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 |   A third attempt at this blogging business. |
| 30DBC PROMPT: "What makes a person become famous and stay famous? Do most people become famous because of their innovative/"new-age" thinking, or because they adhere to a traditional mindset? In today's world, what is the "easiest" way to get famous? Pick examples from history or current events to illustrate your point." <insert the non-existent 'le sigh' emoticon here> 'Sup y'all? I'm about to have my patience tested doing simple things today, I see...don't ever let anyone tell you having a computer is fun, free, easy or liberating. You have my complete authorization to smack them for trying to convince you of such fallacies. As I type this the limits of my medications are being tested...and the words aren't appearing as fast as my fingers are moving, which is double the frustration when you're a shitty typer to begin with. Anyway, I like how this prompt was prefaced with the immortality/religion question...like how one seems to follow the other so often that it seems like common knowledge that they're totally related. I'm not here to speak about that one way or another. In fact, it's probably best for all involved that I don't (and I don't mean that 'cuz I feel like putting my feet in my mouth, but I don't recommend my feet going many places). I guess to start, you have to look at the word famous and realize that there are many unstandardized definitions and concepts of the word. Famous doesn't mean the same thing today as it meant back when it actually meant something to be famous. I think the word's evolved along with the different times, eras and ways people can present themselves in the public eye. Before books and newspapers...that's a thought I don't wanna consider. Radio, television, color tv and cable all changed what was presented to us and how we reacted to it (and all you need to think about for an example is news itself...the art of journalism and media). And then came the internet, where any jackhole with a camera on his or her cell phone can become "famous" to their friends by taking a funny video or making an outrageous statement. In fact, to further my point, look deeper into the screen you're reading this on and tell me if you can see your reflection behind the words on the page. That's you...and to paraphrase one of my favorite songs of ever: I am he is you are me and you are we and we are all together http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap6kSV_U45o Because of blogging, now everyone who wants to be a writer can. What did you do before computers were a little worm in Steve Jobs' Apple? Probably nothing...maybe you kept a silly little diary under your bed with a lock on it, or piled notebooks on a shelf, or scrapbooked (and complained about how hard and time-consuming it was to family members who could care less about looking at it), but you were writing to an audience that consisted of yourself basically. Now, depending on how high your threshold for notoriety is, you can be as famous as you want because of YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, your friends and family, and anything else you wanna throw in that cement mixer. And when you're famous, this is how you roll:  To continue on with the topic at hand though, it's not exactly right to say people become famous mostly for doing things one way or another way. It's all in the eyes of the beholder (dude, I hate it when I reduce myself to clichés) versus supply and demand. For all the Paris Hiltons and Kim Kardashians out there, there are millions of people holding them up to some awkward pedestal where all they know is "they saw 'em on tv". But if there were no tv, what more would you know about them? About as much as you'd probably know about me if you didn't have internet access. If there were no telephones, what'd we have to say about Ma Bell? Conversely, nobody remembers the name of the person who thought shoving billions of harnessed, radiated particles into food heats it up faster, but haven't we all been screwed one way or another without the use of a microwave (and/or microwaveable food)? That's a person that should be famous, and not some punky-lookin' wannabe singer brat who can't wait for a proper bathroom like a normal person http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/10/justin-bieber-pees-mop-bucket-video_n_3.... I think this is the point where I need to start getting economical with the words and sum the "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  portion of this one-sided conversation between me and your eyeballs up: There are (probably too) many factors that make people famous, and there's a big chasm between "famous" and "timeless"...famous is what you get when you try too hard to be timeless, and timeless is being so awesome at what you do that your ideas gain recognition, praise, and all the cool points in the world, while outliving your generation and many after it. That's not an official definition...I just made it up. And to sum up my summing up: don't try to be cool 'cuz you'll look like a douchebag, and if you make me a sandwich I'll like you a lot longer than maybe you think you deserve. BCF PROMPT: "What writing work of yours are you most proud of?" I wonder how many people who opened up an email containing this prompt looked at it and said, "Isn't that kinda like asking me to pick a favorite child?" I almost did, but since I have no children I have no concept of what it would be like to favor one over another, or another couple hundred or thousand for that matter. I don't even know if I have a "writing work I'm proud of", because I'm so effin' anal about not trying to be conceited about doing something that so many people don't do. It's not like I go up to random strangers in line at the bank and be all like, "Hey yo, here's a copy of my latest epic poem...it's 32 pages long and I wrote it using four different colors of ink". And you know why I don't do that? Because I don't write epic poetry.  I couldn't even try to cheat and sorta tie an old poem in with the "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" 's prompt, because the item I had in mind hasn't yet made it back into my portfolio since the last time I purged it from the internet in that dance we writer-people know and love called the "Oh crap, my upgrade's expiring in 27 minutes, I don't know when I'll get paid again, I don't remember what items get locked and what items don't, and my eyes are on fire thinking about this". All I'm gonna tell ya about the item in question is that it was written some time in the very late 1900's and referenced an event that was supposed to happen in the future, but never did (which is the opposite of how writing works, isn't it...you write what you know rather than trying to predict what may or may not happen and/or why). And no, I'm not referring to the flying cars I wrote about in a blog entry awhile ago that I'm too lazy to find and apparently so's WDC's "portfolio search" engine.What's gonna happen here instead is not purposely meant to compromise the integrity of the prompt offered to members of the "Blogging Circle of Friends " , but yeah, since it's me basically saying, "I see what you did there with the prompt, and I don't care", I'm gonna pick a somewhat random item out of my port and link it up nice here. And why am I doing that? Because I don't even have the one item I've been fortunate enough to see published in an actual book up in my WDC collection, that's why! And that's pretty much the total summation of the mood I'm in today...if it's good enough to get the hardcover treatment, and not even endorsed enough by the author himself in an area where the traffic is that much greater, then what does it matter anyway what I think??And yeah, now the tie-in between the two prompts: what an author/performer/artist likes and what gets them famous aren't always the same thing. See: Cobain, Kurt (and how he felt regarding the success of this song in relation to the rest of his music): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWKbfoikeg. So that being said, here's something I'm glad I wrote, I hope you like it, it's not the only thing that defines me, and so on and so on and so forth  ... "American Troubadour" .MUSICAL BREAK!!  I also wrote something once about someone remembering someone else when they're famous. Don't remember who it's actually about becoming famous...me or another person or just in general. So you get this instead...just a random song I wanna hear and a video I wanna see.THE DAILY BOX SCORE:  Clearly I've been having wild mood swings lately, so I've made an attempt to address that with the proper parties. Correspondingly...7: ...is now the number of pills and/or medications I'm up to, which makes me feel like a walking pharmacy that sounds like it's got an answer to everything while still solving nothing.  The biggest mistake I made this morning was not eating...good thing one of the pills that isn't supposed to make me sick will also keep me from passing out, while increasing my daytime drowsiness, which I fight off enough that I have trouble sleeping sometimes...so that's how this medication thing is supposed to work??   Let's see...Apple has determined that most of my iTunes library needs to be downloaded in duplicate, WDC crashed on me twice during that spree (causing me to have to watch even moreso what I'm typing 'cuz spell-check is only catching what it wants), pictures aren't coming up the way I want, eBooks aren't happening the way they should, and random internet outages have made this day almost completely e-impossible to e-navigate. Sometimes technology should just go e-eff its-I-elf into oblivion and we'd all be better off in caves (where I'd be completely justified in clubbing people that piss me off, rather than cursing at no one in general like I've got Tourette's, which seems to be my modus operandi the last month or so). So yeah, not good times. And if you're keeping score at home, a whopping total of one person "favorited" the Tweet I posted above. That's enough of me being famous for one day, I suppose.  Ok folks, I've spent way too much time on this and not enough time on what I thought I wanted to be doing today, so I'm just gonna pack it up and call it a day. Plus I've really gotta eat something, and maybe see some of the outside so I don't forget what it looks like. Peace, look it up on the interwebs, and GOODNIGHT NOW!! |
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