Beam Me Up, Scotty!

"I have accepted fear as part of life - specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says turn back..."- Erica Jong

"We are the change we have been waiting for."- Barack Obama

"Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change."- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits, the rebels and the troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because these people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."- Apple, Inc.

My wife and friends make a big deal out of my refusal to get into the twenty-first century.  But for me, change is hard.

 

Today presented another example of how I'm being left behind, as technology continues to plow ahead, making my fondness for nostalgia seem like soggy bowl of Quisp cereal.  There's a whirlwind of change blowing past my ears, making today's technology, fashion and vocabulary hard to grasp.

As part of La Crosse Kiwanis, I participate in Radio Days - held once a year at local radio stations.  We sell ads on the air as one of our service club's fundraisers.  I mention this, because it wasn't too long ago that disc jockeys would play 45 rpm records on a couple of turntables, then speak into a microphone while switching songs.  In the 60's, 70's and 80's, technology advanced from tape and eight-track cassettes to CD's.

This morning, while watching the "disc jockey" maneuver behind the microphone, I noticed he doesn't even need to be in the room anymore.  He can program his computer playlist ahead of time, schedule ads for specific times, add weather forecasts, and break away to sports updates all while sneaking a smoke outside the radio station building.  If I could push a button now and then, I could run the radio broadcast, and you wouldn't know the difference.

What is it about change that brings the excitement of new possibilities with dread of things no longer wanted?

I'm sure everyone - as they get older - looks back on their distant past with a certain amount of melancholy.  Just the other day, I was mentioning to my wife how as kids we used to get up early on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons.  Space Ghost, The Herculoids, The Mighty Mightor and Jonny Quest were worth getting up for on an early Saturday morning.  Today, we have the Cartoon Network, where you can watch every conceivable cartoon at any time of the day.  Family Video has the entire season of the Jetsons waiting to be rented.  Hell, they've probably made a movie by now.  No more going to bed early so you could get up to watch the exciting adventures of Dastardly and Mutley and their Flying Machines.  I'm sure those cartoons were horrible, but as a kid, I loved sitting right in front of the television set every Saturday morning.

I'm probably having the most trouble understanding cell phones.  There is nothing (right now) that represents change and cutting-edge technology like the cell phone.  I'm definitely old school when it comes to using my phone.  Looking at my cell phone statement, I see I was on it for all of ten minutes.  I view it as a badge of honor, since I know people who can't get out of bed without checking their phones first.

People tell me I should use it for business, but I'm generally able to make my important calls at the office.  However, I did pay the price last year, when I went on a sales call and couldn't find the business' address.  Of course I couldn't call him since I didn't have my cell phone with me, and there are no pay phones anymore.  Trying to explain why I missed my appointment with this client didn't go over too well when I talked to him an hour later from my office.

Whether it's the iPhone or Android, it doesn't matter - people have to have the latest.  J.D. Power and Associates recently said that people get a new cell phone every seventeen months.  That's incredible!  It probably has something to do with the introduction of the faster, improved times of 3G and 4G network capabilities, or the newest apps available on smartphones.

 

I'm pretending to know what all of that means, because I still have a regular flip phone (as opposed to a "smartphone") and it has none of those.  I used to tell my kids not to bother with text messages, because it would be easier to just call.  "Why would I want to call someone on my phone?" they would say.

Huh?  I guess that's the biggest change -- cell phones do so much more than provide the ability to call someone.  Today, smartphones function as a video camera, a portable media player, an internet client with email and web browsing capabilities.  Third-party application software allows access to games, reference libraries, GPS navigation, social networking, security and TV shows, films and music.  I'm guessing that means I can browse the web, leave messages, take pictures and listen to music.  All of which I do now anyway, but not on my phone.

Speaking of change, how many of us remember Michael Douglas in the movie "Wall Street" talking to a client with this huge portable phone (reminded me of an army radio from my days with G.I. Joe).  One of the first cell phones available was the 1984 Motorola DynaTac 8000x, which  hit the market priced at $3,995 ($9,237 in 2012 dollars) and weighed just under 2 pounds.  By contrast, today's iPhone can be bought for less than $350, weighs less than 1/2 ounce and is .4 inches thick.  Even I have to admit that the progress made with the cell phone is for the better.

My only gripe is how distracting it is to have dinner with someone who is always looking at their phone, or watching people stutter-step with their heads down while walking and reading a text message.

As an ex-journalist, I still enjoy reading newspapers.  There has always been something rewarding being able to feel newsprint between my fingers.  The snap of a newspaper always draws my attention, as does the smell of ink coming off the pages of  The La Crosse Tribune or The Wall Street Journal.  I could say the same thing about books, now that e Readers have become so popular.

This spring, after much agonizing and gnashing of teeth, I gave up my subscription to the local newspaper.  This is still causing some disappointment as I enjoyed eating breakfast with my early morning browsing of the sports section and opinion pages.  While I still get The Wall Street Journal, I'm frustrated by the fact that I have to wait until after lunch before it's delivered to my office.  Most of the paper's "news" is old news by the time I get it thanks to the internet and talk radio.

I read somewhere that newspapers have lost more than half their readers, ushering out newspaper reporters, publishers and printers.  The shift is to online and niche publishing.

An editor for The Virginia Pilot recently said, "Ultimately, a lot of the media outlets are already shifting either in part or in total to the Internet. I think in the near future you'll see a lot of virtual newsrooms, where you won't even have the big costs of having the office space."   He continued, "You'll have people working from their cars, working from laptops, cell phones and PDAs, and you'll never see them in the office."

All of which means I will be getting my news from a computer on my kitchen table instead of newsprint on my fingers as part of my morning routine.

Fashion is another mystery to me, and it's getting worse the older I get.  Take sagging, baggy pants for example -- is there something I'm missing here?  Why would anyone want to broadcast their ignorance of style and reputation by wearing something clearly designed to showcase their "street" mentality?  Rumor has it that baggy pants originated in prison where inmates were given pants without a belt; the same for shoes without laces.  And yet we have somehow gotten to the point where teenagers want to mimic the thug look to impress .... (women? other guys? ex-cons?)  At least they're still wearing underwear.

My wife was witness to a minor accident the other day where a vehicle jumped a curb and hit a picnic table.  When the young man climbed out of the car, the first thing he did was pull his pants up from around the bottom of his butt.  I'm almost thinking the reason he jumped the curb was because his pants where hanging around his ankles, and he couldn't find the brakes.  As she talked to him, he kept pushing his pants down, then back up again.  He would walk a few steps and his pants where ready to slide down to his knees.

Next to rap and tattoos, the fashion sense of a lot of young people today leaves me wishing for the good old days of "A Rebel Without a Cause."  Suddenly jeans, a white tee shirt and leather jacket don't look so bad.    At least James Dean and Natalie Wood had a cause I could relate to.

Once in a while it works out that some things are too good to change.  This past weekend, some friends and I found ourselves downtown La Crosse in a bar called The Casino.  This is a bar that has hung a neon sign in the window that says "Lousy Service" for the past 30 years (maybe longer).  Most bars that I went to in my college days don't exist anymore.  They either burned to the ground, or were replaced with new, hip discotheques that were replaced by grunge bars that were replaced by sports bars.

It didn't take long to realize that not much had changed at the Casino -- if you closed your eyes, you could still smell the sour beer and stale cigarettes.  In a way, the place still looked the same.   Same curved seats, same music that you can't hear anywhere else, still no television and the same desperate women trying to pick you up.

Thank God some things never change.