Balloon Boy and Mozart.

Remember the “balloon boy”? It was a dumb hoax by a fame-obsessed father who claimed that his child floated away trapped in a helium balloon. It was National Crisis for about a day, and concerned cable news talking heads updated us by the minute. The kids were forced to lie to the Nation, the little brother was actually upstairs in the attic, and I remember one of the kids vomiting during an interview, presumably out of guilt. I love that.

Well, they’re back. My workmate, Kraftwerk, showed me a video this morning of the Balloon Boy family and contemptuously said, “These kids are muggles. They’re American muggles.” A “muggle” is a pejorative word in the Harry Potter Universe that means someone who can’t do magic. It means a “normal” person.

In the video, the trio of long-haired kids, spurned on by their dumb-ass father, made a terrible racket on their guitars. They rode around on dirt bikes. They jumped around their room demonstrating “parkour” which is an urban trend of climbing and leaping on buildings. The tone of the fluff news story was that they were pint-sized heavy metal kids, and isn’t that cute.

“They sound awful. Someone needs to tell them they suck. They’re not even trying. They’re terrible musicians. Their dad is just looking for attention again. Look, even their ‘parkour’ is stupid,” Kraftwerk said.

“They’re children!” I said.

I wouldn’t say the kids were any good at their music, but I wouldn’t call them muggles either.

I often think of the movie ‘Amadeus’ and I think about that main character in terms of my own fears for myself. In the movie, the Court Composer Salieri encounters a young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Right away, he alone recognizes Mozart’s incomparable genius. Mozart’s writes sublime music effortlessly, as easily as if he were taking dictation of the voice of God. Salieri becomes so resentful at his own mediocrity, that it shatters his soul.

Back to the Harry Potter universe, Salieri might be known as a “Squib.” A squib sees the beauty of the magical world, but they can’t do it. I don’t worry about being a muggle, a normal bland person, but I absolutely do worry about being a squib. Balloon Boy Dad is probably a squib.

When I was in art school, I made straight A’s in all my drawing classes. I had two Mozarts in my classes, a tall surly kid with an absurd mop of hair like a red stalk of broccoli and a Mexican kid I never heard speak English. Those two could draw, effortlessly, like the pencil work of master artist Jean August Dominque Ingre, one of my favorites. I would jealously inspect their work during breaks, me being Court Composer Salieri incarnate. Sadly, I knew then I didn’t have what it takes to be a professional illustrator.

I now realize not everyone is immediately tapped into the divine like Mozart was. Some of us, have to fight for it. Beethoven was not a child prodigy, he was just pretty good, but his tyrannical father made him play. He and Mozart were both ‘Balloon Boys’ of their day, exploited by ambitious fathers, but the difference is that Mozart and Beethoven had immense talent. Beethoven was abused, but this somehow didn’t take away his love of music. There’s a story I like of a young Beethoven playing at a party and Mozart was there, and Mozart stopped his entire entourage to listen to the boy play. Mozart, applauded him and said “You will be great one day.” And he was.

I don’t know if Beethoven became a master because of Mozart’s off-hand praise, but I like to think it helped. I think we are too quick to denounce the efforts people make. Maybe Salieri’s big failure was not as a musician, but not living up to the idea of being a lover and supporter of beauty.

I’m not sure my point, other than God’s Speed Balloon Boy family band! I hope you become great musicians some day, not for your dad’s lust for fame, but for beauty and art’s sake.

Apple Watch

I have a very ambivalent relationship to technology. When I was a teenager, I wanted to live in a Star Trek world of plastic and glass, where everything was done in-doors at a touch of the button, the solemn promise of every electronic convenience. Now as I get older, just like everyone else, I’m deeply entrenched with technology, whether I want to, or not.  I’m a little wary (and weary) of all these portable supercomputers we’re engaging with.

The new Apple Watch seems like an ugly and crazy expensive piece of tack. For awhile, until I accidentally drowned it in the washing machine, I was wearing a FitBit, which tracked my movements, and measured how many steps I took each day. This slightly influenced my behavior to walk more, and most people would agree that’s a good thing. The Apple Watch is going to do the same thing, and it may influence behavior in unexpected ways, but it will also measure something a bit more intimate, your heartbeat.

I can already see a meeting of marketers, their own hearts racing at the implications of this new device. It is totally in the realm of possibility to measure wearer’s heart rates with other biometric data, and compare that biodata in relation to commercials viewed. So in other words, someone is going to pitch the idea of looking into increased heart rates and tie that to interest in a commercial or web banner while it’s being viewed. The tried and true way to make people click on things is to entice them with sex or fear, but people get jaded. Click-through rates keep dropping. Ask yourself when was the last time you clicked on something that said, “You won’t believe what shocking thing she did!” 

In desperation, I foresee a future where advertisements in all media forms will start putting sudden loud noises in everything to try induce a sudden spike in people’s heart rates, just so advertisers can tell their customers that the commercials are working. “We have shown that Apple Watch biometric data have sharply risen when we put loud unexpected and annoying fireworks in our fabric softener commercial. Can I also say, please don’t fire me, I have a second mortgage now, and a young son.”

A Commercial and an Infomercial

Yesterday, I helped with a commercial, so I’m going to be an extra. 

I mention this, because in our culture, being on tv, even briefly, is still something people are willing to debase themselves to do. American Idol’s first few episodes are full of people willing to destroy their lives belting out off-key versions of Mariah Carey. “I was on tv! Simon Cowell hissed at me. Now I can die knowing I mattered in this cruel cruel world.”  

At the same time as our commercial, I helped out on a Spanish Infomerical at the same car dealership. 

I had one job, and at first, I kind of messed it up. I was supposed to drive used cars up to the presenters who would comment on the vehicle. Being a relic from another era, I didn’t know how these new-fangled vehicles work. To let you know who you’re dealing with, I have to point out that I’m not sure I even know how my phone works, and it is still difficult for me to answer it when it’s ringing. So, as a transplant from a time where vehicles were started with brass and wood clockwork machines, I now live in a Jetson’s future where there are no car keys. I had to ask how that worked, “How do I start this here contraption?” My Amish ignorance irritated the other Infomercial car drivers, who considered me an annoying luddite. 

I don’t speak a word of Spanish, so I drove up to the commentators, paused briefly, and then promptly drove off again. The director raised his hands in the air and made some sounds like the Sand Person who attacks Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. I sheepishly backed the car up, trying to concentrate and not run over the presenters, and they had to do the take again. 

Hating myself, I raced around the dealership, found the next vehicle, and did the process again, but this time hit my marks perfectly. I got the hang of it. Each time, the beautiful girl opened up the car door and there I am smiling for the entire Hispanic community of DFW to see. I politely smiled and subtly nodded in seeming comprehension at what they were saying, and drove off when the director pointed. Each of these times, wondering if the intended audience would consider me a “White Mexican”, like Guillermo Del Toro. This was done over and over.

The Lonely Existentialist Crisis of Super Mario.

Last week, German researchers announced a self-aware Super Mario that made decisions in the game by emotional reasoning. If Mario felt hungry, then he would try to get coins, and Mario could explore his world based on what he wanted to do. I find the idea of this experiment unspeakably cruel. Mario wakes up over and over, sort of like the movie ‘Memento’, and in his world, he jumps on mushrooms and tries to rescue Princess Peach from Koopa. Now imagine telling Mario he isn’t real, neither are his pals and enemies, but just constructions in a computer.

“No! It’s-a-me! Mario! It’s-a-me.”

This is inducing an existentialist crisis in the candy-colored world of Super Mario Brothers. Luigi would suffer a worse fate, as he isn’t even the main character and would have to deal with that.

I don’t like to really think about this, but some theorists have put forth the idea that we, you and I, are in a computer construction. It kind of makes sense. Just like pixels, if you go small enough down on a quantum level, reality itself breaks down as there is nothing for reality to be anymore. The 13.8 billion years universe might really only be a few minutes of time to whoever (or whatever) is playing the game. I suspect they let it run for a few minutes, while they’re stepping away, making a snack. Ask yourself what’s more absurd, the motivations of Donkey Kong, or the motivations of ISIS.

In such a simulation, the observable universe would be like the game Asteroids, in that if you travelled long enough in a straight line, trillions of years later you would wind up in the same spot, or if you like, on the other side of the screen again. If we start seeing repeating star patterns then we would really have to take this idea seriously.

But even if we are in a big Super Mario Brothers game, that doesn’t mean our own lives have to be meaningless. Even if the fabric of reality ripped open and two giant Beavis and Butthead types revealed themselves saying, “Huh huh huh. It’s fun to watch you fight. Huh huh huh.”

“We’re playing a game! Fire! Fire!”

We can still hold our heads high with dignity if we choose to, even in such absurdity.

Children Holding Glass Tablets.

Last night, I was driving slowly through a parking lot, waiting for pedestrians to cross. A child was holding the hand of a parent, and in the darkness I could see that they had a glowing screen under their other arm. Perhaps that’s just the same as carrying a storybook. Perhaps not.

When I was younger, I couldn’t wait for the future to be here. Now that I’m here, I’m discontented at how artificial and simulated everything is. Staring at glass screens every waking moment wasn’t my intention. I long for the earthy rootedness of my childhood, which was one of blazing trails with my bike in empty undeveloped fields. Instead of an intimate knowledge of cyberspace and knowledge of what click-bait ads to avoid, I had firsthand knowledge of the landscape around my neighborhood. I knew where to find crawdads, dirt mounds from constructions projects to ride my bike on, and which neighbor’s yards I could trespass.

Which isn’t to say that my childhood was entirely Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine. There was a ton of simulation in front of the television. But if it wasn’t Star Trek, Night Gallery, The Twilight Zone, or monster movies on an UHF station, I don’t recall being that interested. My father was horrified and embarrassed at my lack of interest in sports, or anything else a normal kid was into, and couldn’t understand why I wanted to read so much. I was checked out on a kind of vicarious experience.

I wonder what kind of person I would have evolved into with all the answers given, but without any reflection. I see myself turning into a relic from another era as I experience the present, and I’m no longer excited, but disturbed.