My Personal Odyssey

No, don't run away yet. It won't be all that personal. I'm going to make it impersonal. I promise. My impersonal odyssey. How's that?

Thought you might like that better. Here goes:

1. Spectator Sports.
2. Music.
3. Recreational Reading.

In the past two years these constants in my life have been largely discarded. For years I have followed sporting events, usually in an extremely dispassionate manner. That is to say, I don't usually care emotionally, who wins or loses but I always cared intellectually.

I am a born prognosticator. I am a compulsive prognosticator. We have seen personality tests that measure perception vs. judgment but I have never seen a personality test that measures one's inclination to prognosticate vs. whatever mysterious mental functions are performed by my fellow humans as they observe the world.

Being the compulsive prognosticator I will sometimes watch TV shows that I do not enjoy as pure entertainment. I want to grok the show's essence and its time slot and predict its ultimate fate. I have done the same thing with movies, new consumer products and of course, automobiles. I have low mechanical aptitude but I can yamber on about the unexpected success of the CRV, the rise of the Taurus and the minivan because of my prognosistic inclination.

To feed my compulsion I used to set my TV to whatever sporting event happened to be on. I would then view the TV passively but jumping into the middle or ending of a sporting event is not the same as jumping into the middle of a TV show or movie. I know people who do that and they will forever be fingernails on the chalkboard of my sensibilities. (Yes, there is that part of me that silently screams "Go back! Go back to the beginning. Rent the movie if you have to! You are not respecting the movie!" Whistles blare and flags fly. Why can't people observe film viewer kosher? Stupid mortals!)

I would do whatever else needed to be done (email, etc.) and check in on the TV from time to time. If the event gotinteresting I might sit on the couch and watch for a while. When they went to commercial, I usually clicked to another sporting event (I do like cable) and clicked back and forth to the more interesting event.

In 2008 I found myself clicking to a news station during commercials or injuries and not returning to the sporting event. I might even jump to C-Span. C-Span for crying out loud. What the hell happened to me?

What happened was the election of 2008. I am still confused as to how a mysterious man with an unimpressive resume and anti-American, anti-freedom, pro-elitist tendencies could swoop in from the backstreets of Chicago and claim the presidency. I am seeking answers.

And yes, it bears repeating and reemphasizing the hows and whys of this unique election. Yes I am snide and disdainful of people who have idolized and ugh, even deified an empty suit. Yes I am. But I also dumbfounded. Part of me strives to understand the mental processes, such as they are, of the Obama follower.

I mentioned that I am a prognosticator but I did not say I was a political prognosticator. That is bacause I have a political tin ear. Politics is still a mystery to me. But over the years, I have made strides in developing a rudimentary understanding of electoral politics. 2008 made me reevaluate those strides.

Why would throngs of Germans turn out to adore a foreigner about whom they know nothing? Why would an empty suit whose only perceptible talent is reading a telepromter be celebrated the world over? Why would otherwise smart Americans put on mental blinders to support a candidate who was at best, clueless and at worst, destructive? I wish I could make sense of it.

Part of me, the bigger part of my judgment, simply dismisses the Obots as Obots. The stupidification of America, the world, and all that. But there is that frustrated focus group leader who wants answers.

My life used to have a soundtrack. I commute for at least ten hours a week. Three years ago, a lot of those hours would have been filled with music. No more. I jump from talk radio station to talk radio station to talk radio station. It can sometimes be as bad as it might sound. It is not usually edifying or entertaining or enchanting. But there are tidbits on talk radio that keep me coming back. The interviews with obscure web masters, not famous bloggers and the scouring of news that was somehow "overlooked" by the mainstream media.

As well as the long commutes, I used to spend hours on Youtube and elsewhere enjoying music videos. There is so much underground talent out there unfiltered by the marketing pros. I listened to literally dozens of versions of "Funiculì, Funiculà." I listened and watched hours of mish mashes, ukulele covers of pop songs, bootleg video, as well as music that I once loved in its original form.

Even when I did not perform a full frontal lobe assault on Youtube, I usually played music in the background as I read my email or performed other housekeeping activities. No more. As enjoyable as it once was, it now seems frivolous. The tunes cannot compete with the alarms going off in my head. My attention is fully directed to "overlooked" news. Music can indeed calm the savage beast. We don't need lullabys right now. We need to be snapped out of our slumber.

I used to read for recreation. That stopped in Spring of 2008. It has a lot to do with my 50+ hour work week, long commutes, the launching of new ventures and chronic domestic instability. But another factor is the brain washers in the room. I have a hard time concentrating/escaping from the day to day. One could argue that I have grown paranoid. They might be right.

Every day I assess the validity of my paranoia and every day I arrive at the same conclusion: Paranoia is justified on a few grounds. 1.) The United States has never faced a more power-hungry Administration than this one. There is not a single industry they do not want to control (their preferred term is regulate.) They bury the takeover of the student loan industry in the health care bill. While the dupes are watching this hand...

2.) We have never seen deception on a scale that we now see it. Yes, deception is part of politics and part of life. But we have never seen an administration with secret czars and advisors who skirt the vetting process. We have never elected a more msyterious man to the highest office in the land. And yes, it is significant that he has a social security number that would ordinarily be granted to a Connecticut native and he has never resided in that state.

The duplicity is unending with this administration. Congress passes 3,000 page bills that are too large for even our elected officials to read. Worse yet, WE CANNOT EVEN FIND OUT WHO WRITES THESE OVERSIZED BILLS!!! There was deceptive campaign financing on Obama's part and on and on and on. We have never witnessed anything like this band of thugs.

3.) Media docility. Need I elaborate?

4.) Citizen docility. You hate Bush. Gotcha. You hate Palin. Gotcha. You hate Republicans. Gotcha. You hate the Tea Party. Gotcha. But put down the delicious Kool-Aid for five minutes and take a long look at the cult leader to whom you have pledged your unwavering loyalty. Take a look at the man behind the curtain and his merry band of thugs. Take a long look!

My world view has changed. We thought that mind control would arrive with Orwellian brutality or Huxley's soma. What arrived was a mind control that is much more subtle and much more sophisticated. It is hard to grasp and harder to define. Mostly, it is mind control based on style and image and pretense and deception. Madison Avenue's greatest triumph.

Vigilance comes with a price. Someday I suppose I will "get a life." For now, I am proudly paranoid. I have changed. Change I can believe in.