There’s this phrase that’s been making the rounds the last few years that has really got me a bit ticked off. It’s the idea of the “PERSONAL BRAND.” Notice that it’s all in caps and you get a sense of why it’s both silly, narcissistic, and to be avoided like the plague or a presidential debate.
Back in the old days, folks talked about their (or your) reputation. That reputation was based, largely, on what you did. It went along with your resume and was pretty much your calling card in the world of business, and in general. The key is that you were judged on actual missions accomplished, damsels rescued, dragons slain, and cancer cured.
Today, your personal brand is arrived at by maniacally posting things on social media platforms every time you do anything from visiting the gym, to getting coffee to successfully making a cake. In other words, you create it and that means that, depending on how creative you are, you could pretty much be anything.
As a prime example of personal brand, let’s have a look at none other than media darling and self-made creature, Kim Kardashian.
Kim was born the daughter of a prominent lawyer and, thanks to a strategically released intimate tape, came on the pop media radar. A little subtle (not) cosmetic surgery, some more astounding nude photos, a scary reality TV show, some forays into the clothing business, and marriage to a rapper — and suddenly we have one of the most famous faces on the planet.
And she has done not a single thing to better the planet or mankind. Her job, for want of a better word, is to be looked at going about her “normal” life.
Another grand practitioner of personal brand is ubiquitous bully and serial bankruptcy artist Donald Trump. He parlayed a chance birth into a wealthy family into a mildly successful career in real estate, divorce, cheesy casinos, and now a run for the White House.
This has pretty much the entire planet wondering if anyone is nuts enough to actually vote for the guy. And it’s all due to the Trump brand, which is supposed to represent class, style, and wealth. And believe that it does, because Donnie will tell you so; he’s been flapping his gums for decades.
These two examples clearly illustrate how ambitious people essentially use the media to create a version of themselves that they sell as if they were products. But people aren’t products and that’s why this whole thing is so insidious.
The simple reality is that we have become so focused on putting prices on everything (monetizing is the current term) that the idea of selling yourself is totally cool with many people. But what they are selling is a made up amalgam of self-generated nonsense and cell-phone photos that has nothing to do with one’s actual skills or abilities.
Some people might argue with me and suggest that personal brand is simply the current incarnation of reputation. But as noted, I strongly disagree. However we’ve all become so comfortable using and interacting via social media that the idea of a world that exists outside of it is becoming blurry.
In some sectors of the world, people have become so immersed in social media that, if something is not posted, it never happened. The old, if a tree fell in the forest thing, has become way too real.
So what can be done to keep everyone on Earth from having to have their own reality TV show? What can we do to avoid having to constantly post everything we do all day long to justify or prove our existence?
I suppose the simple answer is to just say no. Of course we all know how successful that was when Nancy Reagan suggested we do it to drugs back in the ’80s, but at least it’s a start.
Each day when you get up, think about what you want to actually accomplish that day. Not what you want to post. Go out and do things. Meet humans in person or at least talk to them in real time. Spend as much time immersed in the real world as possible.
Stay off social media as much as you can and, if you must use it, treat it like alcohol. Use it sparingly and please don’t Facebook and drive. Finally, when judging others, think long and hard about what you really know of them as opposed to what has been posted.
The bottom line is that people are not products. And products are not more important than people. Keep that straight in your mind and we may all emerge from the current morass with our reputations intact and our minds clear. Otherwise we’re all going to end up walking around covered in logos like NASCAR cars with legs.
Editor’s note: Michael Seinberg says he has a reputation as a humorous and slightly unhinged writer and computer technician; this is because he’s been writing and fixing computers for a few decades and not really making a big deal about it. His company has a logo, he doesn’t.
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When young parents bring home a newborn, they’ve had nine months to prepare for the blessed arrival. And as the child grows and becomes mobile, they have a chance to childproof things, so as to keep their budding prodigy and their home safe from one another.
But when you bring home a cat, kitten, or several, well, you better have prepared in the same manner as beachfront denizens prep for a hurricane. I’m including the whole plywood-over-the-windows thing here.
One of the most important things to remember is that cats, once they can move on their own, can get in places ninjas are afraid to venture. These creatures are flexible, possess no fear of heights, and have claws the military has expressed interest in.
They climb better than Tom Cruise in “Mission Impossible” even with his window-hugging Spider-Man technology. So unlike your toddler, who can’t usually reach your priceless collection of Lalique crystal on that shelf six feet up, a cat will be playing floor hockey with the broken shards 15 seconds after spotting it on his or her first foray through the house.
You see, cats have a sort of sixth sense for anything that has a monetary or sentimental value. Their desire to play with, smash, hide, or destroy said object is in direct proportion to its value.
Thus, if you do have such objects in your life, you have two choices: Lock them in a large safe with a Doberman stationed out front or pretend you don’t care about them. However, this odd psychic trick of the felines would suggest going for the safe. Do you really want to have to lift up the stove or the fridge to retrieve Grandma’s prized Hummel? And then you still have to glue it back together.
If you’re one of those people who have furry or soft pieces of furniture, please cover them in a nice, soft Kevlar and steel mesh sheet. If not, prepare to see them turned into shredded wrecks that resemble a fleeing gazelle after the lions are done with lunch.
Yup, stuffing covers the floor like entrails, and springs and internal parts will be exposed. At the very least, you’ll be able to make a scientific study of the relative strength of velour versus polyester. Seriously, order a Kevlar couch.
Do you, perchance, have some lovely houseplants? Hide them. Now. Better yet, get them into witness protection before the cats get to them.
I had a lovely little bromeliad (air plant) that I’d been raising for several years. It was thriving, green, strong, almost ready to head off to college. I was so proud. Then, about 15 minutes after the cats noticed it, I found a few stray fronds on the kitchen floor. It was gone, eaten, and the cat in question looked very happy and wondered if I had anymore such snacks lying about.
Our 75-year-old jade plant, appropriately named Grandma Jade, provided a wonderful jungle-gym type of experience for two of the beasts. Thankfully, they were small at the time.
Had senior demolitions expert, Lemon, and all his 16 pounds of feline glory tried to scale Grandma, I shudder to imagine the consequences. She and her foliage friends now reside securely locked in a spare bedroom and, ironically, they seem to be thriving.
I go in weekly to water them and there’s always at least one cat or another eyeing the door hungrily as I carefully slip in and out. They can smell all that soil and photosynthesis; I just know it. Thankfully they haven’t figured out how to open the door. Yet. I am wondering about why Sylvie has been dragging around a set of blueprints for the house and eyeing my circular saw though.
Most cats are well trained in the area of the litter box quite early. And cats that like to go outdoors will find natural spots to take care of business out in the flowerbeds, gardens, or woods.
But if you have a semi- or unfinished basement like we do, then that constitutes a very large indoor litter box. Thus, you have to make sure never to leave such a room open unless you relish the idea of sifting through hundreds of square feet of dry old dirt in search of cat presents.
If you have a special-purpose room that is devoted to a delicate, expensive, or complex endeavor such as model trains, model building, fabric arts, jigsaw puzzles, pottery-making, or other such things, put up a barbed-wire fence just to be safe. Cats see such landscapes as giant Toys R Us stores open just for their entertainment.
Nothing is as much fun as knocking over a carefully constructed remote-control plane or pooping in the canyon that you carefully constructed on the model railroad’s back 40 over a six-month period. I hope you’re getting the idea.
Finally, it’s a good idea to keep your cats well supplied with a safe, interesting, and constantly changing collection of actual engineered cat toys. Cat hotels, scratching posts, balls, laser pointers (they really do chase the little red light), furry things on strings, balls of yarn, or remote-control mice are all possibilities.
While cat toys will never quite replace your favorite breakable items in a cat’s way of thinking, they do help. Oh, and an empty cardboard box is always a huge hit. It’s like those kids that play with the box and not the gift at the holidays. Only with cats, you can just go straight to the box and skip the gift.
So there you have it. Hide the plants, lock up the valuables, cordon off the hobby rooms, and put up the barbed wire. You’re cat caregivers now (don’t use the word “owner”; it upsets them). May your deity of choice have mercy on your home.
Editor’s note: Michael Seinberg says he is fighting a losing battle with the four furry terrorists, but at least the plants are safe. So far.
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Well, the holidays are officially now past (unless the Super Bowl is considered a holiday) and I observed something this year. I seemed that, on those rare occasions when I did have the TV tuned to a broadcast station, there was an extraordinary amount of advertising that advised people that the best possible holiday gift they could buy would be a new car or truck.
Considering the state of the economy (slowly improving), the cost of getting a tree big enough to fit a car under it or conversely, the cost of getting a huge bow for the top of the car, I just wonder what these companies are collectively smoking.
In our family, at least, we purchase a car only once every 10 or 12 years after we have paid off and driven the current car into the ground. If I bought into these ads, I’d view buying a new car as no more of a deal than getting a new toaster or maybe some jewelry. And just to be very specific, many of the cars that were being pushed as gifts, cost more than my first house.
The message was always pretty much the same. Images of people zooming through a winter wonderland, snugly belted into gleaming vehicles that didn’t show a speck of road salt, snow, rain, or even dirt.
Is that a new feature I missed? Self-cleaning cars that always look new?
Obviously they didn’t shoot these commercials in the Albany area where a quick trip out after a snowstorm can leave most cars looking like they just drove through the Dead Sea followed by a mud bath followed by rust setting in.
But to get back to my initial question, how can these companies suggest with a straight face, that most people can, or should, buy a $30,000 to $80,000 car as a holiday gift? Do most families have large piles of cash lying about so they could just buy such a vehicle outright? Is long-term debt considered a great secondary feature? The gift that keeps on taking? Or are these companies appealing to a “different class” of people than most of us belong to?
I do wonder about such things. I also wonder about the implied importance of an expensive vehicle in one’s value system.
In one of these commercials, a family was gathered around the front of their brand new vehicle and the father moved his young school-age son out of the way so he wouldn’t block the car’s logo in what was obviously the family holiday-card photo.
If you’re wondering, this was a commercial for an expensive foreign car brand. The vehicle in question would likely cost the same as the son’s first year or two at a private college.
So what message was the company sending there? “Screw your kids, you need this SUV to complete your life!” Or maybe something like, ”He’ll thank you some day for teaching him about disappointment early in life.”
Yeah, that’s got to be it. Sorry kids, you don’t get to go to college but think of how great it was riding around in all that heated leather!
I found a lot of the car-for-holiday-gift ads to be pretty awful from a values standpoint. But then again, high levels of debt have never really been an accepted family value in our home.
So, in the future, when it does finally come time to buy a car, I’ll be avoiding certain foreign car companies (and a few domestic ones too) because I just don’t think we share the same values. I get that companies all need to make a profit to survive, but, when that mission overrides common sense, smart financial decisions, and true family values, then I’m hopping off that greed train.
And, if you are one of that tiny group that did get a new vehicle for the holidays, then I suppose congrats are in order. But you have to tell us all, did you have to renovate your house to make enough room to get a 60-foot tall tree in and then install a garage door as a front door, too, so you could get your new gift in and out? How’s that working out for you now?
Editor’s note: Michael Seinberg says he believes in buying holiday gifts based on common sense and a sane budget and not on what the Fortune 500 would have you do.
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Well, the holidays are officially now past (unless the Super Bowl is considered a holiday) and I observed something this year. I seemed that, on those rare occasions when I did have the TV tuned to a broadcast station, there was an extraordinary amount of advertising that advised people that the best possible holiday gift they could buy would be a new car or truck.
Considering the state of the economy (slowly improving), the cost of getting a tree big enough to fit a car under it or conversely, the cost of getting a huge bow for the top of the car, I just wonder what these companies are collectively smoking.
In our family, at least, we purchase a car only once every 10 or 12 years after we have paid off and driven the current car into the ground. If I bought into these ads, I’d view buying a new car as no more of a deal than getting a new toaster or maybe some jewelry. And just to be very specific, many of the cars that were being pushed as gifts, cost more than my first house.
The message was always pretty much the same. Images of people zooming through a winter wonderland, snugly belted into gleaming vehicles that didn’t show a speck of road salt, snow, rain, or even dirt.
Is that a new feature I missed? Self-cleaning cars that always look new?
Obviously they didn’t shoot these commercials in the Albany area where a quick trip out after a snowstorm can leave most cars looking like they just drove through the Dead Sea followed by a mud bath followed by rust setting in.
But to get back to my initial question, how can these companies suggest with a straight face, that most people can, or should, buy a $30,000 to $80,000 car as a holiday gift? Do most families have large piles of cash lying about so they could just buy such a vehicle outright? Is long-term debt considered a great secondary feature? The gift that keeps on taking? Or are these companies appealing to a “different class” of people than most of us belong to?
I do wonder about such things. I also wonder about the implied importance of an expensive vehicle in one’s value system.
In one of these commercials, a family was gathered around the front of their brand new vehicle and the father moved his young school-age son out of the way so he wouldn’t block the car’s logo in what was obviously the family holiday-card photo.
If you’re wondering, this was a commercial for an expensive foreign car brand. The vehicle in question would likely cost the same as the son’s first year or two at a private college.
So what message was the company sending there? “Screw your kids, you need this SUV to complete your life!” Or maybe something like, ”He’ll thank you some day for teaching him about disappointment early in life.”
Yeah, that’s got to be it. Sorry kids, you don’t get to go to college but think of how great it was riding around in all that heated leather!
I found a lot of the car-for-holiday-gift ads to be pretty awful from a values standpoint. But then again, high levels of debt have never really been an accepted family value in our home.
So, in the future, when it does finally come time to buy a car, I’ll be avoiding certain foreign car companies (and a few domestic ones too) because I just don’t think we share the same values. I get that companies all need to make a profit to survive, but, when that mission overrides common sense, smart financial decisions, and true family values, then I’m hopping off that greed train.
And, if you are one of that tiny group that did get a new vehicle for the holidays, then I suppose congrats are in order. But you have to tell us all, did you have to renovate your house to make enough room to get a 60-foot tall tree in and then install a garage door as a front door, too, so you could get your new gift in and out? How’s that working out for you now?
Editor’s note: Michael Seinberg says he believes in buying holiday gifts based on common sense and a sane budget and not on what the Fortune 500 would have you do.
Around the year 1990 or thereabouts, I stopped getting haircuts. This followed my cessation of shaving around 1986.
Basically, I did the reverse of what many men did, look one way as a young person, then adopt a “straighter” look post college, as we entered the working world. But then, I’ve always tended to work against the grain, the herd, fashion, or whatever the majority was doing.
Anyway, the beard was actually a simple way to look older. I was all of 21 or 22, had increasingly responsible jobs, and I looked like a high school kid. I wanted a way to look older and be taken more seriously. It more or less worked. I also saved a lot on razors and cut myself less.
After a couple years, my jobs became less traditional. I noticed a few men in the 80s wearing ponytails and I began to wonder about that. I liked the look and decided to go for it.
After awhile, it began to work and it seemed to look good with the beard. So, as we entered the full-fledged 90s dot-com era under Bill Clinton, I began to look like I’d stepped out of Woodstock, circa 1969 (I was actually 5 years old during Woodstock). What I learned along the way is, to look like this, there are certain social realities and grooming challenges.
For instance, when you have long hair, you usually need to keep it tied back in order to look neater and keep it out of your eyes, nose, and mouth (hair is not a good snack). Young women learned this by the time most were able to talk, while I was figuring it out in my late 20s.
What sort of hair ties does one use? Rubber? Nope, pulls too much hair. Colorful plastic clips? Not very masculine. Colored hair ties? Yeah, that worked, but the particular colors were critical.
I mean, nobody ever taught me that matching your hair tie to your shirt was important. Suddenly I had to learn proper accessorizing. Not something they brought up in “Boys’ Life,” I’ll tell you. And they didn’t cover it all those years later in “Rolling Stone,” “Men’s Health,” or any other magazine. And the barrette question just had me totally stumped.
Then there was the whole braiding thing. Does a guy braid long hair? Well, I learned that depended on whether or not he could braid his hair, needed help, or even had enough hair to braid.
Also, how did it look when done? French braid? Regular braid? Exotic? Did you complete the braid with a basic hair tie or something flashier? This whole issue could get very metrosexual, very fast.
I learned several things about braiding hair. First, I couldn’t do it to save my life, while most women could pull it off by age 8. Second, I had to have someone else do it and, even when done right, I wasn’t too sure how I felt about it. And finally, it took awhile before I really had enough hair to pull it off.
It looks good on many big, burly long-haired men like certain Native American folks you see in movies and on TV. It looked good on “Game of Thrones.” But did it work for short, Jewish guys? The jury is still out.
Another issue with long hair was the reaction of potential employers and others of a more short-haired variety. During this period, I worked for other people and, whenever I went in for an interview, I had to carefully consider my look based on the job.
The straighter the job, the more I had to trim the beard, tie back the hair, and carefully coordinate the hair-tie color with the suit jacket or tie (or shirt, that’s what went wrong). It was a nightmare.
And deity forbid that I let my hair down. Oy! You could just see the looks on the faces as you shook hands and sat down for the interview.
There would be this forced smile that didn’t reach the eyes and you could almost hear the thoughts. “Does this guy bathe regularly? Is he a commie? Anarchist? Hippie? Y’know, he kind of resembles Jesus….”
On that last one, my wife once informed me that I was getting some very odd glances from older church ladies back before my hair went gray.
By the late ’90s, I was a full-fledged long-haired hippie throwback and happily self-employed. Ironically, it worked even better, as my job was as a computer consultant. People in business had a definite idea of what a techie should look like, and for some reason, long hair played into it (though proper accessorizing was still critical).
I actually once had a new client tell me that, had I shown up in a suit and tie looking all straight, that he would have thrown me out. This also was the era when business casual started to gain steam and suits were replaced by khakis and polo shirts with company logos. I fit right in, though I stuck with jeans.
To actually be in fashion for once in my life was a bit of a shock. I almost opted for a haircut in protest. And I don’t abide khakis.
Since then, I’ve had a couple office gigs that I learned even more from. Not-for-profits are way more comfortable with long hair than corporations (unless you’re a 20-something tech genius who just came up with the next Facebook). Lady bosses much more often prefer long hair then male bosses do (still no idea on that one). And the new generations seem to vacillate between long hair and no hair.
I’ve noticed a trend where some younger guys who begin to lose hair just go totally bald in their 20s. This was unheard of in my youth, when men worked with the comb over, toupees, and Hair Club for Men.
I refer to these youngsters as quitters in the hair game. C’mon guys, there are options to shaving your entire head every morning! Can you spell Rogaine?
I learned a few other things along the way. Once you start to go gray, people start referring to you as distinguished. But this brings up the question of a distinguished hair tie. Leather? Silver? Corduroy to match the patches on your jacket?
Once the beard starts going gray, you start getting senior discounts (even if it is 10 years early). You rarely get asked for proof of age when purchasing alcohol and the church ladies no longer look at you quite as oddly. Finally, I could go out in long flowing robes and not tie my hair back. What a relief!
And you learn that fashion, no matter what the magazines say, is really about what works for you. Fashion seems to go in cycles and what is old becomes new again every five to 10 years.
If you wait long enough, even disco fashion will return. They’ll just call it EDM fashion (electronic dance music, which is a rehash of the rave culture, which harkens back to disco — well you get the idea.)
Thus, I was in fashion for a bit in the 90s, so by my calculations, I should be back in fashion in another five or so years. But I might need more tattoos (I have only one) and maybe a few more piercings (only three at present).
Now, after more than 20 years of long hair, maybe I’ll have to finally look into braiding lessons. That might be in fashion soon. Unless the hipsters start braiding their beards. Wait, does that means you weave beads in? Tiny barrettes? Artisanal hair ties? Oh man, what next?
Editor’s note: Michael Seinberg remains long-haired, bearded, tattooed, pierced, and perfectly happy with that, he says, noting that his employer is too. Of course, he’s still self-employed.
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If you follow some of the cooler quotes that are attributed to Buddha or other figures from Eastern religions, you tend to think, “Wow, that makes a lot of sense!”
The reason is that much of Western religion seems to be about telling us what not to do, what not to think, all the terrible things awaiting us if we don’t follow the rules, and so on. So it’s the whole punitive versus philosophical approach, at least on the surface.
However, in the interests of full disclosure, I have heard there is supposedly a Buddhist hell. I imagine it resembles Crossgates on Dec. 24 at 5 pm. At least, that’s how I picture hell.
Now, before you fire up the torches and the Twitter posts, keep in mind that I’m a nice Jewish boy from Long Island (seriously). Though I’m not really what you’d call a practicing Jew, I was raised as such, so my view of organized religion comes as a result of that. I did not grow up going to church or mosque on a weekly or daily basis, so bear that in mind.
I’ve also been anti-authoritarian my whole life, so anything or anyone trying to tell me what to do in a forceful way doesn’t really sit too well. Thus, hearing cool, interesting, uplifting, or positive ideas from other religions that are presented as ideas, philosophy, suggestions, or whatever, is simply more palatable.
Of course, the problem is that in trying to embrace Eastern philosophy, you run into some very ingrained Western thought patterns.
When I was in college, I learned to meditate as a means of reducing stress. This was way back before they tossed drugs at every problem.
There are lots of techniques, but the basic idea is to concentrate on your body, breathing, or whatever, in an effort to un-focus your mind and allow everything to just kind of settle.
The whole Om Mani Padme Om thing is just a device to get your mind to kind of empty. You could just as easily chant “I love Netflix” or “Kim and Kanye are scary” or “Bacon is Good.” Whatever works for you.
The key is to slow the thought process down to where your mind is as empty as a politician’s promise. The reality is that we don’t do empty mind well in the West. Actually, we kind of suck at it.
We’re always being bombarded with input, visual and aural stimuli, smells, and so on. You have to make quite an effort to just find a place quiet enough to meditate.
You also have to turn off your phone, which pretty much excludes most of the current population of the United States. Most smart-phone owners view such an act as about equal to doing without oxygen for a couple hours. But, for the sake of argument, let’s say you shut off the phone, found a quiet spot, and got into a physically comfortable position. Now you need to clear your mind and focus on your breathing.
Each time you breathe in, say “one” inside your head. Breathe slowly and steadily.
Wait, did I turn off the washer? Did I unload the dryer? What am I making for dinner? Are the kids out by the pool alone? Does the car need an oil change? Where is my spouse? Was that the dog whining? Wait, what was I supposed to be doing? Is that a squirrel?
See what I mean about clearing your mind? It’s like clearing one of those houses on a hoarders’ TV program. You need a mental backhoe.
So maybe meditation isn’t your bag. One major tenet of eastern philosophy is to focus on living in the moment. The idea is that much of our stress is caused by regret or sorrow about the past or worry about the future.
If you live fully in the moment, you are so engaged and energized, that many of the stressors just melt away. So let’s try being in the moment.
OK. You’re sitting at your desk. Feet firmly planted on the floor. Your computer is glowing brightly, your coffee cup is full and warm, your clothes are comfy, and your office is humming quietly around you. You are here and no place else. You are now, and no other time.
Wait, isn’t there a meeting in 20 minutes? Is the PowerPoint ready? What will I have for lunch? Wait, don’t I have to stop by school for a teacher meeting after work? Did my spouse take out that trash? What was I supposed to be doing? Living in the moment? Which moment? That one? The next? I’m so stressed!
OK, so we’re not really batting .1000 here. Personally, I find living in the moment, meditating, being mindful, and all the other Eastern practices very tricky to master, due simply to the nature of Western civilization; such as it is.
The messages we are fed every day are mostly designed to sell us things or change our way of thinking in order to sell us more things. Those messages employ fear as a major motivator plus greed, envy, superiority, and pretty much any and every other negative feeling and emotion you can dredge up.
Thus, in order to live a more Eastern existence, you kind of have to ignore or remove yourself from a lot of what passes for normal society these days.
This is why Buddhist monks tend to live high up in isolated monasteries without cell service, high-speed cable, or even electricity, in some cases. Their daily lives involve meditating, cleaning, cooking, eating, and sleeping. Their lives are simpler, slower and designed to encourage contemplation. And they are rarely called on to prep a PowerPoint.
The bottom line is that Eastern philosophy has much to teach the Western mind. The key, at least in my muddled mind, is to embrace what you can, when you can.
It’s like healthy eating habits for the mind. We all know we should be eating more veggies and fruits, leaner meats, more complex carbs, and fewer sweets. Of course that doesn’t help you as you stand at the brunch buffet eyeing the six pounds of fresh bacon, two-foot mound of scrambled eggs, and the made-to-order Belgian waffle station.
In the end, trying each day to slow down a little, be a little more grounded, meditate for a few minutes when we can, and care less about the future or past in favor of the present are all good steps. The sum total could actually change your life in positive ways. But, at the same time, a little bacon never killed anyone, just so long as you don’t eat all six pounds.
Editor’s note: Michael Seinberg says he has been interested in Eastern philosophy, meditation, and mindfulness long before there were apps for it.
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— Photo by Mike Seinberg
Lemon is stretched out on his throne.
— Photo by Mike Seinberg
Sylvie guards the author’s chair for him.
By now, most readers of this column are well acquainted with the three feline folk who cohabitate with us. Lemon, Nibbler, and Sylvie are part of the family and part of daily life.
As such, we get a chance to see them in action on a regular basis and watch them and their antics. After a year of such observation, I began to realize that cats are either the quirkiest, most interesting creatures we’ve chosen to share space with or they’re just plain nuts.
So how does one determine eccentric versus crazy? Well, since we usually don’t do a very good job figuring that with people, I give us only a small chance to do it with beings we can’t even really communicate with. However, if you spend more than a few days watching cats operate, you really do wonder what goes on in their heads.
Take feeding time. They like to meow loudly, climb counters, and try to trip you, all in an effort to speed up the opening of the sacred can and filling of the food bowls. They will stand right over the dry food bowls while you attempt to pour dry food in, thereby blocking you and slowing the process down. Not what I would call signs of sanity or even overt intelligence.
They are also really messy eaters, leaving wet and dry food in a seven-foot radius around the bowl. But then they spend 15 minutes after a meal licking themselves clean with an air of purity and intensity normally restricted to surgeons scrubbing up before a heart transplant. All the while sitting amidst the cat equivalent of the food fight scene in “Animal House.”
They have a habit of watching someone go through the process of cleaning out a litter box as if they’re in charge of supervising the proceedings. “There’s a bit of poo over to the left and don’t miss that big stinker buried on the right!” they psychically beam at you.
Then one of them will saunter in, use said freshly cleaned box and look at you as if to say, “Well, what are you waiting for?” A bathroom attendant, I ain’t. But then, I suppose we all like a “fresh bowl” so to speak.
Their behavior with other living things is always interesting. When one of them sees an insect, especially of the flying variety, they’ll sail through the house in hot pursuit knocking over lamps, tearing at curtains or attempting to climb walls. Obviously, a common housefly, or stinkbug is a fire-breathing dragon in the eyes of a cat and Khaleesi is not available to exert control, so they have to.
And once they’ve actually killed said dragon, they leave the carcass in the middle of the floor, or spend the next 20 minutes batting it about like a toy mouse. From dragon to chew toy in 30 seconds. Seriously?
Their behavior with the Yorkshire terrier that lives next door is even funnier. They sit at the back door and watch him in rapt attention as he runs around the yard, the back deck, and through the gardens. If he comes up to the door in an effort to say hi, they bolt.
Except Sylvie. She occasionally slips out the back door and, if the dog is out, they begin what can only be described as a ballet of schizophrenia. The dog comes close and sniffs, maybe barks a bit. Sylvie hides in the garden and meows loudly.
The dog backs off and Sylvie slinks out and follows him. You have to keep in mind the dog weighs about the same as Sylvie and is very friendly. Eventually they stare at one another, obviously confused as to the next step in their courtship.
“What the hell kind of cat is that?” thinks Sylvie.
“What the hell kind of dog is that?” wonders Jameson.
At least they don’t have any need to ask one another about religion or politics.
As our guys are strictly indoors (except for Sylvie’s aforementioned jail breaks), they don’t get the chance to roam the yards like a pride of lions combing the veldt for a stray antelope. However, they perch on windowsills with great fervor, studying every living thing that passes by as if they could knock it down with secret eye lasers. As if…
Water is generally considered a problem for cats, but not our Sylvie. After one of the pink people (us) finishes showering, she’ll push the bathroom door open, stroll in, and hop right into the wet tub and just sit. I once tried to turn on the shower and she lit out like I’d attempted to roast her alive. Then the next day she was back in the tub.
She likes the faucet, too. If I’m washing dishes, she’ll jump onto the counter beside me, sit down and supervise with great attention to detail. But, if I flick water at her or pet her with a wet hand, she is gone.
So I guess you could say the jury is out on the issue of cat sanity. I’ve seen other writers attach great swathes of prose to what must be going on inside the minds of cats. They usually suggest they’re long-suffering prisoners bent on world domination while dogs are happy-go-lucky doofs with the IQ of a tennis ball.
I’m not sure I agree as Minnie, our old Chihuahua, was anything but doofy. I’ll just have to continue my observations like Dian Fossey and her gorillas. Kitties in the mist. More like kitties in the shower….
Editor’s note: Michael Seinberg says he is looking into the possibility of funding further cat-sanity studies by uploading a video of the cats attempting to use a Kitchenaid mixer; Sylvie is asleep in the bowl though, so production has ground to a halt.
The other day, my wife and I were out driving and, as has become our habit, the passenger checks one direction while the driver checks the other before moving through an intersection. Normal? I guess.
But I recall the old days when either of us could manage the feat without help from the other. In fact, we still manage it on days when we drive solo. But nowadays, we find more and more, that we need help just driving safely and I’m wondering if it’s us, or them.
Every time I take my car or (deity forbid) my motorcycle out on the road, I am reminded that I’m not in Kansas anymore. To be more specific, things on the road have changed since I got my license in 1981.
There are more vehicles on the road than ever. There are bigger vehicles than ever. And, it seems, more bad drivers than ever.
Thus, the problems I’ve observed. Experts (anyone in front of a camera) are all talking about distracted driving as being the root cause of this. They say there are too many people doing too many things while behind the wheel that have nothing to do with driving. Judging by what I see every day, I think that’s definitely a piece of the issue.
Take the average working mom in the morning. She’s usually piloting a “safe” vehicle. That means she’s driving a large SUV with the same physical dimensions and weight of a World War II Sherman tank.
She is juggling the baby in the car seat, the dog in the dog seat, the navigation system, her cell phone, her makeup, the baby’s bottle, the dog’s snack, the car’s entertainment system and breakfast. I’m amazed she makes it out of the driveway in one piece.
The teen driver on the way to school each morning is equally hamstrung as he/she/they (usually groups) pilot their second-hand/sporty/barely running vehicles to the crowded, chaotic high school parking lot. Along the way, they have to finish their homework; answer 20 texts, three phone calls; and update their Facebook page, all while swallowing breakfast, picking an outfit, doing makeup, and having multiple conversations.
That may have something to do with their insurance rates being roughly equivalent to a mortgage payment.
Then there are the drivers who find current traffic laws to be more guidelines than laws. The seven people who blow through a red light just as it changes from yellow to red are all my favorite examples of this phenomenon.
In many intersections, I literally count to three or five after the light changes just to makes sure there are no stragglers before I proceed. This usually results in someone across the intersection taking a quick left in front of me, usually with a pissed-off expression because I didn’t gun the car the second the light went green like some drag racer on amphetamines.
Then there are the folks who no longer see stop signs. Those red signs now indicate a need to slowly roll the car though a turn, simply assuming anyone already in the road you’re turning onto will watch out for you. How does that work in their minds?
“Oh look, a stop sign. Umm, but stopping is so inconvenient. I hate stopping. Stopping depresses me and my doctor said I should avoid things that depress me. So I have my doctor’s OK to ignore stop signs. I feel better already!”
Till they get T-boned.
Back in the dark ages when I took drivers ed, I learned a number of things. Just after they taught us how to crank start the Model T, they taught us about something we used to call defensive driving.
The basic idea was that you were constantly looking around as you drove in order to anticipate, and thus avoid, potential problems. Were kids playing in a yard up ahead? Was the driver behind you getting too close? Was the driver ahead of you acting oddly? Were road conditions or visibility bad? Was anyone moving into your blind spot?
It seems like today’s drivers skipped that whole concept in favor of the current model: offensive driving. Those are the folks who drive so badly at all times that you’re constantly wondering how and where they got their license.
You also wonder why there’s never a police officer around when they go down a 30-mile-per-hour street at 50 or blow through a stop sign or a red light narrowly avoiding an accident and leaving “offended” drivers in their wake. They drive like they own the road and make the rest of us have to drive almost hyper-defensively.
Thus the need for a wingman(woman) these days. The driver controls the car and scans for dangers while the lookout scans more aggressively and reports. It’s sort of like the radar officer in the rear seat of a fighter jet who keeps an eye on the sky while the pilot flies the plane. Only the fighter guys are way safer over Iraq than we are on the Northway.
While distracted driving may be part of the issue, I still think plain old everyday selfishness is the real issue. People need to realize that, for everyone on the road to make it safely every day, they all need to acknowledge that we need to work together.
Everyone (this means you) needs to follow all traffic laws. Everyone (yes, you too), needs to focus on driving, not everything else. And, finally, everyone needs to slow it down and drive in a pleasant, friendly and positive manner. I watch out for you and you watch out for me and we all get where we’re trying to go.
Think of it this way. What would happen if you were in a grocery store and people were piloting their carts the way they drive? Crashes in produce! Pile-ups in frozen foods! Lawsuits in the cereal aisle! There will be smashed watermelons everywhere from collisions, EMTs rushing through the bakery goods, and cops cuffing people at the checkout before they can escape. In other words, rush hour on 787 moves indoors.
Please, for everyone’s sake. Think of the watermelons and drive more safely.
Editor’s note: Michael Seinberg and his wingwoman have a combined driving career of around 74 years and probably over 500,000 miles. They report that it’s never been scarier to go out to the movies.
Location:
I am not a coffee drinker. Never have been. I like the smell of freshly ground coffee and fresh coffee beans but that’s about it.
My wife, on the other hand, is a devoted coffee drinker. She knows what she likes, brews her own using old technology (no Keurigs here, folks), and needs it each day to get her day started right, and I respect that.
But there is a problem here in paradise and that is the subtle, but always lurking destructive power of coffee. I mean this stuff doesn’t need to be weaponized; it already is.
Take coffee’s destructive staining power. A few drops on lighter colored material can destroy it for all time. White blouse? Wrecked. Beige pants or skirt? Destroyed. And light colored auto upholstery? Time for a new car.
And if you really want to do damage, drop a really hot cup of coffee on someone wearing white pants. They’ll be incapacitated by third-degree crotch burns and their pants will be destroyed for all time. If we could come up with smart coffee bombs, wars would be over in minutes.
And why does spilled coffee leave brown marks everywhere for a five-block radius? It’s worse than changing the toner on a copier while wearing a white tuxedo.
Coffee is also hell on electronics. How many laptops, tablets, keyboards, cell phones and other electronic devices have been rendered dead by the judicious application of spilled coffee? It brings a new dimension to cyber warfare.
If we could replace all the coffee cups in secret computer installations with ones that spill or explode when sent a remote signal, we could knock out the entire technical infrastructure of a country, army, or company in one, fell swoop. And we’d also wreck all those clothes too!
What about the human dimension? Imagine, if you will, what would happen to Seattle, LA, or NYC if all the coffee there were suddenly secretly replaced by decaf. You’re talking lethargy on an epic scale. Whole cities brought to their knees by a lack of chemical stimulation.
Traffic in LA would grind to a halt due to thousands of commuters asleep at the wheel. Seattle traffic (as bad as LA these days) would also grind to a halt (The Space Needle elevator would never rise again).
Companies would have to close due to no conscious employees. Government offices would be paralyzed, schools would shut down (no teacher can function in a class of 28 without that java jolt) and Starbucks, well, there’d be riots of zombie-like patrons who would pile up like snoring cordwood, blocking the doors. Mass hysteria!
But there would be some bright spots. Tea drinkers, like myself, would suddenly be operating in a quiet, calm world. We’d get a lot more done, as our phones would be silent and our e-mail boxes empty.
Social media, long driven by over-caffeinated thumbs would be a ghost town of cute kitties and no tweets. Countries like England would suddenly rise to world dominance, as they’d be the only places with functional populations.
People worry about legalizing pot and yet they daily consume brown liquid dynamite. It makes you wonder what the real story is.
Was coffee put here by aliens who like watching our planet size anthill writhe in a constant state of mass hyperactivity? Was it created by world leaders looking for a way to unnaturally motivate otherwise calm, relaxed populations in order to extract more productivity? Or was it Juan Valdez and his famous donkey from the old coffee commercials in the ’70s who were just trying to get revenge on the greedy gringos?
If you look at places on Earth where coffee isn’t widely used, you generally see calmer, saner and more well adjusted populations. The Amazonian pygmies seem like a mellow bunch as do the aboriginal peoples in Australia. You definitely don’t see too many Buddhist monks lining up for a double-shot espresso every day before morning meditation.
I understand the need many people have for a morning boost each day. Many western nations have done studies that show their people don’t get enough sleep on a regular basis. Thus, the need for coffee.
But, what if people suddenly figured out that getting enough sleep and working fewer hours was the answer? Then they’d start taking more time for relaxation and exercise. This could all move them into a mental and physical space that doesn’t require artificial stimulation. Oh dear, what am I saying?
Starbucks and Dunkin’ would fail, leaving thousands of empty, ugly buildings dotting the landscape from LA to Boston. There would be fewer empty cups at the sides of the road; clothes would be less stained; thumbs, less jittery; and people calmer. In other words, the end of western civilization as we know it.
Where do I sign up?
Editor’s note: Michael Seinberg says he has probably tried coffee twice in his life and, thanks to years of therapy and medication, he’s mostly over the experience.
Back in the dark ages of the 1980s, I attended an actual physical college. It was a collection of buildings, dorms, classrooms, labs, gyms, and dining halls very much like those portrayed in movies and on TV. For three and a half years, I went each semester, attended classes, turned in papers, took tests, got involved in extracurricular activities, and lived in a dorm.
After passing everything, I graduated and was given a diploma and went off to the working world, where my education continued. That was back in the year 1985. Before the Internet. Before cell phones; mostly before computers were common and before Google. Yes, kids, there was a world before Google.
Today, in 2015, I’m noticing a lot of people skipping traditional college for online learning. And, if we’re talking about distance learning, full-degree courses at accredited colleges and such, that sounds like a pretty good idea for those who can’t afford the old-school model or don’t have the time to devote to a full-time education.
But there’s a very disturbing trend that I’m seeing a lot of: People with virtual degrees from Google University.
What does a degree from GU mean? In the purest sense, it means that somebody with an interest in a given subject did a Google search and read anywhere from one to five articles that the search turned up
They hit a few blogs, wrote up (regurgitated) a few short articles and essentially declared themselves experts in the field. In some cases (look up foodbabe.com), a GU graduate with no actual professional credentials whatsoever, has turned likes, follows, and lies into an actual career. That includes publishing and selling a book and being quoted in the mainstream media.
And, just to make it very clear, foodbabe is not worth the virtual paper she blogs on, even on a good day. As a GU grad, she has a serious problem every time she publishes a blog post based on no evidence, and professionals in the field call her on it.
You see this a lot with GU grads — an inability to defend themselves when confronted with, well, umm, actual facts. Eeek! Not facts!
But stepping back from the virtual abyss, the real problem with GU and much of the information on the Internet is that it’s accuracy, provenance, intent, and honesty cannot be easily determined. That means that the coursework completed by GU graduates can’t really be counted as legitimate in the same way that a completed course at an accredited college taught by a real (breathing) teacher can be.
When folks call the Internet the modern Wild West, they’re actually far more accurate than most of the Internet. And therein lies the crux of the problem.
When any of us look up things on the Internet, the results of a given search can usually be broken down into categories. For instance, if you do a search on tomato fungus that is causing you garden headaches, you’re likely to get the following types of information: Ads for fungicide; articles by well-meaning gardeners who may, or may not, know what they’re talking about; articles about Kim Kardashian’s butt; articles that sound legitimate but are actually marketing materials for the corporate producers of fungicides; and finally, hopefully, articles from real sources like Cornell Cooperative Extension or horticulture departments of colleges or research institutes.
That’s quite a range of information. Of course Kim’s butt probably didn’t cause your tomato fungus, but hey, you never know. That thing can block a lot of sunshine, after all.
If finding a legitimate cure for your garden issue is this tricky, then how can people declare themselves experts in any subject after a Google search? Because there’s nobody out there to call them on it.
After all, as the famous line goes, “On the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog.” Anonymity has been blamed for a lot of bad Internet behavior and it’s also why a GU degree is not worth the virtual paper it’s not actually even printed on.
If you were to spend months and years carefully studying a given subject, using source materials that were created and curated by actual experts in the field, then you could likely declare yourself something of an expert after a suitable period of time. Oh right, that’s what happens when you go to college. Sorry, got carried away there.
Not everybody who uses the Internet turns themselves into publicly avowed experts on things. But we all know plenty of people who claim expertise in areas they have no right to, thanks to their GU degrees.
So what to do? Well, we could all start by admitting that, while Google is useful, it does not take the place of real, honest academic research and learning.
The truth is, a trained reference librarian can get you far better information that is more accurate than Google ever can, or will. Librarians don’t get paid by advertisers and don’t consider Perez Hilton to be a credible expert on anything (except maybe Kim’s bottom).
You’re also unlikely to get hit by pop-up ads when chatting with a librarian or pick up a computer virus either. Reference librarians are usually very interesting people, too. Think about what they do every day for a job. Oh yeah, reference librarians all have MLS degrees (Masters in Library Science) from real colleges. Just sayin’.
If you want to get your next degree in the socio-political-economic impact of Kim K’s bum and the underlying implications for the world, then by all means attend Google University. If you want to lecture on the finer points of first-person shooter video games or the latest rumors about Bruce Jenner or Miley Cyrus, you have found your alma mater.
But, if you want to actually learn real facts in a given subject, visit a library, read real books, take real college courses, and put in the time and energy. Never forget, you get what you pay for (well, sometimes anyway).
Editor’s note: Michael Seinberg holds exactly one degree, from the State University of New York College at Brockport, a bachelor of science degree in communications. He says that it’s framed and covered in dust, the way a real degree ought to be.