BEHOLD THE NEW MEDIA MAN!

Behold -- the new 21st C Media Man!

Media man (and woman) was born in the 20th C with the advent of radio, film and television. For millions of years largely singular and isolated, now the human species had 24/7 access to sounds and images from around the world. What had once taken months or days to hear about or to see for yourself, now poured across our sensorium in great gluts of music, entertainment, news and propaganda. We became destined to never be alone again.

What distinguished this Niagara of media in the 20th C was its uniformity. Audiences heard and saw the same things at the same time. And so, when Jack Benny told a joke or when Orson Wells reported the invasion of Martians or when Marilyn Monroe's skirt blew open, it was a universally shared experience.

For better or worse, that era has now come to a crashing Internet end...!

Here in the 21st C, almost everyone carries the whole world around with them on their desk or in the palm of their hand. To be accessed whenever, wherever and however we wish. There is little that is uniform now about what we experience, because now we choose what we will experience, where in our privacy we will do so, and when we find it convenient for our whims and schedules.

The thoughtless will report this as simply a matter of supreme technological convenience. The thoughtful will ponder some of its unintended consequences. Taken collectively -- this freedom of choice coupled with this gluttony of choices -- new Media Man exists inside his own private bubble of life. As secure as any president surrounded by legions of Secret Service, Media Man is now king of all he surveys. With a wave of his sceptered keypad, he can call up or dismiss virtually anything in his vast domain. An update from Bombay, a theatre in London, a game in San Francisco, a congressional hearing in Washington, a protest website, a conspiracy theory rant -- all is now at his digitalized fingertips.

Perhaps this description of Media Man sounds a little like God. Well, yes, it does. And thus what is meant by "unintended consequences." Exactly how ready is any of us to be God...?

CAN WE BE OVER-TRAINED? HELL YES!

WATCHING DOGS TRAIN OWNERS

Movies and television documentaries are interested lately in featuring pets. Especially dogs, for after all, aren't dogs among the cheeriest and chummiest of species with whom we can find enduring love and affection? Now while I agree -- some of the puppies I've known had faces and personalities nicer than most people I've met! -- I've noticed something else about them.

As we enjoy watching the many dog-whisperers and dog-contests, it seems increasingly apparent to this canine-loving observer that it is the dogs not the owners who are running things. Oh sure, they wag their tails and turn their faces up to us eagerly, but I ask myself: Exactly what are they thinking right this moment?

I'll tell you what....! Evolutionary biologists have convinced this puppy-aficiando that what those wiggly Scotties and waggly Golden Retrievers are actually thinking is: "OK, so I wiggle and waggle a little for them. But, damn, this is a lot better than my wild-dog ancestors had to deal with. They struggled to stay alive; now my owner struggles to keep me alive. So what's a few silly tricks and chased-sticks cost me...?"

So there's the great Canine Conspiracy Secret. I don't know about you, yet in my case, it doesn't make any difference. I love them just the same. Maybe even more, because they're smarter than me, but never say it to my face!

WATCHING LAWYERS TRAIN CEO's

What would be your worst nightmare...? Walking outdoors without your pants or skirt? Tripping on the stage as you go up to receive that award? Waking up with someone you never met before? Well, for many of us it would be sitting in a Congressional hearing with the world's cameras on you.

To be called is already a nightmare, because they're investigating something about you. And there's probably not a soul in all the world that hasn't got a few closet skeletons to fear. But when you're a fat-cat CEO from Detroit or an even fatter-cat CEO from Wall Street, now that's big time trouble. So big, you go to your big time lawyers to get some advice. What to say, what not to say, when to smile, when not to smile, plus a dozen other things like where to keep your hands, and how to make your Nixon-blinking eyes not blink.

The point...?

Simply this. Not one in 50 such big time executives have faced Congress as an honest-to-gosh, three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood human being with feelings and families and worries like everyone else. The result -- if you ever watch these hearings -- is preening Senators vs inanimate witnesses who have been so lawyered-up, they look guilty as sin immediately after the very first over-rehearsed answer!

Is there still room for the Jimmy Stewart kind of American who "went to Washington?" Question asked & answered...!

A TRINITY OF FRIENDS

OUR FRIEND 'PEANUTS' GETS ADOPTED

After more than 50 years of playful freedom, Peanuts has been scooped up and adopted by strangers. And no one even asked him...!

The rights to the iconic little guy -- and his flock of friends like Linus and Lucy -- have been sold for $175 million. This doesn't mean we won't get to visit, but now visiting rights come under a new name. Which is a little sad, for it's something like when your family moved to a new city and never asked you.

Some famous comic characters such as Blondie and Dick Tracy have been given a second life under the pens of new artists. Peanuts's father, Charles Schulz, is no longer with us. So fans will have to satisfy themselves with re-runs. But, then, when the originals are so great, there's no problem. Fans still love re-runs of everything from Gone With the Wind to The Godfather to The Way Were.

Oh, and other great re-runs like Hamlet, The Marriage of Figaro. and the Bible. I bet when Peanuts grows up, he'll enjoy such re-runs too...

EVERYONE HAS MEMORY-FRIENDS

Soothsayers and scientists have studied our dream zones for centuries. But few seem to bother with what happens in our twilight zones. Those momentary times when wisps of long-ago memories and faces and conversations flutter across the screens of our mind, only to get swallowed up in the events of the moment.

Think about it. Isn't there a suite of memory-friends inhabiting your twilight zones year after year? The little blond girl in fourth grade who blew you your first kiss after she read your Valentine card...the campus jock in high school who stared down the team's laughter when you tumbled all over yourself trying for that fly ball....the boss at the ad agency who bought you that celebratory cup of coffee the morning your idea was first used...and all the hundreds of other friends and strangers alike, whose smile or nod came at just the right scene in your play.

The funny thing about memory-friends is they rarely ever know about these friendships. They just happened to be crossing the stage of your life as bit players whose unrehearsed moments have become forever enshrined in the cathedral of your soul.


THE FRIENDS YOU EAT WITH

Like they say -- some of us eat to live, others live to eat.

Count me in the latter legions. A robust Italian heritage will do that to you. But if you're Italian, eating is not a real celebration until you're celebrating it with the ones you like or (better yet) love. And so it is that this second-generation Italian celebrates best when eating best with best family & friends.

Something extraordinary happens when the antipastos, salads, pastas and wines are loudly shared at table. Not only does it happen right down to the bottom of your tummy, but right up to the top of your theology.

Bono appetit.

A LONELY VOICE OUT HERE

It's true. In Chicago there are only two seasons -- winter & construction!

I was trapped in another of those jack-hammer projects backing up the street for blocks. Bare-bellied city crews, barking foremen, thumping machines all keeping us from our appointed rounds. Maddening. And yet, maybe metaphoric.

Aren't most of our country's problems something like this? We have a goal, we have a route, and we have an inkling of what it all means for us. Then, quite abruptly and not at all according to our schedule, something goes wrong along the way. Unexpected and very unwelcomed. Including examples like our banking system...our auto industry ...our investment houses...our school grades and trade balances and whole damn health system.

Here I was, metaphorically speaking, today's bright and hopeful America on-the-road, but suddenly going no- where. Something is wrong up ahead. I can't see it. I can't understand it. And I certainly can't do anything about it.

This is where, in my metaphor, my government steps into the scene. I need them here, in the form of these city-paid crews and city-paid machines and city-funded budgets. None of us is complaining about the city at this point, because at this point only the city has the capacity to wrestle such problems into submission.

Later in my metaphor, I'm happily driving past the repaired site. Wondering how many of my fellow drivers will be watching the news tonight, and cursing the city government. Actually, any government agency they can think of to curse, because they're hearing about something or someone there to curse.

The news is grimly reporting everything that went wrong today. In the White House, in the Congress, in the Gulf of Mexico, along the borders of Arizona, and in City Hall. But it's not likely to report what went right there along Cicero Avenue this morning where some imperfect city works imperfectly helped repair an imperfect sewer line imperfectly paid for with our perfectly unfair taxes...!

THE IN's & OUT's OF A LIVED LIFE

It all depends in which of Shakespeare's seven stages of life a person finds themself. Personally, I have only one in-door and only one out-door sport left. Neither is especially grand, and only one is possibly gratifying.

Inside, I find myself scouting the television & celebrity magazines which come to us by some computer glitch in paparazzi headquarters. Over morning coffee I have taken up the sport of scoring their pagan pages for how many items I can still identify. To date: Only 7% of the celebrities (I actually lost track after Marilyn & Elvis),...16% of the breasts (I lost track after my prostate surgery)....34% of the abs (I never any to work from in the first place) ...and a proud 0% of the trysts they relentlessly report.

Pathetic, I know!

But fortunately, there's also my outdoor sport: Nature. Always something majestic about clear blue skies, bulging orange suns, the fragrance of fresh-mowed lawns, the muscular challenge of some out-of-reach goal. I clearly remember such from my salad days in summer camps and at beach resorts. From hard-breathing moments reaching a cliff top or surviving another white-water wave. Outdoor exhilarations like these grab hold tight of your heartbeat, never ever to release you from their power.

And so it is I re-experience these same thunderous moments every morning I paddle out in slippers & robe for my morning newspaper. Usually scattered windily across our front lawn. You see -- the kid purposely scatters it like this, because he knows the old boy. And he knows how I still love outdoor adventure...

A STORY ABOUT TIME

Science has been talking about this for centuries -- an actual time-machine. Serious breakthroughs are being made in its pursuit. But while the experts in the labs crunch the numbers and bend the light waves, the rest of us out here can take time-trips whenever we choose to ignite the booster-rockets of our brains.

Such travels call for precise navigation. We need to understand the times and the characters waiting for us. Among our prospects might be ancient Egypt to discover for ourselves what was that aura about Cleopatra that entranced an emperor and altered an empire....or perhaps the empty tomb of Jesus of Nazareth to experience what was this astonishing belief that a man could raise from the dead....or possibly the tavern next to Ford's Theatre that fateful night when John Wilkes Booth gulped his final drink to steady his trembling hand.

Each of us will have our own particular itinerary. And our own particular hopes of how we might alter the plots. I see myself arriving at the port of New Orleans in the year 1899. There just outside the harbor on a gray September morning rests the good ship Marseilles out of Palermo, Sicily. Among the eager passengers are eight from the little hill town of Corleone. Among these, my 3-year-old Father Vincenzio. The Spatafora family of farmers are hoping to land, then quickly migrate north to Chicago where cousins await them.

It was not to be....!

As any time-traveler learns, you can visit the past; but you cannot change the past. What is waiting for these passengers is a vile but invisible enemy: Another Yellow Fever epidemic. Still a generation before a cure, this ancient delta disease is once more ravaging the city. The port authorities order the vessel not to dock. The captain has two equally disagreeable options: Return to Sicily or land anywhere a coastal port will permit them.

Here I sit at the controls of my time-machine without any control over these frightened immigrants. One, a small scared boy who will someday become a man, a husband, a father. But where? when? how? and with whom? If he is now turned back to Sicily, there will be no chance to meet my Mother living in Chicago, or to have me, or for my little life to affect all the other little lives that wait just up ahead for my possibility.

My machine's control proves worthless...! My science friends are wasting their time...! But wait, the little port of Pensacola signals the wandering Marseilles it's OK to land there. Thank God, all will be as it was meant to be.

However, not at my hands nor at my controls. Both of these are to be found elsewhere...

DEBATE OVER -- SEX LOSES!

The hand-wringing over what's worse in our media, sex-or-violence, has really never been worthy of the name. There is no debate. The facts have been in for years. Ever since WWII, sex may come sooner in the plots, but it's the smash-mouth scenes of violence which have continued to soar. Smarmy bedroom action loses out 5-to-1 to gunfire, car crashes, fireballs, crushed faces and tortured bodies.

Good news or bad...? That's like asking are kids better gorging on writhing or on exploding bodies...? Norman Mailer once said, "There are only two things worth writing about: Sex and death." I've yet to find even Dante or Hemingway writing any paeans to the worth of raw violence.

However, Hollywood and television have! And do! In addition to the estimated 1400 acts of violence on television every week, movies have become an altar of indulgence to the gods of pain. Each director outfoxing the other in how ingeniously they can destroy human life in malevolent splendor. Purposeless gore may have had its brutish birth with "Clockwork Orange" in 1971, but the fiend-child has matured with the likes of "Rambo," "Pulp Fiction," "Natural Born Killers," "Gladiator," anything by Quentin Tarantino, and now the release of "Kick-Ass."

No one has yet been able conclusively to prove this relentless diet of media gore directly causes our splurge of street gore. And yet, San Diego State University psychologist Jean Wenge reports to Discovery News the "narcissism/self-centeredness levels" of students have surged from 18% to 34% in just the last 15 years.

Is there some connection here? While Self has always been hard-wired into our evolutionary gene pools, there actually have been times in our history when Other counted even more. When violence for violence's sake actually made far less sense than violence for the sake of a cause. Far instance, our wars. Against king, slavery, corruption, liquor, poverty, cancer, Hitler. Each tended to call upon the best in ourselves for the sake of others.

I think of this as I see milling crowds outside movie theatres featuring violence for its own sake. And I imagine the enormous body of potential human energy that hides just inside these crowds. If only someone or something might call their better angels to nobler actions. Actually, such calls are often being made; just not always being heard...