(Bertil Nilsson)
I was only back at work for three days and I am completely defeated. This time not because of the job but rather the sickness. I can't sleep very well and when I do I dream of mundane things. Last night the bit of dream that stuck with me into wakefulness was that I was a road manager of sorts for ZZ Top. I might have also been in the band but I was definitely negotiating for them to play some roadhouse bar the night before the big gig, for a drastically reduced fee. I won't bore you with all the details, and I assure you the details were boring. So much so that I woke up from the frustration of the deal I was striking getting to be far too literal. It ended with me stating that the band would bring in their own drinks so their fee wouldn't get eaten up at the bar. Such is the extent of my inner-self right now, mundane and tired from sickness, wishing myself awake from my own dreams, but still in an aging rock and roll band... pathetic.
So, yesterday I mentioned an article in The New York Times. I was going to further explain my feelings on the social giant here today but I just don't think I have it in me. The sinuses still have too much of a grip on me and I am not up to the dual-sided polemics that it might require. Perhaps I'll leave it for another day. Though one thought is worth sharing. If Google and Facebook are scanning your private emails to form a profile on you based on the words found there, without much consideration for meaning, then I think I'm going to create a signature file that includes a rotating vocabulary of these words: Productivity, market assessment, in the black, unprojected profits, analysis, construct, contribute, etc., etc. Since they don't seem to be mining for meaning everyone using one of their services should undermine the way in which those same services are being used against them. It would be easy, really. I just did it by posting this.
I have been naughty over in Selavy's comments section again. I can't help myself. I am as helpless as a morphine addict that has moved on to stronger stuff. I suppose I could have been more clever, thinking that rushing a comment in somehow makes me less guilty. But it has had the effect of reducing the value of some of the comments. I am a very dirty and arrogant American, I guess. You see, there is a woman who comments there frequently who has made it clear that she hates Americans. I tried to suggest that perhaps it is America that she hates but I believe my intention was missed, or perhaps I am simply wrong and she really does hate Americans, as she immediately followed up my comment with more hatred directed at Americans and their "arrogant wars." She greatly prefers the other kind of wars, I guess.
She has described Americans in very specific and familiar terms and I must admit, she really knows how to delve right to the core of a people. Since we are but all of a single kind, made up of 300 million identical humorless parts, it is both necessary and easy for her. There could be no possible diversity in thought or feeling here, it would run counter to her claims. It must be fun for such a sharp historically-minded soul to form such strong opinions of such a large group of foreign people, such and such. She seems to have done much research in the matter, reflected in the acuity of her positions. She then takes these pointed observations off to do internet battle, winning hearts and minds.
I guess what I'm trying to determine is this... Is there any polite way for an American to tell a European that they're being an ignorant bigot? Do you see, it just comes across as being a touch strong, especially towards the end where I stop referring to America and direct my attentions elsewhere. Ah, who knows, perhaps just the right phrase will come to me. It often does, or so I think, once the second or third glass of wine grips my brain with its enthusiastic fever. Perhaps I shouldn't openly confess to wine drinking... Certainly nothing riles the gentle mind of a European more than the absurd confession that an American drinks wine. But of course, I will likely be relieved to soon find that all American wines are shit, made of fermented conceit alone, undrinkable by any civilized standards. Our grapes are merely fruitless conspiracies.
Ah, poor old Selavy... He has somehow found a way of attracting only the most brutish of minds - either strict disciplinarians, perverts or bigots. I'd like to think that I am a little bit of all three, spreading my more repulsive qualities evenly along the fault lines. Sure, life gets lumpy sometimes, especially when condensed from necessity, but all it takes is a little hostility, condemnation and nationalist haranguing to put things right again. I just need a new nation that I can demonize..... I'm tired of Canada. I want an unwilted target for my many chauvinisms. Is there no new rising nation on earth to which I can assert my endless love for all things America...? I want a fresh puppet regime and I'm going to hold my breath until I get one.
Ok, maybe later I will write the Google thing. The tea is liberating my mind from its sleep shackles.
Well, 48 years ago today, The Beatles stepped off the plane at JFK... Yeah...!!! yeah...!!! yeah...!!! I've probably mentioned that I am a Beatles fan. My friend, Maria, has the box set of the entire Beatles catalog, remastered. It is really something astonishing, to hear the tracks sound like they once did on vinyl. The cd mastering that was done to their catalog in 1988 was terrible and flat. The new remastering sounds like I'm high.
"Expert textpert choking smokers, don't you think the joker laughs at you?"
Test market, track, organize, modify, integrate, implement, evaluation, calculate, formulate, under-modulate our distribution costs for hidden profits.
I'll be a financier, industrialist, rock star or media mogul in no time.
.
