Happy Birthday Baby

Two years ago yesterday, the Digital Scene was born.  I wasn’t in the picture back then. Two years ago yesterday, I had just come back to Baltimore after a not-so-tragic breakup, but was seeking solace in lots of home-cooked Jewish food anyways (courtesy of D).

One year ago yesterday, Kid invited me to make an appearance on The Scene. Oddly enough, I have yet to post the story that got me involved, but even so, I’ll be forever grateful for the Creative Non-Fiction  Writing assignment that got Kid’s attention and led me to where I am today – sitting on my couch with Desperate Housewives on in the background, writing the “Happy Birthday to The Digital Scene” post.

This birthday is kind of a big deal. Turning one was nice and all, but it just meant that we’d survived. Turning two means that we’ve actually established ourselves. We’re not questioning whether or not we’re going to make it, if we’re going to reach people, if we’re going to turn into what we want to be. We’re sure, now that we’re two. We’re getting places and doing things (big, amazing, awesome things that are soon to come) and making The Digital Scene something to follow.  In one year from yesterday, we’re going to have even more to brag about, and I know that I, for one, am damn excited about that.

So keep reading, keep writing, keep watching. Big, exciting things are coming… as soon as we recover from our serious birthday celebrations.

Happy Birthday to us, The Digital Scene. Here’s wishing for another year of snark, sarcasm, wit, and brilliant writing.

Health care. Insurance. Obama. Three things I am always terrified to talk about. For one thing, I am not well-versed in politics and the great entity that seems to be Obama, nor do I know much of anything about health care. What I do know, however, is that the health care and insurance systems are really, really fucked up.

I won’t be able to eloquently paraphrase the content of this news clip, so your homework is to watch it, read about it, and tell us what, if anything,  is wrong with this picture.

I may not know insurance, but I do know crazy-talk.

UPDATE: Said insurance company has apparently reviewed the aforementioned case and has changed their tune

The “Boyfriend” (I use the term loosely) is in town this week on official film business and I spent this past weekend with him, meeting all sorts of official film people and helping him out with a pitch he made this afternoon (fingers crossed please!). Last night, before he drove me home, we went to dinner with his colleagues, Jim and Dave, to a pub outside of Silver Spring called Victoria’s Gastro Pub.  In a series of unfortunate events, “Boyfriend” left early to run to meet another colleague, leaving Jim and Dave, ages 34 and 51 (respectively), brilliant director and filmmaker (respectively), to dine alone with me – a 21 year old college senior with no other job experience aside from working as a salesperson at Marshall’s department store.

In the interest of making a good impression on these two (as well as trying to stave off the awkwardness that I expected to come at any moment), I started talking about school and my major and my interest in film and communications.

“What is your official major, if you don’t mind me asking?” Dave asked, taking a sip of wine.

“I’m a double major in English and Communications, with a focus in popular culture theory,” I answered, trying to sound older than my juvenile 21 years.

Dave smiled broadly. “That’s what my wife studied in college!” he exclaimed.

I was excited. Was a possible contact going to be made? Would I be inspired by this fellow Communications major? I asked what she did for a living now.

“Oh, she actually abandoned her major after college. She’s an ordained pastor for the Seventh Day Adventist Church,” he smiled, lifting his glass of wine.

I smiled and nodded, trying to be polite, while inside I started panicking. The Seventh Day Adventist Church?! That was going to be my future? Problem.

It got me thinking about our economy (as we are all thinking about) and the job market and graduation and careers and success. From what I hear and read and have a general understanding of, we writers are slowly sinking into the “we’re fucked” mindset. Our English majors don’t guarantee that we’ll end up writing for a living. My Communications major doesn’t guarantee that I’ll be able to do anything (even remotely successful) in the media world.

In the hope that they’ll be flattered by my mention of them, look at NG or Kid himself, or any of the other wonderful writers we’re all friends with. Bartending is their means of income… and while alcohol is an integral part of the writing process, it isn’t necessarily how they expected to make their living. Even those of you out there who aren’t writers, or are finding other lucrative ways to support yourselves, can understand the panic when you watch the news (or hear first hand) that brilliant MIT graduates and Harvard graduates are flipping burgers and cleaning motels to make ends meet in this crap economy we’re still mucking around in.

Here at the Scene, we’re all about pursuing music and film and literature and finding connections through those, through our passions for those. So what can I say about our potential futures as burger flippers or room service attendants or online-ordained pastors? I’ll let the “Boyfriend” take credit for this tried and true catch phrase: ” Do what you gotta do, to get where  and what you want to get.”

Moral of the story? Flip those burgers, scrub those toilets, fill those glass tumblers, pray for those parishioners and hold out hope with me – that, someday, we’ll all be living off of our passions, and that Obama will make that happen a lot sooner.

Sex. Sex. Sex.

A while back, TLC was talking about sex.  All night. “Anatomy of Sex” was followed by “Mother Knows Sex” which was topped off by “My Husband’s Three Wives.” I discovered the reason why they call it The Learning Channel.

The latter of the three specials was the one that got my mind rolling.

Brian Wachtendorf lives in Texas working as a psychologist. Convinced that monogamy is the number one cause of divorce, he has committed himself to polygamy… the legal way. (Side note: they claim to practice no religion: no Mormonism, no LDS. Whether they’re on LSD, however, is debatable.)

(Side note number 2: side note number one is debatable in regards to the whole “we don’t practice a freaky polygamy religion” given the fact that this family lives and loves in Texas, the Buckle of the Bible Belt)

Brian married his first wife legally. Years later, he falls for his second great love and “marries” her, by way of a “spiritual” union. Years after that, he meets lovely lady number 3, she moves in and the wedding hoopla starts all over again.

Did I mention that Brian also juggles 6 kids, two of whom are named Winter and Summer?

The point of watching this?

First of all, I’m a sucker for reality television, and it’s just a bonus that TLC is home to the freaks and geeks of the world and enjoys exploiting the disabled, insane, criminal, and just plain fucked up. But I still have respect for the whole channel, if only because they feed my atrocious addiction.

But most importantly, this whole thing was almost another freaky affirmation of my thought that maybe monogamy is impossible… maybe this man has something going right here. In his interviews, Brian Wachtendorf looks straight at the camera and very seriously yet simply explains how he loved his first and legal wife, but he met the second and was able to share his love with her and how the relationship between the three of them is healthy because it’s all about sharing and communication and love.

Now, I’m not saying that I’m going to run out and picket for polygamy with the Mormons, but the concept makes me think. Brian found his first wife and fell in love with her, but then his second wife had something else to offer him, so he chose to add her to the mix. And the same went for the third. The fact that he “married” these two other people is a little wierd, but essentially, the concept was that he was in relationships with multiple women, and it was working. It’s like dating without exculsivity. Everyone’s allowed to be free to sleep with whomever and talk to whomever and have whatever kind of relationship they want with whomever they want, be it different with every person. (I will note, however, that I’m not ignoring the fact that this man gets everything he wants from his three wives while they aren’t necessarily running between multiple husbands, getting what they want. But I’ll channel my inner feminist and bitch about that another day.)

Like I said, I’m not going to be playing Mormon Mommy anytime soon, but the concept is simple, and it’s…. interesting.

If, however, you are looking to dabble in polygamy, I suggest you look at this. My Google search “My Husband’s Three Wives” turned up the following website first – a blog on Polygamy in the media.

Who would have thought?

A million thank you’s to Kid, who has graciously allowed me free reign to write what I will call ‘social commentary’ pieces (in order to sound legitimate) but are in fact a forum for sharing my knowledge on the insane, idiotic, brilliant, and asinine – be those people, events, or just things.

This week we’ll be focusing on the People of Walmart – a fascinating breed. The blog-by-photos features daily updates of secretly snapped pictures of Walmart shoppers – the insane, idiotic, brilliant and asinine.

Exhibit A: The Stone Cold fan

Category: Insane

The shirt is funny enough, but look carefully at what he’s toting in each arm: motor oil and Depends. If I hadn’t felt that my time could be better spent, I might have been tempted to try to figure out what exactly this man’s story was.

Exhibit B: The Pick-Pick Up Truck

Category: Brilliant

What else can I say, but brilliance… of the red-neck variety. Whoever owns this ride is either a legend or a loner. Personally, I would be tempted to ride shotgun if the opportunity arose. I’d be the only one of my friends to have ridden in a “Pickup limo” – it could be my claim to fame.

Exhibit C:  Hate Mail

Category: A quadruple-threat

[from James]

“Hello. I’m English, from England, where deep class divisions linger on unnoticed, like Chlamydia.”

Somehow I get the feeling that if James went into Walmart, he would make a pretty picture himself.

The rest of the hate mail ranges from expletive-ridden rants to intellectual discussions, and that’s where the psychologist and sociologist in me comes out. The entire point of a site like this is to give people a forum to not necessarily channel their inner bully, but to be the website that educates others on some of the kinds of people who not only shop at Walmart, but simply who exist along with the rest of us. All jokes aside, it’s really something when you take a minute to study the pictures and think of who these people really are. Yes, some of them are probably certifiably insane or mentally handicapped, but some of them are just, well, people. Who would have really thought that they were out there with the rest of us, in the next aisle over, even?

That said, I can’t say I agree with the haters who wag their fingers and chastise us for laughing at the personal choices of others, because we know we all do it – out loud or in our heads. I truly believe it’s impossible not to. We laugh at what we find funny, we cry at what we find sad… who gives a fuck what it is that makes us feel that way? At this point, with People of Walmart, it’s all in good fun… and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn’t agree that’s what we could all use more of right about now.

FML.

Fuck My Life.

Eff Ehm Ell.

I wouldn’t quote Jewel unless it was really important. In one her songs, she doesn’t yodel, but, in fact, warbles “I might as well watch TV, / ‘cause it’s nice to see people more messed up than me.” If you use ‘TV’ and ‘Internet’ interchangeably, then you have the perfect explanation for the cultural obsession with Fmylife.com. In the event that you’ve been living in a third world country for the last six months, here’s an example.

Today, I got an invitation to my ex-boyfriend’s wedding. We broke up because “he didn’t believe in marriage.” FML

The posts all follow the same “Today, ‘insert anecdote here,’ FML” format, and, for the most part, are moderated by users – meaning you make the decision as to whether or not you agree that someone’s life is fucked’ Way to indulge an unconscious desire for power.
Anyways, it might just be me, but when I’m having a crap day, I don’t necessarily want to hear about how great everyone else’s life is. In fact, sometimes I’d rather boost my mood by hearing about the sorry lives of others, and I can’t be the only one who finds solace in knowing that I’m not the person whose life is totally fucked.
The only thing is, the posts that have the potential to be real mood boosters are probably fabricated. I saw this one the other day:

Today, I proposed to a girl I’d been in love with for 6 years. I filled the balcony of the building where I’d first laid eyes on her with innumerable roses and, under the starlit sky, I did it. She later posted on facebook ‘OMG. This geek I knew from high school did the FUNNIEST thing today’. FML

Seriously? I doubt it.

So when the stories start becoming unbelievable enough that they start to detract from my bad mood, I occasionally turn to givesmehope.com; but I save those stories, the ones that are “like Chicken Soup for the Soul – the 21st Century, Twitter-style version” (their words, not mine), for times when I want to make a good mood even better. Admittedly, this is a selfish thing, but I’m working on appreciating the underdogs more often.
For the times where I’ve looked to stave off cleaning my bathroom out of boredom, I admit that I have checked out mylifeisaverage.com, and for that I am ashamed. I wasted ten minutes of my day, of my life, reading posts that went something like “Today, I opened the fridge. There was nothing I wanted to eat in there. After 15 minutes, I opened it again. There still wasn’t anything I wanted to eat in there. MLIA.”

What seems to be the point of all of these sites is for the general population to have an excuse to talk about themselves, to share their miseries, hopes, and daily existence with the rest of the world. No post goes uncommented, and whether it’s an agreement that your life is fucked or an encouraging word, at least someone’s paying attention to you.

Author’s note: if fmylife.com and givesmehope.com aren’t enough to quench your thirst for delighting in the miseries and successes of others, check out the following:

For those who are in a good mood, who want to relish in other peoples joy and share in the kindness of humanity, visit mylifeisg.com or textsfromlastnight.com

For those looking to make fun of those with a lesser IQ, with loose morals, or people who are just plain stupid, visit whythefuckdoyouhaveakid.com or awkwardfamilyphotos.com