SUVs, Scooters and Survival

GM cut 15,000 jobs this week. Said nobody wants to buy sedans any more. That’s why they’re closing factories in Michigan and Ohio and Ontario, Canada. They have no market for their Impalas, Volt, etc..

Ford Motor Company is also getting out of the sedan business. They have no market for the Taurus, etc.. 

People want to drive big SUVs, built on truck chassis, and pickup trucks have always been a staple down here in Texas. 

I see a lot of super-clean pickup trucks—Ford F-150, Chevy pickups and Dodge Ram pickup trucks. These pickups with not a single scratch in the bed and a pristine paint job indicate a lot of white collar guys with no calluses on their hands buy pickups. Many of these wannabe cowboy wish to stay connected to their salt-of-the-earth roots. Just an observation…

But, now it seems soccer Moms need to a SUV to ride high and have enough steel to make mom feel safe. Kind of like the Cold War weapons escalation from the 1960s. Soviet Union has 50 nukes, we Americans need 100 nukes. 

Translate the Cold War to the Car War escalations of today’s consumer. You get a big car, I need a bigger car, now I need a truck (SUV).

However, I do seen sedans on the road—and most seem to be either European of Japanese. Toyota sells tons of cameras. High end sedans still have appeal. Look at all those Audi and Lexus sedans zipping down the highway. GM and Ford do not bother to address this side of the equation. Their strength is building pickup trucks and SUVs and they are sticking to it.

The scooter phenomenon is a counter-weight to the rise in truck popularity. The city streets are now littered with scooters—magically arrived from some corporate source—ad placed on the sidewalks for all to consider. A credit card app gets the scooter moving. The brave then stand astride the scooter and take their chances on transportation sans protection. 

This very interesting scooter development parallels the increased use of bikes, also a risky pursuit, on our fast-moving public streets. Bikers mostly feature helmets and some use proper illumination at night. 

Scooter and bike people may be making a grand effort to save the planet. They will give you alternative explanations but I think the core idea, “let’s pollute less,” exists behind their transportation choices.

The New York Times has been tackling global climate change as a major target of their publication. I immersed myself in the recent article, “The Insect Apocalypse Is Here.” 

Here is the link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html

Do not let the title fool you—this is a human apocalypse, generated by mankind and foisted on all living things. The numbers of insects has declined significantly. Many other species have declined also.

The decreased insect population saddened me. We have all experienced the plenitude of nature. Maybe you have been in an apple orchard at harvest time? I have seen massive pecan crops on good years in Central Texas. 

Nature is no respecter of modest bounds. The California wildfires show us Nature’s limitless strength. Yet we have managed to throttle nature and toss it into an emergency state, a state with the intensity of cars racing headlong down the freeway, hell bent to get to work on time.

Mankind’s ambitious, restless personality, set on survival and prosperity and domination, has dwarfed even the Eden we were born into it. Look at Mars for alternate housing. Not good!

If you love the planet and share even a modicum of goodwill for all the other species, the Times article should get your attention.

Trump Never Did Pivot

I first became aware of the word “pivot” on the high school basketball court. The pivot foot must stay stationary. You plant that foot and  spin your body in either direction to create a shot or to throw a pass. Trump never did pivot from the bellicose campaigner of the Republican primaries.

Many of us figured Donald Trump, if elected, would pivot and act serious, sober and rational, like the previous 44 presidents. It did not happen. 

Donald did not pivot. Why? He learned that his base loves the plain-spoken, blunt, insulting, bullying Donald Trump. 

The experts called for Trump to stop tweeting. Even loyal Republican supporters complained about the tweets. Trump wisely ignored the advice. He actually increased the tweeting. He now has 55,000,000 followers on Twitter. Why give that up? He can speak directly to his audience.

Donald Trump may qualify as a genius of 21^stcentury communications-- some would say an evil-genius. He gets credit as a marketing and has branded the Trump name to the heavens. His domination of cable  television, left and right, amazes all.  

Trump recognizes politics has become theater. He brilliantly turned presidential politics into a reality TV show. Real reality and the virtual reality of internet and TV become difficult to distinguish. The electronic world has become the world.

Marshall McLuhan, my favorite media philosopher, recognized the revolution in human history in the change from books and newspapers to the electronic world we now inhabit. McLuhan’s emphasis on technology met stiff opposition, especially from the academic world. Guess who won that competition? Marshall was right. The academics have remained nostalgic for print media. "Long live print media!" they seem to say. Trump baits us with "failing New York Times."

McLuhan understood the change of a deep level. He identified a basic change from “acoustic space,” the space we inhabit on our devices to “visual space”—the continuous, logical and alphabet world, the world of books. 

The multi-sensory world acoustic space of electronic media brought us back to a kind of tribal drumbeat:

“It was the space of the electric world, in which people are hit with almost random bursts of information from all sides.” (p.133)*

The pundits, the talking heads of cable TV, the cognoscenti, the journalists and presidential historians, gnash their teeth over Trump’s resistance to the norms of presidency. They seek logic, reason and a continuous narrative. Trump gives us spontaneity, equivocation, multiple versions of the same story, a revolving door of employees and speeches sounding more like standup comedy.

Trump understands McLuhan’s acoustic space. He has responds constantly, just to keep up with our speeded-up world. The pace and randomness of the information systems suits his ADHD tendencies very well. And seems to work for much of the audience.

Many long for a more peaceful presidency with less name-calling, divisiveness and partisanship. If you want to understand the new presidency-- check out the Housewives shows-- New Jersey, Atlanta, Orange County, etc. housewives. Drama is created out of seemingly nowhere. Conflict powers the narrative. Change happens quickly. Andy Cohen is the Bravo TV mogul behind the Housewives franchise. Andy holds a close second to Donald Trump when it comes to media literacy. 

Both men understand their audience. Funny how such different audiences agree of their passion for drama. Trump flourishes there. And Obama, as you may recall, had the nickname "N0 Drama Obama." 

Apparently we got tired of Obama's gentlemanly air of peace and tranquility and voted in Donald Trump,  a Tasmanian Devil of energy, manipulation and shape-shifting.

* Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger, by: Philip Marchand

Archie Bunker in the White House

The New York City borough of Queens has two residents more famous than the rest-- Donald Trump and Archie Bunker. Donald Trump is real and Archie Bunker is a fictional character. Normal Lear, the groundbreaking television producer, named the show All in the Family and cast Carroll O'Connor as Archie.

Trump and Bunker resemble each other in many ways. Archie sits on his throne, a comfortable chair in the middle of his living room. He hurls insults and says the things others are thinking but are afraid to say. Archie has problems with racial diversity, homosexuality, longhairs, war protesters, etc. etc.. Each show ended with a positive message about healing and crossing barriers.

Tump's speeches do not end with that kind of uplifting message.  Trump has his throne to the Oval Office. He shoots from the hip just like Archie. Neither man shrinks from controversy.

All in the Family (AITF)  ran from 1971-1979 and helped heal some of the lingering pain of the Vietnam era. The show confronted American society's prejudices through the voice of a bigoted, white working-class guy. r

Archie's blunt language reminds us of Donald Trump. Both men have a natural, colorful speaking style. Their hate-filled rants have another thing in common, they attract a loyal following of fans. Both Archie Bunker and Donald Trump speak like guys not afraid to offend. Agree or disagree-- you cannot get Archie Bunker or Donald Trump out of your head. Both are born entertainers.

Trump and Bunker are colorful. They speak in the cadences of the man in the street. Trump has a wealthy background but does not feel elite. Archie comes from humbler stock. Archie feels fear about the future. He doesn't like change.

Trump also seems to want to long for the past. He's done everything possible to rollback the Obama year changes. He constantly inflames liberals and reporters from CNN and MSNBC.

Trump may be non-fictional but like Archie he is product of the media. Trump calls the media "the enemy of the people" but media is Trump's biggest friend. A true con man, Trump convinces us that the most outlandish ideas have validity. And foolishly the media underestimates Trump and calls him a fool. One of the conman's greatest gifts is to convince the other guy, the mark, that he is smarter than you.

The TV camera is Trump's real mistress, a gal more loyal than porn star Stormy Daniels and all the other female accusers. The media speak about Trump constantly, from both left and right, from Fox News to the The New York Times and Washington Post.

New Yorkers are famously abrasive. Usually that New York attitude does not play well in the flyover states. The American Heartland has affection for modest people, the "Aw shucks" attitude of a Gary Cooper, who rides into town on a white horse and takes care of problems like it was easy as pie.

Trump builds his own importance with the fever of a narcissist looking in the mirror. He loves to hear his name repeated. The Trump name resonates across the airwaves and social media with metronome regularity. The crude, colorful language

Despite all the odds against them, the two Queens products have hypnotized America to their way of thinking. Archie has bunked us and Trump has trumped us. And we like it!

Electronic World: electrocutes instantly

The social network is lately full of scandal. Scandal production rises to meet the speed of communication. Is there more scandal-- or just more reporting? Trump's adultery, Michael Cohen's payoffs, Stormy Daniels making a media splash-- has been happening since Adam and Eve or, at least, since Luci and Dezi took over the television airwaves.

So, what has changed?

Transparency. The incredible transparency that allows us to get the dirty details on everybody. Think of the big names that disappeared from the scene almost instantly-- Charlie Rose, Louis CK, Russell Simmons, Matt Lauer, Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken, Elliot Spitzer, Bill O'Reilly.  Those bights ignited, burned quickly and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

The speed of collapse has changed. Decades of stardom gone in a few days.

We learn too much sometimes--  the sexual behaviors of Dustin Hoffman, bothered me. I liked his movies... including Midnight Cowboy and The Graduate most of all. Now I have to push Dustin Hoffman's rumored sexual behaviors out of my mind when I watch those films.

Ronan Farrow turns out to be the Sherlock Holmes of our era. Ronan did what The New York Times, Washington Post, etc could not do without him-- got the #metoo movement going.

Ronan got published in The New Yorker to get those Harvey Weinstein stories out. Ronan entered the annals of American history with his reporting on Harvey Weinstein. Ronan began his public career on shaky ground He failed as a MSNBC TV personality starting at too young. But he came back as a muckraking journalist and has changed society. Maybe Ronan has a political future?

Woody Allen is Ronan Farrow's father. Ronan stuck tightly to his sister's accounts of Woody having abused her sexually as a child. We have no proof of what actually happened but does that matter? Once the rumor takes hold, publish the rumor. Suddenly Woody seems guilty in the court of public opinion. Nobody cares to hear Woody's side of the story.

Woody has a wonderful sense of humor. Now I gotta consider Ronan's sister when watching a Woody Allen film. This places Ronan's sister on equal footing with Woody Allen-- one of the great comic geniuses.

Donald Trump has eluded the rapid fire dangers of the social network. Trump has brilliantly exploited the technology to great advantage.

Interesting the Donald Trump figured out Twitter at 70 years of age. Donald showed a preternatural ability to recognize Twitter as such an effective tool. He revolutionized American politics with the Twitter method for communicating with the electorate, at least his portion of it. This has nothing to do with morality. Twitter is available to us all.

Just remember... the electronic world electrocutes instantly.

Amazon Empties Storefronts Around America

Just read todays New York Times article on the disappearance of stores around New York City. Neighborhoods are built around people living, socializing and shopping locally. New Yorkers love to chat in stores and restaurants, sharing small talk with fellow shoppers, fellow diners, waiters, employees. We all love being recognized and a neighborhood store gives you a feeling of belonging. And especially if they know your name—that’s the best!

Just like the theme song to the “Cheers” show said in the song lyrics:

Sometimes you want to go 

Where everybody knows your name, 

And they're always glad you came; 

You want to be where you can see, 

Our troubles are all the same; 

You want to be where everybody knows your name. 

The Internet, of course, has been the great disruptor. Record stores were one of the first to go. The computer geniuses invented Napster and the file-sharing applications. No need to buy CDs.  Just burn the digital files. And iTunes made it all legit. You could now buy the songs you wanted from the comfort of your home—and use iTunes in a totally secure, legal environment. But the record stores disappeared.

Next the newspapers started to disappear. Why pay for a paper copy of the news when you can read 10-15 papers from around the country and never have to pay a dime. But then the newspapers disappeared—and even the strongest among them, New York Times. Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, etc. have to struggle to keep readers and stay relevant. They all became online newspapers in the process.

Jeff Bezos, the mastermind behind Amazon, bought the Washington Post, a somewhat counter-intuitive business decision since his online company Amazon.com is the king of all disruptors of the status quo. Why did Bezos want a print newspaper? Not only that—the Washington Post has become a relentless pursuer of the liberal-point-of-view. Bezos and his newspaper have been dogged in exposing the Donald Trump shenanigans and Trump doesn’t like it. By this point in his career, Bezos could have bought Nantucket Island. Maybe he felt some guilt for the decimation of print media?

Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the three wealthiest Americans, have as much wealth as 50% of the population. These three men have a net worth equal to entire lower half of the American economy. That’s a lot of people in a country with a population of 323 million.

Bezos and Gates obviously have their vast fortunes closely tied to the rise of digital technology. The eco-system of our economy has been shaken and overwhelmed by the changes imposed by technology. Much like an environmental eco-system, our infrastructure is losing diversity at a rapid rate. Our climate is being reduced to less variety—temperatures almost always seem too warm. The flora and fauna, overwhelmed by climatic changes, and reduces its variety as we lose species. A simpler eco-system always spells disaster and we race headlong towards over-simplification of climate, environment and societal structures.

Bezos boldly expanded Amazon.com with a confidence that shocked the business world. Carpe diem. He seized the day. He virtually stole the day, and the economy along with it. Bezos realized Americans would love shopping on their computer, getting lower prices than the brick and mortar stores, and delivering groovy packages right to your doorstep..

The downside, of course, the stores are disappearing—part of the social network that existed long before the online networks. The people who acknowledged our existence at the local supermarket or bookstore—make us feel alive. If the stores disappear, the city streets lack their usual vibrancy.

Let’s call it a case of too much disruption.

Identity Quest: what the hell is happening here?

Because something is happening here...
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Ballad of a Thin Man
Highway 61 Revisited-- 1965
by: Bob Dylan

Right now it's not just Mister Jones that's feeling the heat of confusion. Madness seems to be flying around everywhere-- like pizza pies at a Papa John's kitchen on Super Bowl Sunday. How do we explain all this angst, so much sound and fury, so many Breaking News stories, wild tweets, counter-tweets and retweets. The talking heads have their hair nicely coiffed but there constant stream of words has taken on a new frantic quality, like the fabric of society is splitting faster than a fat man's pants after a 12-course meal. But the meal everybody is over-eating is the words racing across the glove: Brexit, Trump, building a wall, refugees, Muslims, hate crimes, racism, trolls, alt-right, Dems, GOP, Russian conspiracy, CIA, FBI, national debt, interest rate, student loans, Obamacare, Trump-don't-care, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, bathrooms, New York Times, Beyonce, Lady-let's-all-go-Gaga, transgender, mind bender, hacker, and the beat goes on... But something's different.

The speed has moved up a few notches. The news cycle got shorter. We used to move at 33 1/3 rpm and now we're doing more than 45 rpm. Every face is turned towards their cellphone. Maybe future humans will have gracefully flowing fingers, with tiny points, the better to hit the keys with?

In times like this we should all turn to Marshall McLuhan. An easy entry point is his Playboy interview from March 1969. Google it. UC Davis has the text of the interview in pdf format.

McLuhan, as always, explains the powerful transition from the printed word (Gutenberg technology) to the age of electronic media. Therein lies the key to the kingdom-- the kernel of truth to explain the illusion we live in today, the vortex of electrons circling the globe thanks to satellite technology.

McLuhan described Fidel Castro as a new national leader of the television era:

"For one thing, it's creating a totally new type of national leader, a man who is much more of a tribal chieftain than a politician. Castro is a good example of the new tribal chieftain who rules his country by a mass-participational TV dialog and feedback; he governs his country by camera, by giving the Cuban people the experience of being directly and intimately involved in the process of collective decision making."

Does that ability to govern by television remind you of anybody? There's a new guy in town with a similar flair for mastery of electronic media. This guy has a more recent technological device in his hand, called a cellphone, but also communicates "directly and intimately" with his audience and creates a sense of "collective decision making." Yes, that would be Donald J. Trump and his weapon of choice is a cellphone and a Twitter account-- with 20 million followers. And Trump, despite his words to the contrary, is no enemy to television. Remember, he was the candidate available for every interview with every news outlet. And then Twitter became his ace in the hole.

So, don't be surprised if you find that you're flipping your whig-- suffering an identity crisis. You feel so close to everybody...  to close... it's like you're in love but, then again, you're alienated from half the world too and hate their guts. Mr. McLuhan has a solid explanation. I'll end with an extended quote from McLuhan since Marshall says it best.

PLAYBOY: Would you describe this detribalizing process in more detail?

McLUHAN: The electronically induced technological extensions of our central nervous system, which I spoke of earlier, are immersing us in a wold-pool of information movement and are thus enabling man to incorporate within himself the whole of mankind. The aloof and dissociated role of the literate man of the Western world is succumbing to the new, intense depth participation engendered by the electronic media and bringing us back in touch with ourselves as well as one another. But the instant nature of electric-information is decentralizing-- rather than enlarging-- the family of man into a new state of multitudinous tribal existences. Particularly in countries where literate values are deeply institutionalized, this is a highly traumatic process, since the clash of the old segmented visual culture and the new integral electronic culture creates a crisis of identity, a vacuum of the self, which generates tremendous violence-- violence that is simply an identity quest, private or corporate, social or commercial.

There you have it-- read the whole interview, Mister Jones... 'cause I guarantee you're gonna like it.

High School Memories

Class of 1967

We were the class of 1967—and those last two digits, class of ’67, linger with the graduating senior well into dotage. Even in the nursing home you’re gonna remember your date of high school graduation. Graduation does not guarantte financial gain, but without the high school degree you’re nothing. May as well get it.  is a Even famous college dropouts, genius billionaires like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, and guys you wouldn’t figure to be college dropouts, like newsman Walter Cronkite—felt compelled to graduate from high school. My pals, Bruce, my Jewish buddy, Whitey, the baseball pitcher, Bone, the skinny guy who became an airline pilot, and Ronnie, the Italian, all made it through high school. We went to colleges in places like Wisconsin and Ohio, and in my case to the intellectual hothouse at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

I was popular but shy around girls. My cheerleader heartthrob,would go off to a SUNY school, short for State University of New York. And for her I pined for her the most. But I even pined for her when we were just a few feet away from eachother, attending classes together at Peninsula High. We passed notes in class. She knew some technique for drawing a goofy cartoon figure, big hands draped over a fence. She and a few of her cheerleader girlfriends referred to themselves as “the Prudes.” That sums it up. No sex with her. So that adventure had to begin, without the cheerleader, when I got off to college.

Senior year brought some magic but mostly served as a device for letting go; letting go of parents, letting go of friends, letting go of the hometown on the south shore of Long Island. American teenagers get four years to absorb a mammoth amount of hormonal and intellectual growth. Peer pressure presses down like solid steel girders resting on a wooden palette placed squarely on your chest. Of course you don’t know that at the time. The horrid question—“What do you plan to do with your life?” kicks in midway through senior year and persists for the next few decades. The simple answer—“Going to college” takes care of the next few years.

Senior year exists in a blur. Certain images of flashing intensity appear, tell their story and move on.

Whitey shows me a diagram of a baseball stadium of the future—“You see Theo, move this section of seats and the field changes from baseball to football. Everybody has a good seat.”

What the hell was Whitey talking about? I thought a stadium was just a stadium. He had ideas for cool baseball uniforms design for major league teams. I didn’t get it, didn’t see the charm. Hell, was I wrong. Yards got built in Baltimore in 1992, a full 25 years after Whitey showed me his diagrams.. His sensed for professional sports explosion. Hell, ESPN didn’t even start until 1979. Should have invested in Whitey. And yes, he is a millionaire now and sports gear is his main portfolio.

Ronnie and I shot pool in his attic almost every night of senior year. My GPA was top ten in the high school class. Ronnie was way below but smarter in realizing that high school achievement has no correlation to future success. Ronnie retired a wealthy man, at age 45, after a career as an immigration lawyer .

Ronnie and I debated a single point during those nights shooting pool in his attic: “Who’s better—the Four Tops or Bob Dylan?”

I chose Bob Dylan, me being the son of liberal, NY Times reading parents. Ronnie went for the soul music, and the Motown sound of the Four Tops. We camped out in the attic at the top of his house. He had a pool table, and a record player, or turntable. You could play 45 rpm singles and 33 1/3 rpm LP, or long playing albums. I recall the Beach Boys playing a prominent role on the playlist. We actually had surfing on Long Island, just across the Great South Bay on the Atlantic Ocean, but we were not surf practitioners. The Beach Boys great line, “two girls for every boy,” expressed in Surf City, qualifies as the most succinct expressions of male fantasy fufillment every brought to vinyl.

We never resolved Who’s better—Four Tops/Temptations or Bob Dylan? The discussion lasted all of senior year and one thing clearly resolved itself—Ronnie shoots a better game of 8-ball pool than yours truly. I still remember Ronnie looking down his stick with only a corner of his left thumb guiding the front end of his stick, his eyes focused calmly on the shot, just before he nailed it and moved around the table in the cramped attic before lining up his next shoot. Boom, he calls “8-ball, corner pocket” and another game is over. I didn’t mind losing to Ronnie, just hated the predictability of it all.

Life is Shortz (New York Times)

NY Times crossword, Tues, Nov 2, 2016

Life is Shortz, no doubt about it. Will Shortz shared some wisdom in his crossword puzzle on this day: amidst all the blockgame scenery, fake and feint foolery, word and parry parody.

The clue—Down 23--What kindness and graceful aging reveal… La respuesta, the answer … Inner beauty, sounds like the supercilious, surefire meaning to existence

Will said it best and moved on ahead most beautifiously  to Down 24—Quibbles. And the answer to Quibbles? Nit… And so goes life you move from inner beauty to nitpicking in a heartbeat, a nanosecond a blink of the eye. Cause that’s how Will rolls… the man has cojones like Yemens Lemons, he’s no slave to space and time. Well, actually he’s pretty particular about his spaces. And he likes his rhymes.

Way down upon the Swanee River, far far away. In Ancient Central America, Juliet found her Romeo amidst the Ebola, the Togoslogos and the Allosaurus. Or was that Al O’Saurus, the Irishman from Pleistocene.

Rolling Stones lack it—. Moss. A rolling stone gathers no moss, fools us does Mr. Will Shortz the harlequin, and even adds a  television reference, a “Wheel of Fortune” buy— an e. You’re a funny guy Big Willie.

Bonnie and Clyde went on a crime spree, he reminds, and Theseus slew the Minotaur on Crete. Don’t know if Bonnie and Clyde made it to Peoria but I know they never hit Lesotho. But like Sondheim said… It takes two. And that’s Across 59-- a duet. Just do it!

And Mr. Shortz does do it, roaming down and across the cosmos like an Allosaurus from pre-history to Wheel of Fortune… across the map and all over history, myth and legend. Across 61, To be, in Toulouse, that’s c’est  and with Will it’s either c’est la vie or not to be—you just never know.

Just gotta see if it fits.