Twitter, schmitter – I’m a techno-geek who’s had enough!!

WARNING: some of the words used in this posting are not real words

I don’t know if all technology is wearing on my nerve’s or if I’m just ready for some new, realistically useful direction in technology.   As people find more and more ways to communicate with, keep up with, keep in touch with, or keep tabs on each other, the hermit in me is thinking “something is wrong here”.

I’ve tried it all:  MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, IM, ICQ, Grand Central, GPS friend locators.  I’m getting requests for friendship and people tweeting me and my phone following me around town and people knowing exactly what sidewalk square I’m standing on.  It’s like a train that’s gathering speed down a hill, going FASTER AND FASTER AND FASTER UNTIL……..CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!. Enough is enough.

I think in this life , my life, it is time to weed through all the technological bullshit and figure out what place technology has, or should have in our lives.  Just because everybody is now Twittering, does that mean I have to?  Does anybody really need to know or even care what I’m doing.  Do I care what all of the people out in Twitterland are doing.  No, I don’t.  I don’t need to comment of what Miss California said about gay marriage.  I don’t need to listen to some woman say she doesn’t give a shit about Susan Boyle (that’s another story entirely).  I saw a tweet once that said “off to buy some Jello”.  What??  I’m fairly confident that the inventors of Twitter had something more meaninful in mind but who knows for sure.

We’ve all become so addicted to it all.  My niece stopped by my office the other day and she was asking me about Twitter. She comes from the computer generation so she knows all about networking on her computer.  But with Twitter she said “I’m not sure I understand it, but everybody else is doing it and I don’t want to feel left out”.   That’s sad. 

And how awful is it when you meet somebody new and they assume they can just find you on Facebook if they want to know more about you.  “Hi, nice to meet you.  Are you on Facebook?  Here (handing me their cell phone) put your Facebook address in here.  Okay, gotta run, Ta”.  What happened to conversation.  While I am no fan of small talk, I do quite enjoy actual conversation, you know, exchanging ideas with another human being face to face.

I realized that even though I am on the low end in terms of on line networking, I am overexposed.  I found an article on PC Magazine’s web site on how to literally remove your identity from some of these on-line services like Facebook, Myspace, AIM, and even a plain old Yahoo mail account.  And so I began my quest to un-identify myself.  With the exception of this blog, my High Definition TV blog, and a few other rare exceptions, I don’t exist anymore on the interwebs.  I am deconstructing my Internet life down to the bare essentials.  And from now on, when somebody asks me what Twitter is or how to tweet, I’m simply going to say “I don’t know”.

Next on my agenda – how to become un-addicted to my Blackberry – that’s going to be a tough one.  I’d like to go back to a rotary telephone with no answering machine, like the old days.  If I’m not home, try me again later.  If it’s that important, call my mother; she’ll probably know where I am because she makes me tell her.  Ah….childhood.  Things were so much simpler then.

“America’s got (to get) Talent”

The American TV show called “America’s got Talent” is a knock off of the original British hit show “Britain’s got Talent”.  While I’m not a huge Simon Cowell fan, he is a judge and producer on “Britain’s got Talent”, and he is much kinder on the British version of “Talent” than he is on “American Idol”.  With BGT and Idol are both in production and live right now, Simon Cowell is flying back and forth from LA to London. BGT is on Sunday night’s in the UK, and Idol is on Tuesday and Wednesday here in the U.S.

That’s just some backgroun.  I really don’t think Simon is the rude and arrogant prick that he pretends to be.  Instead I think he’s smart about singing talent and knows what he’s talking about. 

The real problem, however, is that America and the UK, however similar, are nothing alike when it comes to the arts.  And I truly wish that American’s would educate themselves a bit and learn how to recognize true talent.

On BGT last year, it was Paul Potts who surprised the world when he sang “Nessun Dorma”.  What the HELL is that? you might say.  Let me move one.  This year on BGT so far, it has been Susan Boyle singing “I Dreamed a Dream”.  What the HELL is that? you might say.  I’ll got on once more.  And my final example on BGT is Andrew Johnson, a 13 year old boy who sang Pie Jesu.  Yeah, I know.  What the HELL is that?

And therin lies the problem with Americans.  I would venture to guess that 90% of us could not explain all three of the songs above.

First, Nessun Dorma is from an Opera (thereby accounting for the dismissal of 95% of America right there) called “Turandot” by a composer named Puccini.  It is one of the most famous songs every recorded and has been recorded by literally hundred of singers.  Second is “I dreamed a dream”.  Some may recognize it, barely.  But how many Americans know that it is from “Les Miserbles”, the 1980 muscial based on Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel about the French Revolution.  Again, “I dreamed” is one of the most famous and recorded songs in the world, but not in America.  And finally “Pie Jesu”; admittedly less well known.  It is from Andrew Lloyd Weber’s “Requiem” and made famous by Sarah Brightman (did I just stump you American’s again).

So here we have three of the most famous songs every recorded and they don’t fall into the Pop, Rock, R&B, or Country genres so nobody here in America knows what the hell they are.  And that’s why we get stuck with people like Rubben Studdard and Taylor Hicks who win “American Idol”.

In Britain it is know uncommon for songs from shows in the West End (comparable to our Broadway) to be hit songs on the radio as they are released.  In other words when Les Miserables played in the West End in 1980, the song “I dreamed a dream” was a hit on the radio, the top 40, because the cast album was recorded and that song was released as a single.  Even in America up to and incuding the 1960’s, pop music on the radio came from Broadway.  That is how people like Barbra Streisand got her start. It was Broadway to the Tonight Show or Ed Sullivan, and then BOOM, catapulted into stardom.

Another thing happened that was quite telling.  If any of you say the clip of Susan Boyle singing “I dreamed a dreamed” there were a few minutes when Simon Cowell was talking to her before she sang.  He asked her who should wanted to be as famous as and she said “Well, Elaine Paige, of course”.  I could hear the American collective eye brows raise and their head cocking to one side thinking “who the hell is Elaine Paige?”.  In the UK and in many other part of the world, Elaine Paige is one of the most well-knows singers there is.  She was the first at everything.  The first Evita, the first Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard”, she was the first to star in a musical playing the life of Edith Piaf.  She is truly one of the world’s great talents.  And Susan Boyle want to be as famous as Elaine Page is.  Unfortunatley, Susan probably doesn’t realize that America doesn’t know who Elaine Paige is.  I dare you to find an album of hers in any music store, online or otherwise.  I have two of her albums; but I bought them in 2000 when I went to London for a quick long weekend.

I guess my point is is that I envy Britain.  Not only do they have talent that spans the great divides of culture and genre but they truly appreciate it; all of it.  I someone where to audition on “American Idol” with Pie Jesu, or perform on a must win week a rendition of “I dreamed a dream”, they would be the laughing stock and would probably get voted off.  My fellow American’s I think it is time to open your minds and hearts and ears and listen to real talent.  The funny thing is that if you truly want to grade or compare talent, have a group of individual singers each try and sing “I dreamed a dream” and at the end, you’ll know which one is the winner, no questions asked.

Mika Brzezinski enraged at the sight of McDonald’s food

If you caught Morning Joe on MSNBC this morning you would have seen an absolute mad woman bear her fangs and foam at the mouth because there were food items from McDonalds in the studio.  This half-whit, blond ambition whose only job is to read the days top stories in extreme brevity from a teleprompter was literally trying to pull the food out of Joe Scarborough’s mouth as she screeched “DON’T EAT THAT”!!!!   That food is awful. It’s just, it’s just, it has no nutritional value, it’s all carbs and fat, if you squeezed that, the fat would drip out.  That food is the reason there’s an obesity problem in this country”

Well somebody must have squeezed Ms. Brzezinski’s head and all of her brains dripped out.  She sounded like a complete and utter idiot.  She was acting like a spoiled child who was offended by the crusts not being cut off her white bread sandwich as she whined “It’s too hard to eat with the crust on it and there’s not nurtritinal value”

Mika, shut the hell up.  I don’t know what little world you live in but contrary to popular belief, not everyone in America eats McDonalds every day.  But there are those days when only McDonalds will do.  Whether because of time constraints, or the need for comfort food, eating McDonalds is not the end of the world.  If you want to make a statement, keep it to yourself.  If you don’t want to eat fast food, then don’t.  If you don’t want you kids to eat it, then don’t give it to them.  But don’t sit there and attempt to pull food OUT OF SOMEBODY ELSE’S MOUTH simply because you don’t agree with the choices they make.

Should I rip the bottle of hair bleach from your hand because I think the color is too brassy for you?  And all that bleach can’t be good for you.  Should I turn the channel when you are on simply because all you do on Morning Joe is nod your head and give Joe Scarborough puppy dog eyes and offer no real value?  All that ass-kissing can’t be good for your career.

What a world you must live in to feel you can judge people right down to the last molecule of what they put in their mouth, and then time after time when asked your opinion or asked to stand up for your opinion you simply utter “never mind”, and then roll your eyes as if you are superior.  You’re not superior, Mika, if you can’t articulate an opposing viewpoint, or any viewpoint, on current events.  And you can’t make up for that by crawling inside Scarborough’s mouth to remove the offensive calories and then clean his teeth on the way out so there is no residue left for him to enjoy.