Phoenix Vision

Culture Shocking the Elderly

2009-01-05T00:41:00.000-05:00

I have the mouth of a truck driver. Swearing and cursing comes quite naturally to me. On the one hand, I recognize that most often, cursing is the last resort of the uncreative. You see, when desperately searching for the appropriate adjective, the uncreative person simply applies fuck in some form to emphasize his statement. “What a fucking storm!” Or, “Fuck! What a storm.” Sometime even in the middle of a word, “Un-Fucking-Believeable storm!”

But other times the curse words are necessary to construct the appropriate meaning or paint a picture of your true feelings. “The boss just blew through here on a wild shit-storm.” Or, “Hey dickwad, cut the crap or fuck off.”

And goddammit! Sometimes it just feels good to let it fly, particularly if someone is being a fucknut.

Most people learned these words from other kids, often older kids, and upon trying them out at home, found they shocked the parents who thought for sure they raised better kids than that. “Where did you hear words like that?!” The shocked parents always asked.

Growing up in my house, it was never a question. No one had to ask, where did you hear words like that? The answer was always obvious:

My Mother.

I learned every swear word and inappropriate word combination from good old mom. With her deep Brooklyn accent, I was privy to colorful language unrivaled by any elementary school kid. If it wasn’t directed at me (whaddayou got shitforbrains? You’d forget you fucking head if it wasn’t attached), then it was directed at fellow motorists on the friendly highway known as the Long Island Expressway (Jesus Christ! Could you go any slower? You fucking moron!). At 5’2” and petite, you’d never expect this woman to race up to a dump trucker, force him to pull over, and bitch him out for flying debris cracking her windshield. She’s lucky she didn’t get shot.

At the ripe old age of three I uttered my first swear words. Sitting in my car seat strapped in the back of the station wagon, I sat and listened as my mother bitched out another motorist.

“Son of bitch cut me off,” she said.

“Ma, that guy’s a fucking asshole.”

My mother was taken aback. “Michael, that’s a very bad word, you should never say that word!” She exclaimed from the front seat while flipping off someone.

Of course I was sorry and ashamed; I hadn’t realized I had done anything wrong. “I’m sorry Ma, I won’t do it again. That guy’s a fucking moron.”

I had no idea which ones were good words, and which ones were bad words. Frankly I still don’t.

Now at the age of 32, I believed that I had heard the full gamut of curse words at my mother’s disposal. At the age of 55 she’s mellowed somewhat, and the street has all but been taken out of her as they (my father and her) attained some yuppie success in the 80s and carried it right through to today. Living in their McMansion with their perfect green lawn they embody all that you’ve come to expect from the Me Generation; classic elegance, refined tastes, intellectual conversation, the whole package.

So you can imagine my surprise when surrounded by all the accoutrements of the finer life, deep in conversation about the nature of education and the pros and cons of their state public school system as compared to our state public school system, she declares,

“It’s a suck-ass system.”

I guess you can take the girl out of Brooklyn but you can’t take the Brooklyn out of the girl. It’s not the words themselves that gave me pause. I’ve heard her say some thing “sucks”, and I’ve hear her say, “Get your ass in here,” many times in the past. But this “suck-ass” was decidedly modern, hip even. Certainly not something that was said in her day.

Somehow my 55 year old, hippie turned yuppie, turned grandma (that’s right she’s got three grandchildren), somehow she’s able to keep up on modern cursing.

When I’m her age, I can only hope that I show that much dedication to keeping up with my native language.

Flex and Straighten

2009-01-05T00:36:00.004-05:00

I love and hate marketing at the same time. I love that it is the only place where a writer can use language incorrectly, spell things creatively, make up words, and ultimately say nothing or the same thing over and over with as many different words as possible.

I hate it for the same reasons, especially when I'm trying to shop for something and I have to sift through the BS to try and figure out what makes one model better than another or worth paying for at all.

Of course it's easy when you are reading marketing material for things that have nowhere left to advance and everyone knows it. Take the toothbrush for instance. There is no new technology going into the manual toothbrush, and yet their marketing would have you believe that NASA could learn a lot from Oral-B engineers. They come up with "Revolutionary MicroPulse bristles that pivot and pulse to penetrate deep between teeth."

Are they serious?

It turns out, they are just as serious about that as they are about "cross action proprietary CrissCross bristles positioned in opposite directions designed to flex and straighten."

Flex AND straighten! Well I hope so, if it didn't straighten it wouldn't make for a very good brush would it? It would be more like a tooth mop. As far as I know, toothbrushes have been flexing and straightening for more years than I've been around, and they didn't require any extra design or engineering to do it.

But that's not all, they have "powertip bristles," bristle tips cut straight or angled, long ones surrounding short ones, short ones surrounding long ones, thicker ones around thin ones, thin ones around thick ones, bristles angled forward, backward, both direction, placed in rows or circles...

And then there's head shape, like split heads, solid heads, oval, trapezoids, and squares. And finally the handle, like the non-slip universal thumb grip for exceptional control. I hadn't realized control was an issue. Is my toothbrush in danger of careening out of control while I brush? Will it crash into teeth I don't intend to brush? Or maybe it would fly out of my hand and either down my throat or onto the bathroom floor. Clearly control is something I would want. But what if I get one of your other brushes that doesn't advertise this feature?

Obviously, they are full of it. The toothbrush has seen the limit of its potential. If it was that highly engineered they wouldn't give them away at the dentist.

But then there is the opposite end of the spectrum; the variety of products that do require some level of engineering, but you can't really see it working, so they have to explain it to you. Their marketing material is just as fraught with techno babble, but unlike the toothbrush it's harder to determine the truth from the bull.

Take for instance snowboarding equipment. Are they finely engineered snow riding machines or plastic straps attached to wooden boards with wax on the bottom? My guess is the answer lies somewhere in between, but that's what makes it so hard to pin down.

When trying to choose bindings one has to ask themselves if they need "the I-Flex or X-Flex Power Straps, with locking mini-ratchet buckles and a panelized stitched strap." I-flex, x-flex, aflex, bowflex—it's a plastic strap that attaches your feet to the board! All I want to know is will it flex AND straighten.

To help you sort all this out they provide an easy to read rating system that happens to correlate with price. The lower the price, the less adjectives and made-up words you pay for. I know this because the lowest rated (4 out of 10) says you get "solid performance and incredible value without sacrificing quality". So that would suggest the quality of the $400 dollar model is just as good as the $160 model. The only difference is the amount of the blurbage.

Boots on the other hand are more complicated, with a binding you simply want to strap your foot to the board, but with a boot you want comfort and warmth, as well as convenience and durability. So, do you get that when you pay more for "high-traction rubber treads and 3D articulating tongues?"

3D articulating tongues!

How articulate is this tongue? Is it going to speak to me in my language? And if it's in 3D will I need those special glasses to understand it? Can a save a few bucks and opt for a low-traction model? What? You don't have a low-traction rubber tread? Don't they make low traction rubber?

As an overall statement of their design philosophy this company claims that "simple contour designs are focused on maximizing overall performance when utilized as a complete set," which basically means: if you're going to buy one thing, you'd better just go ahead and replace everything with their products, or else you can expect minimal overall performance.

Fearing minimal overall performance, one must then consider purchasing one of their boards, which stand to be the most engineered of all items, as they are, in fact, the only part that comes into contact with the snow. Their boards are made from "high density molecular bases with structurn-finishing on the base to lessen friction."

Last time I checked they were made of wood, and while you can find some woods that are denser than others, I'm pretty sure molecules are the only option. As for the structurn finish, everyone I know puts a coat of wax on the base, so if that high-tech friction-lessening base technology isn't actually touching the snow, how well can it work? But mostly I want to know if this board, with all its high level engineering, will in fact flex AND straighten as I negotiate the slopes.

The Utatan

2007-08-11T01:05:00.000-04:00

So I belong to this photographer's group and contributed to their annual publication. I'm actually quite proud of the work here, though as usually there are so many people better than me. In the interest of marketing it, I might post again when people get back from Pennsic, but I didn't want to wait so here it is:

The Main page:http://www.utata.org/project/utatan/

The Personal Project page is my favorite contribution because it incorporates writing with the images, some of which you may have seen before. The writing was rewritten a few times so if you caught it on Flickr, where it was developed, it may have changed since then:

http://www.utata.org/project/uppp/item/570872812/

The portfolio page, with six of what I consider my most artistic images:

http://www.utata.org/project/upportfolio/item/510433450/

The portrait page which I contributed to because I feel weakest shooting people and wanted to make an effort to improve:

http://www.utata.org/project/upportrait/item/578820405/

My contributor page which has nine more images of mine, if you get this far.

http://www.utata.org/project/utatan/pantharos/

Sunbeams

2007-08-11T01:03:00.001-04:00

Sunbeams, originally uploaded by Mike Palumbo.

Every once in a great while, the natural elements come together. For this to show up down the street from where I live, the humidity has to be high, the temperature has to be high, the rain has to have just stopped, and the sun has to have just come back out (at the proper time of day of course). AND it's only visible as you travel in one direction.

I traveled through it on my way home from work, ran into the house and got my camera and began to walk back to where I saw it. After I past where I knew it was, but didn't see it, I feared it was already gone. I turned around to go home and behold!

I started taking pictures. A couple of teenagers walking their dog came down this road toward me and asked what was I taking a picture of. I said turn around. They turned to look back up the road they just came down and their jaws dropped.

One Nation Under Clown

2007-06-19T13:36:00.000-04:00

I haven't been to a circus since I was a child. When I did, it was in Madison Square Garden, so my memory of it was that it was small, not because it wasn't grand, but simply because we were so far up in the seats. Regardless, that did not take away from the wonder and grandeur of it all. The eyes of a child make the whole world seem bigger, the circus, seen though those eyes seems even bigger by comparison.

When I took my son, we got front row seats. Despite being closer, I realized that the circus is in fact small, but not in a bad way. Movies and TV have us believing that everything intense happens up close, with flashing cuts, and moving camera perspective. The circus in comparison, happens within your scope of view, in one static shot, no cuts, and completely analog. They are regular people just like you and me making a big effort to entertain us within the confines of a quaint and time honored tradition.

Balloons for Sale

No Hands

Nothing But Hands

Juggling

Gottcha

Over Under

Strap Artist

Cookout

Take That

Elephant

Dive

Human Cannonball

Ta Da!

See the whole set on Flickr!

Shopping Baggage

2007-05-31T23:48:00.000-04:00

Shopping Baggage is the short film I produced for the first season of On the Lot.

See Lion

2007-05-23T02:11:00.001-04:00

See Lion
Originally uploaded by Mike Palumbo.

Breaking New Ground

2007-05-09T16:25:00.000-04:00

Today we installed our first Mac server, complete with a 10 terabyte RAID array. Our intention is to use it as a podcasting and blogging service for our University's community. We decided on the mac (despite being a complete Windows shop) because it had the software for podcasting and blogging built in to the OS. The hardware arrived weeks ago, and we were waiting for Leopard's release before moving forward, but the realse date got pushed back and we couldn't wait any longer.

We have a pilot project in the works, and a number of high profile ideas to garner attention and promote the service. I may have to start a regualr podcast myself to kick it off. It should be interesting as we discover the capabilities. We bought a bunch of iMacs and iPods too, which will serve as production stations. The idea is that using a microphone attachment to the iPod, you can record your audio anywhere, return to the machine, edit it, and upload the podcast. Whether it's that dumb easy remains to be seen.

If you had told me only a year ago that I'd want a Mac server, I would have said you were nuts. Times change.

Media Consumption: The New Debt

2007-04-30T15:49:00.000-04:00

I remember when we use to watch broadcast TV and go to the movies when films came out. Back then, if you missed a TV show, radio show, or movie release, you're only hope was to catch a rerun or Video Rental.

Today it's different. With the proliferation of DVRs, Tivos, podcasts, streaming video, and services like Netflix, I never have to watch anything when it comes out. If I don't have time, I can, in some way shape or form, save it for later. With all these tools at my disposal, I can aggregate all my media content to my computer or ipod. How convenient.

At first it sounds like a real benefit. If I don't have time, I can save it for later. But new episodes come out at least once a week, sometimes more. And the whole reason I couldn't see them when they came out was because I didn't have time. As they accumulate, the time I need to invest increases exponentially. It's like having a bad debt to a a loan shark, every week new episodes get stacked on like high interest, and the amount of time I need to payback gets so astronomical, I just want to pretend it isn't there.

"Hey! You owe Vito Video a helluva lot, where've you been hidin'?"

"I've just been busy, I was gonna call you, honest I was."

"You better start payin' or we'll force ya to watch horrible reality shows on broadcast TV. You won't have any choice, your only prime time choices are gonna be Dancing with the Stars, When Hobos Attack, and World's Scariest Purse Snatching Caught on Tape."

"Oh god! No! please! I'll pay! I'll pay!"

If you think I'm kidding, turn on broadcast TV these days and see what they're pitching for show ideas. It's no wonder everyone has turned to podcasts and internet delivery for their shows. But, the simple fact that I have it stored and can watch it at any time, causes me to place less priority on getting to it. It's like when I lived in NY for 17 years and never saw the Statue of Liberty. Oh I can see it whenever, there's no rush. I feel the same way about all this content I've stored up. But quite frankly, the Statue of Liberty didn't get taller or any farther away all that time I was ignoring it. The media, however, keeps piling up.

What does this mean for people of my generation and those that come after? When we retire, we won't be taking off on cruises or lavish vacations. We won't be RVing across the country to see the grand canyon or experience the variety and vastness of this country (unless we can download it). We won't be writing the great American novel, or working our way though a long list of things we always wanted to do before we die. No, instead we will be firmly plugged in with a long list of things we always wanted to watch before we die. And like a bad debt we'll work hard to catch up on our media consumption payments so we don't leave our children a debt of unwatched content.

New Site

2007-03-16T23:27:00.000-04:00

I've had this site for years, but much like a roofer neglects his own roof in favor of the roofs of paying customers, I have not had time to do much with it.

Until now.

It's not that I don't have customers, it's that my customers are not asking for nearly as much of my time.

So enter the new website. One place to house my creative resume, and other items of interest. In addition to the static content, I've integrated a blog as the home page. Let's see where it goes...