What else is “getting back to our roots.” It’s conservative code for the status quo.

So lets look at civilization’s roots. There is the lowly hominid, scraping a living from the world around him, hunting gathering, sweating, running, and dying. Perhaps living a little too, though surely not as we know it. Not with civilizations, legal protections, homes, monuments or schools. Or what about the United States’ roots? A fledgling nation, wrest from the arms of a clutching parent-nation though the violent act of revolution. A tiny group of men, wearied by war, scraping together the foundations of a nation on hopes and dreams. But was their hope really so pure and noble? Did they go home to servants, slaves, and wives all who had no voice in their future’s making? Didn’t this root reach upward to sprout leaves in the form of new laws, amendments, and ideas such as emancipation, and suffrage?  Should we ignore the fruits of hundreds or thousands of years of progress? More importantly, were those people sticking to their roots? Weren’t they taking their footing and using it to cultivate new ideas? Weren’t they rather progressive for their time?

Alright, I know….preachy. But think about the hollowness of the “back to our roots” sentiment. I don’t want to go back to the roots! To run with the plant analogy (near and dear to my heart), I want the branches and leaves and fruits! And some might say, “ah, but even with all those things, the roots must survive for the plant to live.” Well, sure. I can agree with that. But growth is growth. Lets not forget what the goal of laying down roots is. Let’s keep growing as a people, as a country, as a culture, as a society. I want new ideas to replace old and withered ones. I want new science and technology! I want new government and new legal protections. I want new paths and new thinking. And the old stuff, that is still healthy and green and bearing fruit…we can keep it. But the old withered stuff? We need to prune it, dammit! And maybe, if everything works right, that fruit will drop and leave seeds to germinate and lo, and behold, new roots!!

                          

But, wait. It’s not Valentine’s Day. Surely, that special day doesn’t fall for two more days. So why, I wondered, would someone deliver flowers to someone at work…two days early? Why not pick them up and deliver them personally…on VALENTINES DAY? Perhaps over an intimate dinner? Perhaps with morning coffee in bed? Why send them to work so that your spouse (or whatever) has to then carry the flowers all the way home on the subway or train? What an inconvenience!

Of course, we all know it doesn’t work that way. Valentine’s Day isn’t about a special personal love held between two people. It’s about conspicuous acts of affection and courtship meant as a display for everyone. Like holding hands in public, it is a way to announce to the world that “I got mine….and here he/she is.” All the better if that announcement can be combined with some gloating that your significant other is buying you hundred dollar bouquets, or taking you out for expensive meals at fancy restaurants. It might even be okay if he just does something very sweet and thoughtful for you….as long as you can tell the world about it on Facebook or something.

Don’t deny it….search your feelings. We all know why you really wanted those cheap-o valentines in third grade…because the one with the most got bragging rights.

                          

Recently I’ve been finding some fairly fun (read “free”) content on Hulu, and as a result have found myself subject to the whims of advertisers once more. It’s not so terribly bad, I mean, the commercials aren’t as frequent as on regular TV. They show about four 30 second commercials per show, spaced at normal intervals…and it’s often the same ad over and over. So that’s fine, but I’m finding myself studying the weird world of Madison Avenue once again. What are they saying about their viewers? Is it a reflection of societies views about itself? Are we as ugly as we portray ourselves? Or are we being manipulated?

Perhaps you’ve seen this Dodge Charger ad. It’s been rattling in my head for a bit. It’s hard for it not to, since Hulu has been showing it over and over and over and over…(and knitting…and knitting)!! I can’t help wondering what this commercial is telling us about the modern male? He’s repressed, obviously. He’s unfulfilled. He stares blankly at the camera with the look of a sedated mental patient. We learn from the voice-over, that he is hen-pecked. He does everything that his horrible Nurse Rachet of a wife tells him to do. Beneath the surface he boils with rage and resentment. He doesn’t like putting his underwear in a hamper. He longs for a fruit-free breakfast! Most of all, he wishes that his wife and his wife’s friends would accept his own friends, but alas it cannot be! No man can truly like his wife’s mother, and no woman will ever get up early to walk the dog! It is the bizarre Madison Avenue world, where men only pretend to like women so that they can be allowed to drive loud cars.

Okay, I’m not entirely without testosterone. When the car finally makes an appearance, it hits upon a primal urge to drive a super rad car with a throaty growl and a Knight Rider air of mystery. But why would I need to kiss up to my wife to be allowed to drive it? And who says I’ll only clean the sink after I shave if there’s a 250 hp performance automobile in it for me down the road? Is this ad a horrible caricature of men, or is it holding up a mirror to it’s target demographic? Worst of all, could it be shaping men’s perceptions of themselves?

                          

Is this what museums are reduced to? Another place to make an appearance? A place to appear to have an interest in art, while you go about your daily task of making your own life appear to imitate art? I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. As I left, I felt the bile rise up within me. I really had to share, so I Twittered about it instantly, and then came home and wrote this blog post. Some people think their lives are the center of everything, don’t they? (That last bit was a little self-aware irony, btw,)

                          

He was a little crass at times, but the world needs more outspoken atheists like that.

You’ll be missed, George.