True Concessions

I only found out in my last visit to Western Mass that my son didn't understand literally or figuratively what the expression "to hold one's nose" meant or how it was an effective tool for soldiering on under squalid conditions or rising above a stench or two. It also applies to my vote this week for Martha Coakley in her historic loss to a fire-breathing majority of Commonwealth voters.

Lawn signs, local campaign offices, and rallies in the common are the more redemptive side of robocalls, negative ads, and the thunderclapping of cable political theater. I never saw a single Coakley sign and was reminded of this when Senator-elect Brown recounted seeing a homemade sign done in his honor on a truck stop through an unfamiliar town.

It is equally telling that Coakley spent the majority of her concession defending how busy her bustling team was every step on the precipitous slide from primary day to the election. We weren't complacent she seemed to be saying. We just weren't very effective. I can count on one nostril the number of Democrats I know that talked about meeting her, seeing her, or even voting for her. What us couch-fuming Baystater grumps all saw was the frontrunner taking to the air with the clock running out. Not surprisingly most of those hail Martha passes were picked off by underwhelmed Democrats who cheered the very same applause lines before the last voting cycle.

We on the receiving end witnessed dueling ads of her team's abysmal media-making. That playbook featured alternate warm, fuzzies coupled with some uppercut Brown bashing. How does that play out in real time? The following sequence holds even less merit than it does attention:

* Before ad: Who's Martha?
* Warm fuzzy: I'm warming to Martha
* Brown bash: To like Martha is to despise ... (who is he again?)
* Post Brown bash: Thanks for deciding my vote (and insulting my intelligence...)

In political consulting college they teach you that going negative only works when your base is anchored and the alienations you seed reverberate in the fears and doubts of the fence-sitters you're attempting to peel away. In the case of Brown v. Coakley the uncommitted middle were mostly brand loyal Democrats who thought little of not having voted in the primary -- let alone for Martha.

What Can Brown Do For Us?

And what of Senator Brown and his lovely daughters? In the same week that we've lost campaign finance reform, Air America, and the myth of a receding recession his unopposable punch was the assertion that Massachusetts has its own Obamacare. Why should we be bankrolling the blue dogs who held out for medicaid subsidies?

Here's another campaign fundamental they drill into hired guns in training: a negative that's not responded to becomes grounded. The corollary here is that a negative with grains of reality becomes gospel truth. That reality cuts deep enough to trip any get-out-the-vote drive lacing up its campaign boots.

Third Party Singular

Now that the fumes have settled the biggest looming gorilla in our national closet remains the non-starter third party response.

Response to what?

To our incapacity for bonding with our incumbent two parties. Truly the window is closing so fast that we're now throwing rascals out on the tops of corpses that have yet to exhume. Sharing our job insecurities with politicians is great for theatrics and impossible for enacting real change (READ: the right to bear sickness without going broke).

Certainly it's a safe bet that a fiscally conservative and socially liberal candidate from neither party could poll a solid 20% just by announcing. But the real value is that these disenfranchisees wouldn't have voted if that candidate didn't exist. The left is out for lunch. The right is out for blood. But the party I'm envisioning is not out for tea.

True Concessions

I only found out in my last visit to Western Mass that my son didn't understand literally or figuratively what the expression "to hold one's nose" meant or how it was an effective tool for soldiering on under squalid conditions or rising above a stench or two. It also applies to my vote this week for Martha Coakley in her historic loss to a fire-breathing majority of Commonwealth voters.

Lawn signs, local campaign offices, and rallies in the common are the more redemptive side of robocalls, negative ads, and the thunderclapping of cable political theater. I never saw a single Coakley sign and was reminded of this when Senator-elect Brown recounted seeing a homemade sign done in his honor on a truck stop through an unfamiliar town.

It is equally telling that Coakley spent the majority of her concession defending how busy her bustling team was every step on the precipitous slide from primary day to the election. We weren't complacent she seemed to be saying. We just weren't very effective. I can count on one nostril the number of Democrats I know that talked about meeting her, seeing her, or even voting for her. What us couch-fuming Baystater grumps all saw was the frontrunner taking to the air with the clock running out. Not surprisingly most of those hail Martha passes were picked off by underwhelmed Democrats who cheered the very same applause lines before the last voting cycle.

We on the receiving end witnessed dueling ads of her team's abysmal media-making. That playbook featured alternate warm, fuzzies coupled with some uppercut Brown bashing. How does that play out in real time? The following sequence holds even less merit than it does attention:

* Before ad: Who's Martha?
* Warm fuzzy: I'm warming to Martha
* Brown bash: To like Martha is to despise ... (who is he again?)
* Post Brown bash: Thanks for deciding my vote (and insulting my intelligence...)

In political consulting college they teach you that going negative only works when your base is anchored and the alienations you seed reverberate in the fears and doubts of the fence-sitters you're attempting to peel away. In the case of Brown v. Coakley the uncommitted middle were mostly brand loyal Democrats who thought little of not having voted in the primary -- let alone for Martha.

What Can Brown Do For Us?

And what of Senator Brown and his lovely daughters? In the same week that we've lost campaign finance reform, Air America, and the myth of a receding recession his unopposable punch was the assertion that Massachusetts has its own Obamacare. Why should we be bankrolling the blue dogs who held out for medicaid subsidies?

Here's another campaign fundamental they drill into hired guns in training: a negative that's not responded to becomes grounded. The corollary here is that a negative with grains of reality becomes gospel truth. That reality cuts deep enough to trip any get-out-the-vote drive lacing up its campaign boots.

Third Party Singular

Now that the fumes have settled the biggest looming gorilla in our national closet remains the non-starter third party response.

Response to what?

To our incapacity for bonding with our incumbent two parties. Truly the window is closing so fast that we're now throwing rascals out on the tops of corpses that have yet to exhume. Sharing our job insecurities with politicians is great for theatrics and impossible for enacting real change (READ: the right to bear sickness without going broke).

Certainly it's a safe bet that a fiscally conservative and socially liberal candidate from neither party could poll a solid 20% just by announcing. But the real value is that these disenfranchisees wouldn't have voted if that candidate didn't exist. The left is out for lunch. The right is out for blood. But the party I'm envisioning is not out for tea.

As If We Can Respond

January 5, 2010

Harry,

I'm writing you another birthday greeting in a form known to Neanderthals like me as a letter. I only realized how strange it must have seemed to you last birthday season when I actually ask you questions (as if you can respond). I guess if I was born in the mid-nineties that would seem tedious, outdated, and ridiculous all in one spoonful. You must be used to responding directly and instantly to anything that comes your way.

Before the web it wasn’t that uncommon to ask a question for the sake of making the person you’re asking strew in their own mental juices. You know, turning it over in their heads a few wash cycles before giving some words to the thoughts they hatch. I didn’t realize what a luxury this was. It’s not only thinking before speaking (which any sane person does) but actually analyzing from different angles and coming up with several approaches because you’re looking for the best answer – not the easiest to checkbox through the multiple choices (and get a passable grade).

But the thing that really blows my mind (I hope I’m not boring you, Harry) is that IM and texting means that the line has blurred between thought and action. It used to be that what you were thinking was held in the privacy of your brain. You could pass notes under the desk to the kid in back of you but then risk ticking off the teacher, and worse, having them read your note to the whole class. The good thing about this is that it made you think before sharing your angst or rushes to judgment (when we shouldn’t be rushing or judging).

Nowadays all bets are off. The minute the slightest irritation grabs hold you can Tweet it out your ears and have it live on in FaceBook for perpetuity. That’s an awesome responsibility for 140 characters in a text string to handle. But it’s even more daunting to figure out in retrospect whether that message would actually help to shape or change the course of events because now everyone can see the writing on my FaceBook Wall.

Is sharing what you’re thinking the same thing as taking some form of action now that you’ve hit ? To me it’s more like asking advice on whether to take action or not. But once the word is out it tends to grow a life of its own in the minds of the message beholders. At that point the wall between thought and action disintegrates pretty fast – especially when there’s no eye contact. Never underestimate the absence of eyes and a sudden lack of trust between senders and receivers.

I guess the last thing that I’ll say besides a belated happy birthday is that I hope you like the gift. It’s one I might have actually wanted when I turned 15 but not so much by 16 so I had to sneak it in before you get too much older.

Have a great year, Harry, and remember what I told you last year -- hindsight is 20:20 but Teddy Ballgame's is 20:10.

Love,

Uncle Marc

As If We Can Respond

January 5, 2010

Harry,

I'm writing you another birthday greeting in a form known to Neanderthals like me as a letter. I only realized how strange it must have seemed to you last birthday season when I actually ask you questions (as if you can respond). I guess if I was born in the mid-nineties that would seem tedious, outdated, and ridiculous all in one spoonful. You must be used to responding directly and instantly to anything that comes your way.

Before the web it wasn’t that uncommon to ask a question for the sake of making the person you’re asking strew in their own mental juices. You know, turning it over in their heads a few wash cycles before giving some words to the thoughts they hatch. I didn’t realize what a luxury this was. It’s not only thinking before speaking (which any sane person does) but actually analyzing from different angles and coming up with several approaches because you’re looking for the best answer – not the easiest to checkbox through the multiple choices (and get a passable grade).

But the thing that really blows my mind (I hope I’m not boring you, Harry) is that IM and texting means that the line has blurred between thought and action. It used to be that what you were thinking was held in the privacy of your brain. You could pass notes under the desk to the kid in back of you but then risk ticking off the teacher, and worse, having them read your note to the whole class. The good thing about this is that it made you think before sharing your angst or rushes to judgment (when we shouldn’t be rushing or judging).

Nowadays all bets are off. The minute the slightest irritation grabs hold you can Tweet it out your ears and have it live on in FaceBook for perpetuity. That’s an awesome responsibility for 140 characters in a text string to handle. But it’s even more daunting to figure out in retrospect whether that message would actually help to shape or change the course of events because now everyone can see the writing on my FaceBook Wall.

Is sharing what you’re thinking the same thing as taking some form of action now that you’ve hit ? To me it’s more like asking advice on whether to take action or not. But once the word is out it tends to grow a life of its own in the minds of the message beholders. At that point the wall between thought and action disintegrates pretty fast – especially when there’s no eye contact. Never underestimate the absence of eyes and a sudden lack of trust between senders and receivers.

I guess the last thing that I’ll say besides a belated happy birthday is that I hope you like the gift. It’s one I might have actually wanted when I turned 15 but not so much by 16 so I had to sneak it in before you get too much older.

Have a great year, Harry, and remember what I told you last year -- hindsight is 20:20 but Teddy Ballgame's is 20:10.

Love,

Uncle Marc

Thinking (the Cable Would Not Come) Outside the Box

I was not raised in the Christmas tradition.

I didn't grow up with that uninvited house guest that camped illegally under Christmas trees of yore. The burglar scrooge charged with breaking and entering was not so much an unwelcome villain as the batteries not included; the post assembly part of the toys outsourced by Santa and the Elfs to the bumbling parents who give instructions but can't seem to follow them.

Not only do my Neanderthal mechanics compromise all D-I-Y home improvements and quests to IKEA for end tables. They also jeopardize the geeky gadgets that unhandy knowledge managers like me are supposed to hit out of the office park.

By the time I'd retraced every false move along the installation path I was positive I had mistaken a power cable for a plastic bag taggie. I should have been consoled if not vindicated when I got back the following message from "Monty A" of the "HP E-Mail Technical Support Team." Monte's reply arrived nearly an hour to the moment I dispatched my New Year's SOS to tech support re: HP Deskjet F4480 All-in-one printer:

I understand from your E-mail that you don’t receive USB cable.

Marc, I would like to inform you that the all-in-one devices, including your HP All-in-One printer, are not shipped with a USB cable. Initially the all-in-one devices were shipped with a USB cable but the majority of the customers complained that they did not need the printer cable for the reasons listed below.

1. Many customers already have a cable and do not require another cable.

2. Many customers use their all-in-one product as a standalone fax and/or copier and do not require a cable.

3. Many customers require a specific length of cable to fit within their physical work environment. If a cable shipped with their All-in-one product and did not meet their needs, they would have to buy another cable.

Wow. Apparently in the US of A there are no longer any US of Bs nestled in the packing foam air pockets of any HP deskjet boxes. The message nuancer in me had to concede a deft display of double-talk from the Deskjet Kings.

Monty continues:

Since the cost of the printer cable is more, customers had to unnecessarily bear the cost of the USB cable which would in turn increase the cost of the product. Taking all the reasons listed above into account, HP decided not to ship a USB cable with the all-in-one products. This allows customers to purchase the printer cable, if needed.

Holy moley, mealy-mouthed purchaser wipes the dull glaze from his post holiday mug and concludes:

* Us desk-jetters are a restless bunch. We all insist on a divergent range of distances for trailing a printer to our desktoppers. No calculation by the manufacturer is apparently elastic enough to handle the lengths we'll go to situate our hardware.

* Gee if I'd only taken a collection back in 1987 for every 9 volt AC unit shipped with an answering machine there might be enough spare landfill for all the bulbous, parched monitors left out on the curb with today's Christmas trees.

* The all-in-oners don't need another USB clogging their memory ports. I should turn to the index in the manual to see about faxing all those scans to the cloud where no one can hear U SB, least of all Monty A.

In the end we all get what we deserve:

1. A second trip to the retailer for presumptuous consumers like me (that can't help but jumpkick us down the path to economic rebootery).

2. Printer plugs that now join the hallowed stocking grounds of "peripherals" like backup drives, CD burners and ear bud warmers that never grow long in the Blue Tooth.

3. And to the winner HP gets to pocket the spoils. Now if they could only degrade the pins that connect the components they market they could sell us replacement cartridges on those frayed, scorched, and twisted printer cables.

That would be thinking and shipping outside the box.

Thinking (the Cable Would Not Come) Outside the Box

I was not raised in the Christmas tradition.

I didn't grow up with that uninvited house guest that camped illegally under Christmas trees of yore. The burglar scrooge charged with breaking and entering was not so much an unwelcome villain as the batteries not included; the post assembly part of the toys outsourced by Santa and the Elfs to the bumbling parents who give instructions but can't seem to follow them.

Not only do my Neanderthal mechanics compromise all D-I-Y home improvements and quests to IKEA for end tables. They also jeopardize the geeky gadgets that unhandy knowledge managers like me are supposed to hit out of the office park.

By the time I'd retraced every false move along the installation path I was positive I had mistaken a power cable for a plastic bag taggie. I should have been consoled if not vindicated when I got back the following message from "Monty A" of the "HP E-Mail Technical Support Team." Monte's reply arrived nearly an hour to the moment I dispatched my New Year's SOS to tech support re: HP Deskjet F4480 All-in-one printer:

I understand from your E-mail that you don’t receive USB cable.

Marc, I would like to inform you that the all-in-one devices, including your HP All-in-One printer, are not shipped with a USB cable. Initially the all-in-one devices were shipped with a USB cable but the majority of the customers complained that they did not need the printer cable for the reasons listed below.

1. Many customers already have a cable and do not require another cable.

2. Many customers use their all-in-one product as a standalone fax and/or copier and do not require a cable.

3. Many customers require a specific length of cable to fit within their physical work environment. If a cable shipped with their All-in-one product and did not meet their needs, they would have to buy another cable.

Wow. Apparently in the US of A there are no longer any US of Bs nestled in the packing foam air pockets of any HP deskjet boxes. The message nuancer in me had to concede a deft display of double-talk from the Deskjet Kings.

Monty continues:

Since the cost of the printer cable is more, customers had to unnecessarily bear the cost of the USB cable which would in turn increase the cost of the product. Taking all the reasons listed above into account, HP decided not to ship a USB cable with the all-in-one products. This allows customers to purchase the printer cable, if needed.

Holy moley, mealy-mouthed purchaser wipes the dull glaze from his post holiday mug and concludes:

* Us desk-jetters are a restless bunch. We all insist on a divergent range of distances for trailing a printer to our desktoppers. No calculation by the manufacturer is apparently elastic enough to handle the lengths we'll go to situate our hardware.

* Gee if I'd only taken a collection back in 1987 for every 9 volt AC unit shipped with an answering machine there might be enough spare landfill for all the bulbous, parched monitors left out on the curb with today's Christmas trees.

* The all-in-oners don't need another USB clogging their memory ports. I should turn to the index in the manual to see about faxing all those scans to the cloud where no one can hear U SB, least of all Monty A.

In the end we all get what we deserve:

1. A second trip to the retailer for presumptuous consumers like me (that can't help but jumpkick us down the path to economic rebootery).

2. Printer plugs that now join the hallowed stocking grounds of "peripherals" like backup drives, CD burners and ear bud warmers that never grow long in the Blue Tooth.

3. And to the winner HP gets to pocket the spoils. Now if they could only degrade the pins that connect the components they market they could sell us replacement cartridges on those frayed, scorched, and twisted printer cables.

That would be thinking and shipping outside the box.

Who Will Emancipate Our Celebrities?

Slavery was outlawed for a century before Martin Luther King, Jr. had a most public dream of the yearning to be free, free at last. But it will take more than the accumulated content of our gross domestic character before our stable of celebrities are released from their iconic obligations to carry the freedom dream for the rest of us.

Certainly progress has been made. Instead of incarceration (fueled by the fears of Caucasians) our celebrities are sentenced to incorporation on the backs of our color blind aspirations (financed by the proceeds of ticket sales, viewership levels, and downloads). But given the choice they would shed for us the posters from their inner children and the billboards from their referencable faces. They really would.

Witness Tiger Woods' pre-meltdown glimpse of earthly. It's beneath the tropical waves with a snorkel in his teeth with no compunction to flash his mug to the coral-nestling fishees because "they don't care who Tiger is."

And why should we sympathize? We do know who Tiger is but you don't see us sunbathing in a private Caribbean fortress. Why should we carry their pain when we've plunked our showered our attentions down on their pageants and play-off appearances? Who gives them the right to wallow behind the draw bridge of their sun castles?

Not us. This is not sour grapes from some clumsy, unintended snub or our Googled identities tossed off the guest list of parties not looking for sponsors. From the gushing and crushing for autographs to the cascading and lambasting of the bum's rush, the price of fame is the most universal valuation of all human transactions. Celebrity is not just a fluid state of hot, bankable media properties.

It's the mecca of recognition. It's an exulted state. On the way up it's you and me on steroids with the winning ticket to kept dreams in this lifetime. Yes, people just like us! On the downward spiral it's a great consolation for score-settling justice seekers. It's comforting the afflicted with the foolhardy pratfalls of the inflated, the craven, and delusional. Feel the loss in cabin pressure as the newly infamous and impoverished gamble away their winnings on addictions unhinged.

We know the inner trials and secret selves of their characters and portrayals better because these fictions hold more truth than the superficial niceties we mix into our surface level chatter. We know in advance to expect the unexpected every time a name actor defies the gravity of typecasting. What reality-based enterprise fulfills that desire? What ritual prepares us for that gratification -- the annual Detroit car show?

Most celebrities are coin tosses and improbable odds personified: the lucky break latched onto their ascent; stars aligning. If they come from fame there's the tell-all peak at the fabled elders as faltering parents. All the privileges and punishments doled out by life in the fishbowl.

It's the very public intimacy of the emotionally-charged celebrity bonding that enables us to know these perfect strangers on a personal level. The connection runs so deep that we source it to their imprints on affiliated movies, TV series, and franchise entertainments. That bond greases newly aquaintenced cast members of these productions -- an extended forest of social networks.

For the celebrity the reciprocal is false. They don't pair up with individual fans any more than we bask in celebrity limelights. The celebrity's assets and their implied responsibilities are one in the same -- the loosely organized aggregates that drop in their tracks and give audience to the attracting star. This arrangement pulls rank on the command of talents that volted their identity into a moldable stardom. That's the third rail for the charmed athletes double-crossed by their double role as model citizens. Not signing up to be one is no defense against the tar and feather stinging of letting down the fan base.

The extended properties of of family fame association is not limited to the playing field of spin the Kevin Bacon degree bottle. It's more basic than the pedigree around the social cachet of blood lines. We look to the chromosomal capacities of media-encoded behavioral modeling. We can't do justice to celebrity worship without acknowledging the marquee role of media as surrogate parent, teacher, and tormentor to all post boomer latchkey babies who ever held an expectation or passed a judgment based on the way a scripted creation bargained on their own behalf.

I distinctly remember the preschool lesson taught by Fred McMurray's wooing of his future stepdaughter in an episode of My Three Sons. Every flavor of ice cream drizzle was the admission price for eligible (uninvited) guardians to step up to the step parent plate. Five years later there would be no such lobbying effort from the future unsecured minefield known as my own private stepfather hell. But it wasn't his failings as a role model that made me flinch. It was the damn TV script that held me hostage to the impotence of childhood.

As an action-based taxonomist I've found it clarifying to conjugate celebrities as parties (plural) rather than persons (singular). After all just because we're in the same living room, movie theater, or set of headphones that doesn't mean we will ever have firsthand contact or even backstage proximity to the main act. Literally you can apply this framework to the posse of agents, body guards and nannies the celebrity bankrolls to carry our hopes and dreams up the base of the freedom trail. But I think of it more as licenses to build marketing platforms on world-beater legs, a magnetic torso, and a helium-powered head. They dance for you. They play for me. They speak for us -- until they stop checking in -- or worse, act on their own individual desires.

Fame is an abdication of individual freedoms. We fixate on the loss of privacy but that's just the beginning of it. The tycoon-like free pass for hedge fund manager behavior is clearly off limits once sentenced to the gated splendor of the penitentiary of fame. Witness protection is afforded to fat cats. But there is no such thing as a privately-held celebrity. The unspoken bargain between extraordinary soloists and the ensemble of little folks who work for a living is this -- your pity for our favor. The moment the celebrated step over the pity limits is the moment they meet the wrath of the unvarnished crowd. How far can the mighty fall? How low a crouch does it take to be trampled by the wisdom of mobs?