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the smoke of detonating bombs
Wednesday, September 6 2000
Against all expectations, the 2000 Presidential campaign is shaping up as a fairly interesting contest. While I agree with the notion that Bush and Gore are the blandest of possible proxies standing in for vast nefarious political machines, I still derive a certain satisfaction as their failings and humanity prolapse into the arena like the guts of ancient gladiators. I'm particularly entertained by what a rotten façade George Doubleyou Bush is turning out to be. A few pokes here and there and this born-again exemplar of family values is already saying the a-word and trembling like a soon-to-be spanked schoolboy. Now, if only the press would actually be assholes and ask some real questions, then, well, maybe I'd wake up.
I kept reading about something called "Endemol" in the deliciously sardonic accounts of the unfolding non-event known as Big Brother. I kept thinking it was some sort of drug; it sounds like a name brand sleeping pill or something. It turns out, though, that Endemol is Big Brother's Dutch production company. With a company name like that, no wonder they're having such difficulty producing an exciting program! I think the fatal flaw with Big Brother came with the decision to drug test all the potential houseguests. By eliminating at the start anyone with drugs in their systems, they left themselves with a decidedly lower concentration of interesting people. This explains the fact that, by and large, the Big Brother cast is a weak collection of jocks, beauty queens and homophobes. If you study the arts, philosophy or music you know that anyone who has ever done anything interesting and creative (with the possible exception of the scintillating Donnie & Marie of course) has relied on some sort of chemical assistant. Van Gogh had his absinthe, Lennon his hash hish, Lenin his vodka, etc., you get the picture.
After work I rode my bike to Venice to further help Kim with the creation of her new desktop machine. There are few bikerides more pleasant and effortless than the one from my workplace to Kim's new residence.
Though I love it to an embarrassing degree, I have to admit that my relationship with computer technology is often sado-masochistic, with me serving the role as masochist. Tonight, working with Kim's fledgling system, it seemed everything that could go wrong did in fact go wrong. I got so frustrated with how difficult it was just to get the thing into setup mode that I nearly destroyed the on/off switch, pushing it repeatedly so hard that it stuck in place and refused to pop back out. Robert happened to be gone at the time, so there were no tools except a few kitchen knives, but somehow I managed to fix the stuck switch using only a bread knife (as both a Phillips screwdriver and a lever).
The main goal of the evening was nothing more than to get the mouse working. I have to say, though, that in the wake of the flailing I did to enable the mouse, I forget exactly what this entailed. All I remember was that it was extremely frustrating.
Since I last saw her, Kim had gone off and traded in the 15 inch no-name monitor we bought on Monday for a 19 inch ViewSonic, the exact same model I had at CollegeClub.com. I was jealous to see such a monster on her puny little desk. At my current workplace I'm forced to use a measly 17 inch and I miss my old 19 inch ViewSonic. So another goal for this visit was to get Kim's monitor to display information in a somewhat more complex form than 16 primary colors at 640 pixels by 480 pixels. But, wouldn't you know, Microsoft ME didn't have any video drivers to support the motherboard's integrated AGP graphics adapter. The best I could do was 16 colors at 800 by 600. On Kim's vast monitor, this meant that a person with normal vision could read 10 point text from a distance of ten feet away.
Working for Kim is always stressful and invariably leads to fights. Tonight was no different. While it's true that she gave me pizza and wine, she had what seemed to me to be grossly inflated expectations of what I would be able to deliver today. When I failed to get the modem working, when I failed to get the video tweaked to perfection, she wanted to know why. I explained that I wouldn't be able to get things working until I could download drivers off the internet, and that this would take at least another day. But she acted almost like I was making up excuses in order to weasel out of some promise I'd never even made. I didn't get the feeling that she had any gratitude for the time-consuming work that I had just done for zero compensation.
But still we somehow managed to patch up our "just friends" relationship as she drove me back home to West LA.
As I'd been working on Kim's computer, I'd managed to see the latest episode of Big Brother on Kim's television. The picture had been pretty shitty because all we had for reception was an improvised antenna. Anyway, as expected, none of the boring houseguests remaining could be bribed to leave the house, not even for $50,000. Evidently they think there is more to be gained for their respective futures by continuing with their televised convalescences. Lots of people have already said this, but it's definitely true: Big Brother can't help but be boring when imported to America. Americans are too self-conscious to relax and do interesting things when sealed up in a panopticon. (I love that word; I wish I'd coined it.) Americans emerge from childhood with the basics of entertainment deeply implanted in their subconsciouses. They know that in order to come across well whenever the camera around, they have to act. Unfortunately, of course, few people are very good at acting, and fewer still can do it 24 hours each day for months on end, especially when the only props are pieces of fragile Ikea furniture. Furthermore, Americans on the outside are all too eager to vote out the weirdo, the misfit, the Van Gogh, the Hitler, the Einstein, the people who contribute to dramatic tension. Close your eyes and let yourself drift back to a sunny morning before school on the elementary school playground. Picture that kid who got picked last for kickball. There he is with his slumped shoulders, kicking the dirt and watching it fly like the smoke of detonating bombs. Whatever happened to him? Oh, that's right, that was you. We all read Randomly Ever After now.
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