Friday, November 19, 2004 2:13 PM | Matthew Jeanes Turn off your cellphone. Yes, you, the guy in the meeting at work who is OBVIOUSLY not getting a work-related call. Hey, we all slack off and spend time at work checking email and talking on the phone to friends, but why did you even bring your phone with you into a meeting in the first place? It says to everyone "I'm paying attention to this meeting, but I'm not really so invested in it that I wouldn't get up if I got a really good personal call." You, the guy who's cell phone rings four times in the same meeting because you have not set any sort of boundaries with people who SHOULD KNOW THAT YOU ARE AT WORK, but call over and over as if to goad you into answering--turn that shit off. And you, the lady who is leading the meeting and giving a presentation. You have not only brought your cell phone to the meeting, you have placed it on the table in front of you so EVERYONE can see it when it rings. Go ahead, take the time to see who it is on the caller id and then speculate what the call might be about. At this point, your phone has already interrupted your presentation and caused us all to wait while you regroup and figure out what it is you were saying. Is it really that important to be available to anyone who calls at all hours of the day? Is it important enough to inconvenience the rest of us? And to you, lady in the movie theater who's husband is late and has obviously just planned on calling you so you could come get him and he wouldn't have to wander around in a dark theater because THE MOVIE IS ALREADY PLAYING--you should have your phone taken away and bashed into a million plastic bits in front of you. There is NO excuse for answering an audibly ringing phone in a movie theater with the movie playing just because someone doesn't know how to walk in a theater and look for you. The phone could have AT LEAST been put on vibrate, but then, why bother when you are going to talk on it in a regular voice and then get up and disturb everyone around you anyway? You people and your cell phones. Look, it's not that the cell phone is in itself an evil thing. I have one, and yes, it's useful from time to time on trips, and yes, it costs me less than a landline. I don't take it with me to work, because I've been working in offices for at least six years now and up until I got this phone, the people who needed to get in touch with me have always been able to call my office line. They still can, and they still do. They can email me too. I don't take it into movies because frankly, there's nothing world-shattering that I need to know about instantly that can't wait until a movie is over. I don't have a pregnant wife about to go into labor, I don't have parents in the ICU, I don't have a brother on the ground in Iraq going into battle... and neither do most people whose cell phones go off at any and all times. The thing is, answering or even having your phoen on in a situation like a meeting is a signal to everyone else that your life and your priorities are more important to you than everyone else's time and attention. It's an arrogance that comes from thinking that you have to be connected to anyone anywhere at any time. There are very, very few people for whom that is true. In fact, almost every call anyone has ever walked out of a meeting to take or answered in a theater has ended with "I'll call you back in a minute." Guess what-- this is the same thing that voice mail says, and everyone has voicemail. I'm tired of the self-centered people who assume that it's okay to interrupt my life with their petty calls. Show some humility and respect for your fellow man, and turn that fucker off. Better yet, tell all the wanks who keep calling you at inoportune times that they had better get another way to get in touch with you. That way, when you get up to go to the bathroom, if for some reason you haven't fastened your phone to your hip, it won't ring with some assanine ringtone jingle for five minutes until you get back. Dick. {0} Comments Tuesday, November 16, 2004 10:52 AM | Matthew Jeanes Open Letter To America Can we have a moratorium on the commodification of human suffering and humiliation. I realize that putting an end to entertainment that relies on the train-wreck factor of millions of people watching a select few be beaten down and embarrassed on television is a much bigger and more impossible goal than any of us can hope to achieve, but can't we at least have a cease fire? Isn't there a point at which we can honestly admit to ourselves that putting a few people in a box and making them feel terrible for our own enjoyment isn't healthy, fair, or decent? I don't get many TV channels, but the ones I do get are overrun with human life debasement programming like The Swan and Trading Spouses that are the kind of social experiments gone awry about which great distopian literature has been written. You know the one about the town that has to beat the little girl once a year to keep the rest of the townsfolk worry and problem free? Why do we let it happen with these shows that are just a set up to bring out the worst in people? Is it entertaining to watch a man have his entire body physically and artificially transformed into something else, to the extent that his own family hardly recognizes him? Watch even five minutes of The Swan and you see desperate young women jumping with glee "I'm going to be a Swan (TM) I'm going to be a SWAN" but then watch another five minutes where a panel of heartless 'experts' point out all the flaws and those women, and the ways in which they can be improved. Then watch until the end when the final 'reveal' pits sister against sister in a humiliating... ENOUGH! Turn it off, now. Of course, it's not enough to just turn it off. Most people reading this probably don't have it on in the first place, and if you do, for shame! But how do we reach those co-workers and acquaintences who have a regular weekly schedule of Survivor, The Swan, My Boss is A Big Asswad, and Make Me Beautiful Because I Am Worthless? How do you turn people off from that garbage that more than reinforces stereotypes but also interferes with real lives? In a country that votes for 'values' and 'moral issues', it's the same middle America that voted for Bush that keeps program that bring out the lowest forms of human indecency on the air. Where is Alanis Morissette's "Ironic" when we need it? {0} Comments Wednesday, November 03, 2004 4:00 PM | Matthew Jeanes Well, that's it then. No courts, no masses of voters being turned away at the polls, no hanging chads--the simple truth is that this country is populated by more people that believe Bush and the Republicans are the way to go. It sinks in now, that not only do I live in a place where the culture and art I like are largely disregarded by the majority of people, but even my views on issues are not shared by a majority. Is it a media war, a sham or a voting system, a restrictive and unecessarily polemic political system? Sure, it's all those things, but what really matters is that more than half of the country thinks we are going in the right direction. So the question isn't who do we blame, but how do we convince those other 60 million or so people that they are wrong about some things? How do we talk without it becoming a political diatribe about gay issues, about taxes, about retirement plans, about medicare? We don't need any more parties and politics, we need solutions. Who takes credit and who is sitting on the throne when these problems are solved is really inconsequential, as long as the problems are solved. That's enough about all this. I need to move on to my happy place. If you have a GameCube controller and want to join in on my X-Men Legends campaign, let me know. {0} Comments Tuesday, November 02, 2004 11:57 AM | Matthew Jeanes Confessions of a First Time Voter Despite all of my politically-charged ramblings on this site and despite the fact that I like to use Larvae and the videos and music to get across a somewhat social/political message from time to time, I've never actually voted before. I know that to some people that's like admitting you've never looked at another human being in a sexual way, EVER, but for me, well I have had my reasons. The political process has never engaged me. I appreciate discussion of the issues, but not within the construct of the USA's political system as such. I hate being called a liberal, or people using the word 'conservative' as a perjorative. I hate that we only ever have two real options for a presidental election, and that for local elections there is often only ONE! The debates are intentionally polaized and used to drive people apart. The campaigns are a reminder every four years that half of the people in this country disagree with you, and if you believe in what you believe strongly, it's a reminder that at least half of the country is stupid for not seeing things the way you do. Add to that a bogus electoral college and system of representation that varies in legitimacy from state to state, and the whole thing just doesn't seem that appealing. I've always felt like my civic duty was carried out in other, hopefully more meaningful ways like playing shows, giving interviews, posting here... things where my viewpoint on the issues could be expressed without the encumbering political polemics. But things were bad enough this time that I felt like I should probably at least make sure that it was on the record somewhere that I didn't vote for Junior. So I got up a little early this morning, drove by the polling center to see what the line was like and realized that it wasn't quite the clusterfuck I expected it to be at 8:45 AM so I pulled into the parking lot and got in line. I was wondering what the tone of the place would be, if it would be very formal and official like the line at the courthouse to pay a traffic ticket, or if it would be more like a line at a bank where people chat, answer their cell phones, etc. I looked around for people making that last minute statement with t-shirts or buttons or megaphones but didn't see much INSIDE the poll other than a Kerry sticker on a backpack which I guess if someone wanted to, they could have had removed. I don't know what constitutes campaigning, but I know you aren't supposed to do it IN LINE. All in all, it was kind of a neat feeling to be there with a diverse group of people, all taking some time out of their day to try and affect the course of the nation. I voted in the Little Five Points Community Center so I expected an overwhelmingly anti-Bush crowd and it probably was that, but no one really talked about the election or the candidates or voting. It was pretty quiet as people waited for their chance at the 'booth'. All in all, it took about an hour to get through the lines and up to the electronic tablet that took my votes. I breezed through the instructions and then got to the ballot (which I had previewed online the night before). I looked at the presidential section and saw the write-in space and wondered how many people took time out of their day to write in Ralph Nader. It still makes no sense to me. The line for Kerry/Edwards might just as well have been a line that read "NO CONFIDENCE IN BUSH" because that's what my vote really was. Kerry seems like an ass, and a true politician, but he isn't W. and he's the only non-W with a shot. I voted democrat for the local elections because I honestly didn't know much about the candidates other than that I was going to vote against Isackson for having an ad that claimed "anything in the hands of evil can become a weapon of mass destruction." Yeah, fuck you, stop trying to scare people. I have been amazed at home much people are saying the issue of 'homeland securtiy' is the top issue on their minds. Really? People really don't feel safe here? That seems insane to me, but I moved on. There were a couple of items on the ballot to vote for, I made what seemed like the reasonable choices, then confirmed my selections and got my sticker. Do I feel now like I've accomplished something? Not really. I still feel like the process needs to be vastly improved before it means anything. And I'd really like everyone to stop trying to ram the VOTE OR DIE mentality down people's throats. If it works to mobilize people against Junior, I guess I'm okay with it, but it seems like this giant monster of hype that sells the idea that if you vote, you've done your part. Honestly, the hour I spent this morning is only the beginning of my part and that's the only thing I'm still sure of. {0} Comments Monday, November 01, 2004 1:06 PM | Matthew Jeanes A local political ad last night was getting down on someone for letting the education system in Georgia go to shit. The candidate was talking about how 'on so-and-so's watch Georgia test scores slipped to 49th in the nation... even below Alabama.' WHAT? I mean, has there always been this rivalry between Georgia and Alabama over who can have the least crappy schools, or was this person just relying on a common preconception that education in Alabama is bad? Either way, you gotta love it when someone goes on TV and says "damn, we are even worse than ALABAMA!" {0} Comments

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