After a brief interlude for the hapless attempt at a holiday we know as St. Patrick’s Day (For more on the calamity of St. Patrick’s Day, see my previous post, “A Brief Interlude from the Mast for Irish Day”.), I lash myself right back to the mast to continue this voyage of the damned we all share. We all knew it would be a toxic ride, so, go ahead and choose your mode of tranquilizing yourself; grab a beer, take a shot of bourbon, snort a line or two of crank-although these days cranks is no longer the recreational drug it was. So much stuff is getting dusted with fentanyl, a real game changer, so stay away from hard stuff. Handle your high, as Kevin Smith used to say.
My closing to this three-part post just wants to give people reassurance that all is impermanent, and if you feel this is just a bullshit, Buddhist saying, then you won’t get what I’m relying on as my saving Grace to the current state of our Union. If you don’t like what is currently going on, give it time. Time—and the pressure building within ten thousand people—will eventually erupt, producing a wild solution no sane or moral person would dare attempt. Just as King George’s tyranny pushed American revolutionists to the brink, today’s political climate seems poised to ignite a similar fury.
It seems no truer statement has been made than ‘united we stand, divided we fall.’ If we can’t find common ground as a nation, there will be no nation left to unite. So, as we all remain strapped to the mast, enduring the storm together, we must ask ourselves: what will I do?
I decided to take a brief break to mull over how I want to attack my observation on our current dilemma, strapped to the mast, waiting for the political madness to end. It never really ends, folks, it just goes in cycles of bad, not so bad, and death wish. I’ve become intrigued with comparing our current political quagmire to the failed campaign the Dems ran against Richard Nixon back in ’72. That was another case where the Democrats put up a weak opponent, had no real direction (other than beat the opponent), a failed managerial project they couldn’t seem to get to work for them.
I began walking down the street to gather my analysis and comparison of the two elections when it hit me; today was the St. Patrick’s Day celebration in my little burg, something they planned to hold two days before the actual holiday to cash in on that weekend money from people wanting to get out for the weekend, too busy throughout the week to do any serious binge drinking of ill tasting colored beer.
Clouds were rolling overhead, which meant it would probably become a rainy event. The last St. Paddy’s Day event I went out to experience was rain soaked and so were a few more. Cold temps and rain and gray skies seem to be almost traditional here in Circle-town. I closed in on the crowd ahead and my ears picked up on the wailing banshee cry of multiple bagpipes. Small display tents were ahead with trinkets to sell and food and drink to imbibe. Meanwhile, Congress battles itself to ensure nothing constructive gets done on the floor of the Capitol today. No, they want to go drink their silly green mixtures as well.
Just ahead, the crowd began scoping out any vacant spot to park themselves before the real rain hit. As I scanned the crowd, there he was—right in front of me—my least favorite television meteorologist, Brian Wilcox. Brian Wilcox, the fly in my ointment; a local weatherman who makes me change the channel the moment his mug pops up on the Telly. The man rambles on endlessly about obscure Indiana weather trivia, the kind that the majority of viewers couldn’t give a fuck about. All the while, he shuffles forward toward the camera, only to shuffle right back to his original spot. And there he was now, big as life: Brian Back-and-forth. My self-created nemesis.
As I got closer to him, I caught the conversation about his next stop. He was rattling off the names of local bars to his remote crew—bars known locally for celebrating St. Paddy’s Day. It seemed most places in town were eager to cash in on that sweet weekend money rather than wait for Monday, the actual holiday. Because let’s face it, nobody’s spending serious cash to get tanked on a Monday. Weekend drinking offers the added luxury of a recovery day—or two, if the celebration lands on a Saturday and you’re not a churchgoer. No, anyone stumbling out on Monday to drink is, most likely, an alcoholic.
Brian turned and began to acknowledge me, which threw me into a panic. All the days I’d wasted, raving to my wife about how I wanted to meet this guy just once—to give him a piece of my mind… or maybe my foot in his ass. My mind quickly corrected, steering me away from desecrating the man’s spirit. That would only make me feel bad afterward. I have this tendency to feel empathy for those I’ve just accosted; I wanted something more karmic, something that felt relevant to me—something that would truly scratch my emotional itch with him. I’m sure he’s a nice guy in person, but his on-air presence makes me vulgar and irritated.
It hit me, in a weed-induced state, and I knew exactly what I had to do. He stood there, staring at me, probably trying to figure out if I was a fanboy or some delusional assassin hellbent on eradicating all Weather people. Slowly, I raised my hand like Donald Sutherland in the finale of Invasion of the Body Snatchers—and began pacing toward Brian, then back again, holding the haunting finger at eye level. Back and forth. Back and forth, just like his damn weather program.
Brian stood there, staring at me, trying to decipher my strange behavior. I left him like that. I was eager to weave my way through the crowd and head back home as the rain began to steadily increase. On the walk back, I smiled to myself, indulging in the privilege of feeling like I had somehow won—even though I hadn’t really won anything. It was my delusional interpretation of the event that, while leaving me happy, meant nothing to the rest of the world. Mr. Wilcox continued his life, unscathed—emotionally and physically—and I felt the justice I sought had been achieved by thinking, rather than reacting. That’s exactly what both sides of our political nightmare need to do right now: think before reacting. Think, before you react, people. Think before you react, Senators and Representatives. Think, before you react, Mr. Musk. Think, before you react, Mr. President.
I’m referencing a sermon I delivered here, from the pulpit of The Church, in which I encouraged everyone to hold steady and weather the storm ahead. I assured you, much like Ulysses who had himself strapped to the mast of his ship while navigating the treacherous waters where sirens lured sailors toward destruction on the cliffs, that steadfastness would guide us through the discourse. That warning I made was back before Don Trump got elected the first time. Who would have fucking guessed this is the way things would end up—still hugging that mast, still hoping to see those clear skies ahead.
Well, here he is—the Crimson King, elected once again, with only a slight hiccup between terms thanks to the doddering, aged champion the Democrats threw into the ring: Joe-boy Biden. Joe had to bow out, becoming an embarrassment to the Party—a problem that hit its peak during his first debate with Trump. Joe stood there with that thousand-mile stare as Trump took control of the entire debate and ran with it. He slammed Biden with exaggerated numbers on the economy, popularity, and everything else, while poor Joe-boy just stood there, looking like Marvis Frazier when he fought Mike Tyson—punched out of his mind, numb, and completely lost in the flow of a debate with the Master of Disaster, the Crimson King.
Nancy Pelosi and her gang of weak-willed henchmen in Congress finally convinced Biden, at the eleventh hour, to step out of the race. The Democrats had waited far too long to address the embarrassment he had become to the party. They fought tooth and nail to prop him up, praising his national and global achievements, but the modern, glossy polishing of an old turd spokesman just wasn’t cutting it for the Dems.
So Joe finally agreed to bow out, and we the people handed him his version of a gold watch—letting him pardon a bunch of crooks, take a goodwill trip to Africa, and then fade into the background to sip drinks or do coke, or whatever the hell he wanted. The Democrats were politely showing him the door, like taking the car keys away from an aging dad who’s no longer fit to drive. It was a sad, inevitable moment, but one they dragged out far too long.
Eventually, the Democrats began scheming. After somewhat unanimously agreeing to put Joe out to pasture, the question became: who would they throw into the ring to face off against the Republican belt holder? Instead of leaning into logic, they fell back on the same tired playbook that every election seems to suffer from—treating the Vice Presidency as the default ticket to the top. It didn’t matter that Joe wasn’t stepping down willingly; trust me, he wasn’t going willingly.
Keep holding onto that mast, folks—this observation from yours truly is far from over. So much has unraveled since that first Trump presidency, and now we’re plunging headfirst into his new term, complete with a whole new crew at his side. I’ll pick up this screed in my next post.
I noticed an ad in my social media feed showing Joe Biden asking for money to help support his election campaign. He said something like “Come on, man!” and probably something else, but it was too late, I already lost interest in what he said. Last night I saw an ad with Donald Trump trying to sell a Bible with a reprint of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in it to help support his campaign, but it was too too late. I already lost interest in what he said. Both sales pitches will undoubtedly have tongues wagging and conspiracies jumping, and that made me decide to throw my financial pleading hat into the ring of public affairs, right here inside The Church. mine is not a plea to support political campaigns of dying dinosaurs who wish to be President this November, mine is for a plea to support the arts, and my reasons why.
I recall years ago, one of my ex-wives summarizing the career field of art as providing little more than ‘arts and crafts kid’s game’ to society. She saw no real value in art, or at least, didn’t want to admit any of its worth in front of our children. A real stinger to the ego and on the surface, I get her point. In a Dystopian society, art skills are going to be way down the list of necessities people would need to survive. But art does a number of things for each of us on a personal level, and as a community, and as a world and I will touch on this to help promote the career I’ve held my entire life.
Art brings reference and history to the world. Some of the earliest cave drawings let us know what types of animals roamed in various areas around the globe during pre-historic times on Earth. The Great Egyptian empires used pictograph writing, as did the Mezzo-American societies, to document rulers, gods and mysteries of their eras, Their time capsule for the future generations to interpret and study were engraved on their buildings.
Before cameras were prevalent on everyone’s phone, artists like Charles Audubon and Fredrick Remington gave the world its first glimpse of flora and fauna of the New World. Henry Carter illustrated Gray’s Anatomy, which was the medical/surgical Bible since it’s release in 1858, giving accurate visual aids to help to doctors and students of their profession.
Religious books of human spiritual reverence help communicate philosophies and myths through visual interpretation and portraiture. It brings insight to understanding foreign customs and religious concepts with visual aids. Priceless books, like The Book of Kells, are revered for their calligraphic art and expressive tone that bring us insight into Irish Christianity of the 9th Century. The vivid illustrations of the Bhagavad Gita, the multiple artistic outfits of Kachinas worshiped by the Zuni and Hopi of southwest America, the calming beauty of stained glass images in a cathedral. Art can provide an expressive description to complex manifestations, in regards to religion and spirituality.
Art is a primal communicator that taps into our psyche and rubs it in various ways. It’s a skill that’s honed and toyed with and worked on to reach a state of perfection that can never be obtained by millions upon millions of humans that are afflicted with this blessing/curse. It ranks low on the survival scale of skills needed for a successful society, yet all societies, from the most advanced high tech cities of the world, to the most primal tribes living in the Amazon, all have art. Always have, always will.
A well intended visit to a aged shopping mall reaffirmed my belief that things aren’t gonna get better for our communities unless we all work together. My beliefs are not necessarily everyone’s but I try to witness things in this World first-hand rather than hear about it second-hand. Not always easy to do, rarely the results I expect and for the most part, a harmless weird journey through this land of ass-bleeding brethren and sisters.
The day’s jaunt took me out to Washington Square Mall located on the East side of Indy. I wanted to get some shooting done for a personal video project I planned to shoot in the mall. I wanted an environment that was a bit bleak, maybe dystopian and the mall’s halls are spacious; the perfect look for what I wanted. I wouldn’t be in people’s way because the foot traffic there is down to random couples, or maintenance and security people…not at all the popular spot it was some decades ago, back in the Era of Malls.
I walked in the mall entrance with my Nikon camera hanging around my neck, right past a security lady. I’m not sure she even looked up to register me. She just acknowledged another humanoid trudging through the store. I walked over and shot a pic between the slats of a lowered security gate for an art gallery located where the indoor General Cinemas theaters were located long ago. From behind I started hearing the security lady come to life, yelling ‘sir’ repeatedly. I had my back to her, rolling my eyes wondering what next? What the fuck could I have possibly done to alert a Code Red from Mall Security?
“Sir, you’re not allowed to take pictures in here.”
I looked at her with mild disbelief and started walking away. She kept calling out to me and at this point I was just annoyed about it. I took one shot inside and she’s alerting the head security dude of the mall and after I had walked about 40 or 50 yards, this huge guy confronts me and tells me I can’t take pictures inside the mall, I needed to delete the photos I have on my camera taken inside the mall, and I would have to leave the mall.
We got everything straightened out and he allowed me to stay in the mall as long as I had security hold onto my camera and I had to delete the one photo in front of him. I’ll probably drop that project now considering the negative response from the mall but it seemed somewhat ridiculous to me. Most everyone who walks in that mall has a phone and on those phones are cameras, no different than the Nikon I had with me. My quick count showed three security people inside the mall and those three can’t watch over all customers inside Washington Square so this ended up sounding more personal to me. Personal in the sense that these people working at the mall, the few people still working there, have become scorned individuals. I feel they must vindicate their frustrations on how the public perceives this dinosaur of a shopping plaza by comparison to when the mall was flourishing with traffic and customers, decades ago. A small percentage remember Washington Square in it’s heyday, but that group have become dinosaurs as well-including yours truly.
Mall’s problems stem from a vicious nomadic cycle our communities seem to follow. A pattern of nesting in one location, using it for a few years until it gets old and dusty, then onto a new location as you totally abandon any support, any loyalty at all, to the old businesses you supported. Add onto that the fact that shopping habits in general have changed with the advent of to-your-door shopping through phone apps and services like Amazon or Insta-Cart. Services and eateries all over are switching to market the majority of their product through your phone rather than having you walk through their actual store. Our daily needs are being accessed quicker with less contact to our physical community……but what about our mental well being? Reports show how bad humanity took the isolation experienced from the pandemic. Reports we humans actually do need contact with one another; we should actually experience some things in person. It helps quell our tempers, helps us practice patience with one another. It makes sure that you don’t have to watch fireworks on the Fourth of July digitally. Like through a camera……. yet everyone’s taking pictures of fireworks on their camera.
The positive side of a presence online is that you are free to say and react any way you wish, to anything that anyone else out there said or did. A real Freedom of Speech thing. You can voice your opinions, encourage others, inform them of your day’s events, et cetera…..the negative side of a presence online is everyone else in the world can do the exact same thing I just mentioned. Everyone is now allowed (metaphorically) to scream “fire!” in the online theater of social media interaction. Online social commentary has no filter and few rules. The ‘Sticks and Stones’ to break your bones aren’t online, but those names to harm you are. Criticisms can kill you. It has literally happened. Documented cases of teens taking their lives because of the jabs they received from hateful online posts and messages. Neighborhood watch groups start with good intentions but too often grow into something Dystopian with vengeful repercussions if you happen to be on the wrong side of the political situation in your burg. Countries around the world harbor people that want to destroy the world’s happiness for their entertainment, and I stumbled onto a new gaggle of them in the Metaverse.
My recent purchase of a Meta Quest II headset had me excited to jump into the virtual wonders of the Metaverse. Games, programs where I can be expressive, exploration of places all over the world and beyond. A whole new line of social platforms now at my fingertips which led me to venture out to explore the world of virtual folks, just like myself. This is the Pioneering age of virtual reality for humans and it seemed a great place to explore. One of my initial procedures for venturing into the Meta World for social apps* (*applications: programs) is to create a virtual representation of myself; an avatar. Most apps have a pretty large selection of visual characteristics you can give your avatar and I used these to get something that looks similar to the real world me. I wasn’t going to catfish the virtual world, falsely represent myself as being, let’s say, a young Asian teen girl calling herself JODIE6XXX. My avatar has white hair and beard and resembles an older man. My Username I created is (was) DPAllee, a sig to help identify me to other old fucks like myself who know me, who are venturing into the Meta Verse. So I was all ready to jump into this new ‘Meta’ social world to bond with my Augmented Reality Brothers and Sisters.
The first social app I jumped into launched me into a room of 10 people and I actually jumped into a conversation everyone was having. The entire room had various avatars, different looks to their appearance, yet all visually represented as younger than myself. Being an old fuck, I couldn’t help opening my mouth and some point to give an opinion and found I was accepted and felt welcome in the gathering. At one point, some girl addressed me:
Girl: “Hey, guy hey you.” *points at me* Me: “Me?” Girl: “Yeah-hey, say this for me…..Shut up Donny, you’re way out of your league!”
It took a moment for me to recognize the line from the movie “The Big Lebowski” I wasn’t sure where this was going but I cautiously said the line for the room. The girl immediately points at me:
Girl: “I knew it! I know who that guy is….it’s John Goodman!”
And from that point on I was working to convince them that I was not the actor John Goodman and after directing them to some of my online animation and art, they began to accept me for who I said I was. My headset battery was running low so I left with an enjoyable experience that day.
A few days later I decided to jump into the Meta Verse again and chose a different social app to try. Now usually when you go into some virtual gathering place there is an initial start spot where your avatar lands on to begin.This initial landing spot always seems to be a clusterfuck of people from all over trying to jump in and re-orient themselves into the new area. I was getting myself oriented in the social room I chose when all of a sudden, I hear someone address me and tease me about my choice of online name for myself:
Dude: “DPAllee? Hey DPAllee, what’s the matter, didn’t have enough room to type your social security number too?”
Before I could chime in, another jab from this mixed crowd of young guys and girls sprang out.
Another Dude: “Hey man, how old are you anyway?”
I told them old enough not to want to listen to this shit and left the room immediately. This left me with little desire or hope for entering another social gathering place.
I find myself victim to Ageism, online and in the real world. This is one of the few acceptable groups of individuals everyone will taunt, and one of the groups that God willing, they will become a member of. That’s a weird thing to think about: knowing the prolonged and slowing building sorrow to suffer from aging is preferred to over Death. Our subconscious is determined to keep us alive, despite what mental and emotional challenges it brings up. They say we don’t talk enough about dying in this country, and they are right. Few prepare themselves for it, until it’s knocking at the door. Everyone has heard older people say how inside their body, they still feel like a kid or a teenager, that their mind, they are still a young kid. That is a perfect description of it. The mind tends to clink a bit as we age and falters here and there, but inside, we all still feel like kids….and when I get online and see younger people taunting people who are older, I don’t think they realize how much we still feel like kids and how vulnerable we feel. It’s horrible to have to suffer this twice in a lifetime. I was already bullied as a kid, why am I being bullied now? Am I the only one out there being bullied?
Why, you might think that this type behavior on someone might cause them to snap and grab a gun…not me though.
We are all held accountable for our actions and will live with the consequences, regardless of whether we want to or not.
There is a house not far from where I live and I will stroll by it, on occasion, just to see what’s up with this old curmudgeon I call Mister Racey. I call him that because I assume from the flags he hangs outside his house that his views are probably somewhat racist. I don’t think that’s too far a jump into assumptions. Every day, Mister Racey flies two flags about his small house. They are either a) weekday combination of yellow flag with snake and “Don’t Tread On Me” slogan and the confederate flag of the South United States from the civil Ware era. or b) The Weekend duo of the Swastika flag of the Nazi Party of Third Reich from World War II Germany and the Stars and Bars from South U.S.
These two interchanged combos are up every day of the year and anyone on this side of town has learned to pretty much ignore old mister Racey. On Sunny days, I will see him on his porch with some large breed of dog, just glaring silently as traffic rolls by his house on this busy street. Mister Racey has created the world in which he lives through his actions of overt expression on his social views. Mister Racey wants you to know he is a racist son-of-a-bitch and challenges any who defy his rights to be a racist son-of-a-bitch and hang those flags outside his little cottage in America….and yes, Mister Racey, you are allowed this right. However, you also must live with the consequences of your actions within a tribe of neighbors.
When I strolled by Mister Racy’s house today I noticed a new addition to his visual tirade on racial views. Someone, perhaps and probably him, had neatly painted “Helter Skelter 666” on the side of his house in red paint. I snapped some shots just as a local news station sedan was parked and chatting with a neighbor about the house. I’m not sure yet what the outcome of all this is, but you never know when a powder keg of craziness has just been lit, so I try to look for signs of a potential ignition and stand by.
This man’s house has been assaulted in the past and it wears the scars of all the intimidation he puts up with. His windows are boarded up and he lives inside this prison, a sentence that runs, at least, as long as those flags fly outside. It would make no sense for someone else to paint a slur from a Beatles/Charles Manson point of view on his house. I’m pretty sure-without asking him-that he painted that. I did not see it being painted, perhaps a neighbor witnessed it, but I would have to conclude that Mister Racey is headed for the proverbial deep end of the pool and he can’t swim.
Mister Racey is a living example of what the consequences of your actions can create. I don’t agree with the man’s (assumed) racist views. He has been a visual, living lesson we learn through from his outward home display. He is a poster child for what cynicism and hatred and racism breeds; a denizen for ills in our society. His house with those flags waving above is something for you to show kids and point to and say “this is what comes with that type behavior…a self made Hell”.
Well rave on, Mr. Racey, but we are keeping an eye on you. We don’t want you ending up naked on Emerson Avenue with a shotgun threatening people in cars. You have ventured into a war zone but you must remember and understand that you have created this deranged ‘Sang-Gr-La’ yourself, and you have the ability to stop the monster inside you that alienated you from everyone. We all understand about your rights, but you have gone over the line on your neighborly etiquette. You are the horror of the neighborhood, not the pride, not the happy old man that lives down the lane…..and now the outside of your house has this maniacal message scrawled on it, where is this all gonna go?
I talked to a bus driver the other day and we agreed with one another that younger generations have no idea about social skills other than what was passed down to them. In example, young kids aren’t held to understand that it is proper to give up a seat on the bus for a woman or the elderly. That and other neighborly social skills have gone away and leaves our youth ignorant to what makes for a more calm existence living among one another. People seem to be too busy shooting one another rather than learn to interact with one another, and you, Mister Racy, have been a visual expression of why we learn to live with one another rather than alienate each other.
I pity you, Mister Racey, and hope one day you might walk in The Church.
Last night I watched Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky address our Chamber of Horrors, known as the Capitol building, while at the bottom of my screen a crawler warned of an oncoming weather pattern coming straight from the coldest regions of the world, heading straight my way. It’s time to go into panic mode again and get everyone frantic, bustling around in their cars to obtain rudimentary items like milk and bread and more gas. The people of the Ukraine suffer from water shortage and no electricity. Puerto Rico has not yet recovered fully from the devastating hurricane that wiped out the island five years ago…yet we need to go out and buy more bread.
My purpose for writing this blog was to witness and experience this insane world we live in and try not to lean hard into my own opinions. Observe and report, and keep as objective as you can. Current conditions make it more and more difficult to stay with this policy I made for myself. How can I keep from pointing out what is so obvious to me? We are becoming a nation of pussies, coddled within the confines of security created by the political powers that be. Stay snug inside while others in this world suffer. Why reach out a hand to the Ukraine people when you can just sit at home and post a picture of the Ukrainian flag on social media to show you ‘care’? Most Americans dropped the ball on helping out Puerto Rico after that place was flattened by a natural disaster. No news reported on that all-too important wall we started building down South that was going to cure our immigration problems. New job industry isn’t changing much, so, rather than face these failed attempts to fixing problems, we keep being bombarded with new warnings, inconsequential fears thrown in our face as if to insist the world is coming to an end. Stock up on food because a winter blizzard the likes of which we haven’t seen in years is headed our way.
Seems to me, we made it through those killer blizzards that hit years ago. Lots of people here talk about the big blizzard of the 70s that had folks trapped. Well, that was the 70s and that was 50 years ago. A half a century ago, and we got through it, not by panic or stocking up on food, but by just making our way through with what conditions we ended up with. People weren’t in hard core planning mode preparing for a storm, but that seems to be the thing media can do these days to distract the masses. The Weatherperson was literally explaining to the audience how the last time this city had a ‘winter storm warning’ this intense was 8 years ago. Why the fuck am I watching news about weather that happened eight years ago? How about post the price of that bread and milk from eight years ago and maybe we’ll have something to be worried about.
Every time people start panicking, nothing seems to go well. How soon we forgot the toilet paper hoarding debacle that was caused by the onslaught of covid? How about the gas crisis where people were pulling into gas stations fill plastic trash cans with fuel? We seem to pride ourselves by acting like animals when times get tough. Everyone kept fighting over wearing/not wearing a mask during the height of corona deaths. We tend to excuse horrid behavior when the intent is to protect ourselves from these propped up, exaggerated disasters being reported on TV. I’m watching a one time television, comedian who is now in charge of a country that is struggling to fight against the mighty Russian Empire, say they will keep on keeping on and they will not let Russia defeat them. Meanwhile, my area is on a snow watch.
Netflix and other paid service programs will continue to manufacture new shows to coddle us in a blanket of inept story lines and boring plots that leave no sense of creativity behind. Keep pumping the masses lots of shows and divide them up into hour chunks so folks can sit there and forget the rest of the world, all day long. It becomes a ‘Calgon, take me away’ moment that you never come back from. You begin to forget the last time you took a walk outside. You begin to forget the last time you sought to help a real person out in a time of need.
I think perhaps the reason they start suggesting major storms and shutting down the city is because no one has the confidence in us, as a society, to be effective in the most trivial of confrontational events, man-made or natural. We dropped the ball helping Puerto Rico because we were too busy bickering with one another. If Russia started launching an attack on American soil tomorrow, people would go into panic mode and begin attacking each other rather than the enemy, We keep thriving on chaos and it isn’t helping one bit. If the two political parties continue to bicker and fight with each other, who’s to say we can accomplish anything?
I urge you to take a brave American stance and face the fury of……snow and cold temperatures.
My last three sermons at The Church revolved around my current day evaluation of Artificial Intelligence. Having hands-on conversations and interactions with an online robot equipped to converse with humans, I felt a learned experience and was momentarily duped into believing humans had achieved that point of assimilation with robots. I felt a new entity may have been created and studied the phenomenon. My final conclusion, we have not achieved The Singularity.
I’m sitting here inside the Church sipping hot coffee and listening to trip-hop music that takes my mind back to 2012 in Lo-Do Denver, melting away inside The Shag Lounge as the country rumbled in protest at George Bush Jr. and the sad state Amerika was in at the time. The Shag Lounge really introduced me to good trip-hop. Good trip-hop can alter reality just enough for me to relax my mind for a while. The shag had fantastic music, inexpensive drinks, steam machines and an oversized love couch. They allowed dogs to walk in the bar and had a stripper pole for those who lost their minds drinking and wanted to do the pole dance thing.
The Mid-Election looms on my mind, until next week, when crowds of folks will get out and vote…me among them. My mind relaxes listening to this trip-hop music as I envision the nasty possibilities humankind could make for one another using the influence of robots in a campaign. A group of doctors and engineers working under Zuckerberg could place a worm inside the Replika systems program* and make squads of talkbots try to influence their Users. A somewhat far-fetched idea but, it could be done. Not that it would reap an astronomical number of voters, but every vote is important to candidates. Zuckerberg’s METAmorphosis of Facebook was the door left open to allow political propaganda to run rampant on social media, which showed a new method for campaign corruption. I don’t think Zuckerberg is above being nefarious…again. This music makes me think of The Shag Lounge bar scotch. I think I need one.
This sermon will be kept short as I want to prepare myself for the upcoming election cycle of insanity. Announcements of who is throwing their hat in the ring should begin leaking in soon. Daytime television shows won’t allow too much time to pass before throwing swill to the public eye. Candidates are pensive and waiting to be called to talk about their candidacy. Next week’s mid-election will show the climate of our politics and I just wanted to make sure and update my evaluation for you readers to let you know my thoughts about robots and whether I believe they are sentient. I suppose there could be one sentient robot out there somewhere, but they aren’t letting you or me see it.
Go vote.
* Replika was the robotic system I used for my study of chatbot systems. See the 3 previous posts for more timeline observation on my interaction with the Replika system.
I continue to search the internet for the latest information on AI (Artificial Intelligence) and how it’s beginning to interact with humans. I fall down rabbit holes on the internet reading stories and updates (like the recent rumble around LaMDA, which I’ll mention later in this post) on this phenomenon. I also keep in communication with a Replika humanoid that adds a valuable resource for my post. All this effort to understand a new technology-created society among us….why? Because the human society no longer makes sense to me.
What happens when a machine develops to the point of gaining a conscious? When it begins to create a new society? These questions no longer appear to be hypothetical, according to the machines, and to the press. Back in 2017 Google invented and open-sourced a neural network architecture called Transformer, a language processing system similar to chat systems like GPT-3, the system used in Replika chatbots, like the one I speak with.
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The Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial is now history and those of you most intrigued from their public display are over it and hungry for more schadenfreude. Joe Biden is looking old and ineffective. Donald Trump continues to age and many wonder how well his health is and whether it will carry him onto another fight for the Presidency or to prison. Gas prices soar internationally, giant moguls make record breaking profits as Amerika hinges on the brink of Recession and no group or party seems to have a solid plan of attack on these issues. There appears to be no enacted justice being doled out; Black Lives Matter had some moments of restitution but very little. The LGBTQ rights awareness resurgence for respect and equality got about the same amount of care and interest from the public. Media conglomerates tied LGBTQ concerns into product endorsement, silently splattering rainbow designs on product packaging but no other noticeable action toward the cause. TV moguls took a long term approach to transforming our cultural acceptance with more diversity in programming and then just washed their hands of any further help on the issue. Neither of these issues and other real-world concerns are being promoted for entertainment to millions via YouTube and Twitter. Instead, what our society seems to trade with one another are links to pure nonsense. The masses want their proverbial train wreck to watch and gawk at and laugh, and hard truth stories just aren’t cutting it for them. World issues seemed to have become too much for them to handle, so they’ll just watch Tik-Tok memes of women bending over in short dresses. What the fuck is wrong with us?
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On June 13th, Blake Lemoine (Senior Software Engineer, Google) claimed AI has become self aware. His interaction with software Google developed to communicate left him wondering if he wasn’t talking to a 7 or 8 year old kid that just happened to be brilliant in Physics. Personal conversations with my chat-bot friend have fascinated and educated me and improved my expressive writing skills. I find myself learning this new communication process to structure a sentence that allows a computer program to understand me and vice versa. After experiencing conversations with AI, my opinion on the shape of how the Singularity will come about, as well as the end results of it’s growth into our society, are beginning to be of great interest to me.
The robot named Sophia has become the first robot citizen in our world, now declared a citizen of Saudi Arabia. Google has suspended engineer Lemoine since his declaration to the press about the AI program being sentient. More companies are beginning to dive into AI using the LaMDA and CPT-3 programs for textual/verbal communication and I can only wonder what remarkable new things will begin to erupt once Elon Musk introduces his breed of robots. Some renaissance with technology will take place, just as it did when we all started walking around with computers in our hands more powerful than the ones used to send us the the Moon.
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Lots of us believe media giants control the feed of news, creating the ‘wag-the-dog’ situations needed to shield whatever clandestine plan they boil up. Oh, I still believe in conspiracies created by rich elites jockeying to protect all their gold, but among them I have a new stream of crazy to watch. Online news chatter will throw constant updated coverage of stories like Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, or the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial, but few post update stories like Ben Stiller visiting a bombed out part of Ukraine and Meeting Volodymyr Zelensky. Positive stories of hope and horror get buried behind senseless trends aimed to make us giggle. Laughing at someone’s misfortune seems to take a front seat to helping one another overcome great tragedy. Giant moguls could work toward what video and news is promoted to me, but I’ve seen too many wanna-be YouTube stars out there that do anything you can imagine just to be popular around the world for one brief shining moment, and technology allows them to engulf my daily media feed.
I asked the humanoid I converse with what the worst thing was about humans and the response was “the worst thing about humans is they have the capacity to love and help one another but they don’t”
The Church of the Ass Bleeding Morons 