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frustratedpilotHey.
Took an ill-advised shopping trip to Sevierville today. It wasn't just that the tourist crowd was jam-packed (and included Gulf Coasters fleeing the tropical storm, which came to call anyway) but the fact that I feel like nobody has what I need or want in clothes. The stores seem to cater to very very narrow demographics and culturally shut out everybody else. So I ultimately cast an abstention vote with my Dollars and got back to the house without buying anything.
Later on today, I decided that the mouse I was using--for only about two years--had gone from ridiculously sensitive do downright balky and went to Radio Shack to buy a new one. The replacement mouse is a definite improvement.
Net change, I'm naked but I'm nerdy. Well, not totally naked. Right now I'm wearing an Army surplus short-sleeved duty shirt, black Dickie trousers and Fruit of the Loom skivvies. But I feel culturally naked.
Wanna know what's weird? Used to be there wasn't a radio station anywhere that would play songs from Gwen Stefani, Ozzy Osbourne, The Clash, Stevie Wonder and Bonnie Raitt all on the same playlist. Now there are at least FOUR in this market. You'd think I'd be satisfied with an arrangement like this but strangely I don't. With formats in flux now, it's hard to tell what you'd get when you turn on the radio. It's like getting on line at a fast food joint and they change the menu every three minutes. "Sorry sir, fish sandwiches are so twenty-minutes-ago. Maybe a grilled chicken and bacon wrap instead?"
The two above problems are symptoms of the same greater cultural problem. There is a disconnect between industrial/corporate culture and the greater culture of the populace in America these days. The Baby Boomers and Generation X have so warped the comfort zones and the economy of culture that nobody can keep up. Not the media, not the fashion makers, not the salesmen.
Not much a consumer on his own can do about it. Buy from some place off the beaten path. Find somebody who'll tailor for you and want your money enough to do a good job. Try to make your own culture.
But in the meantime, the culture fumbles with trying to sort itself out. I should have realized that trouble was brewing when disco songs got old enough to count as "Good Times Oldies".
* * *
I'm rather half-heartedly following the Randy Cunningham story, even though it's on the other sides of the country. I don't agree with his politics, and those real-estate deals smell like sleaze. But the conundrum is that my mother's cousin, David Bunnell, was one of Randy's squadron mates with the Black Falcons in the Vietnam war. So I have mixed feelings about the proceedings. Randy was a hero of the war, and one of a very few at that. But now he isn't acting like one...and this is disturbing.
* * *
The neighbors are shooting off the fireworks they couldn't get to the other night. There's another national holiday in a few weeks...why couldn't they wait and save their money? Then again, I don't care to know.
FP
Took an ill-advised shopping trip to Sevierville today. It wasn't just that the tourist crowd was jam-packed (and included Gulf Coasters fleeing the tropical storm, which came to call anyway) but the fact that I feel like nobody has what I need or want in clothes. The stores seem to cater to very very narrow demographics and culturally shut out everybody else. So I ultimately cast an abstention vote with my Dollars and got back to the house without buying anything.
Later on today, I decided that the mouse I was using--for only about two years--had gone from ridiculously sensitive do downright balky and went to Radio Shack to buy a new one. The replacement mouse is a definite improvement.
Net change, I'm naked but I'm nerdy. Well, not totally naked. Right now I'm wearing an Army surplus short-sleeved duty shirt, black Dickie trousers and Fruit of the Loom skivvies. But I feel culturally naked.
Wanna know what's weird? Used to be there wasn't a radio station anywhere that would play songs from Gwen Stefani, Ozzy Osbourne, The Clash, Stevie Wonder and Bonnie Raitt all on the same playlist. Now there are at least FOUR in this market. You'd think I'd be satisfied with an arrangement like this but strangely I don't. With formats in flux now, it's hard to tell what you'd get when you turn on the radio. It's like getting on line at a fast food joint and they change the menu every three minutes. "Sorry sir, fish sandwiches are so twenty-minutes-ago. Maybe a grilled chicken and bacon wrap instead?"
The two above problems are symptoms of the same greater cultural problem. There is a disconnect between industrial/corporate culture and the greater culture of the populace in America these days. The Baby Boomers and Generation X have so warped the comfort zones and the economy of culture that nobody can keep up. Not the media, not the fashion makers, not the salesmen.
Not much a consumer on his own can do about it. Buy from some place off the beaten path. Find somebody who'll tailor for you and want your money enough to do a good job. Try to make your own culture.
But in the meantime, the culture fumbles with trying to sort itself out. I should have realized that trouble was brewing when disco songs got old enough to count as "Good Times Oldies".
* * *
I'm rather half-heartedly following the Randy Cunningham story, even though it's on the other sides of the country. I don't agree with his politics, and those real-estate deals smell like sleaze. But the conundrum is that my mother's cousin, David Bunnell, was one of Randy's squadron mates with the Black Falcons in the Vietnam war. So I have mixed feelings about the proceedings. Randy was a hero of the war, and one of a very few at that. But now he isn't acting like one...and this is disturbing.
* * *
The neighbors are shooting off the fireworks they couldn't get to the other night. There's another national holiday in a few weeks...why couldn't they wait and save their money? Then again, I don't care to know.
FP
