Hollywood, please stop wasting our time.

It’s a chicken or the egg scenario. Ergo: Does Hollywood put on these relentless shooter movies because we the public want them, or do we just watch them, and develop a liking for them, because that’s all there is on?

I have just very recently wasted a lot of time watching movies. I enjoy science fiction because I like trying to imagine other realities, unfounded propositions and creative ideas. So the idea of artificial intelligence, to me, is interesting. How would it work, what would it look like? And granted, if that were a mainline interest of mine, I’d do better reading scientific journal on the subject than looking for answers on the big screen, but there you go, it’s just a “hobby” interest, one I ponder over for recreational purposes, as it were.

So I find a Johnny Depp film called Transcendence, wherein he manages to upload his consciousness onto the internet via some kick-ass hard-drive which he developed while still alive. So far so good, I cannot profess to understand all the bridges, but accept that he gets there. Bravo, what now. For some or other reason there is now a leap from the kind-hearted easygoing consciousness that was him in live state, to a megalomaniac computer brain bent on accessing and processing all the information available on-line. As he goes deeper and deeper and gains all the more knowledge, he uses it first to transfer billion to his account and then to build a stupefying underground science lab where develops robots to do his work and solves all kinds of medical riddles. Ok, sounds kinda interesting until he discovers nano-engineering and develops nano-robots capable of suturing and apparently reconstructing human tissue, almost immediately after injury. Thus making his patients indestructible. But, alas he is now also in the robotics, which means that he can possess his patients…see where this is going? Internet controlled zombies are not cool and the FBI or similar needs to shut him down and so everyone arms up and … Lets start a shooter movie! Plot over. It’s like all that thinking and plot development was simply another means to the same old end. Throw in the “best friend dilemma” and a pretty girl, and Hollywood is in full swing. A total waste of time which now features high on my recommended miss-list. Incidentally, I think Morgan Freeman is in there somewhere aswell.

Disappointed, but still bent on entertainment, I check out Lucy starring Scarlett Johanssen. Here we would apparently deal with a girl who, exposed to a massive amount of an extremely potent brain-function-enhancing drug, metamorphosizes as the drug sets about unlocking the full potential of her brain. Annoyingly but a-typically, they employ that sage old trusted truth teller, Mr. Morgan Freeman again, this time as a professor (no surprise there) to patiently explain what we are to expect of her as she develops through the awakening stages. First, at 15% she gets into the whole ESP thing, at 20% or so she is able to read and decipher info at lightning rate, a power relayed to us the regular way, thousands of screens open at the same time flashing before her eyes for a millisecond each, her fingers a blur on what must be the fastest damn server imaginable. And then the next thing on her mind, believe it or not…revenge. She gets two guns and can find no better use for her time than run around killing absolutely everyone in the usual never miss a shot routine. But alas, what would you expect from the super-intelligent human other than an ultimate killer. Guys, I cannot tell you how many people had to die for this plot to unfold. Innocent French policemen and unbelievably loyal Triad gangsters exchange every type of bullet and missile ever invented with almost no survivors, except of course, need I say it, old faithful Mr Morgan and a few of his cronies. Scarlett, who finally attaining 100% brain activation, degenerates into the apparently original human state: a one cell organism, and disappears before returning in the form of a text message which states “I am everywhere”. Oh God, please make it stop.

Increasingly irritated, my wife and I decided we would watch the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, our choice derived from curiosity piqued by a satisfactory viewing of the first part. Lets see where it goes, she argued. A bit of mindless entertainment, we thought. Well we got our monies worth there. Its best described as a two-hour episode of The Bold and the Beautiful, but where all the actors are dressed in monkey suits. After an eternity of monosyllabic discourse, they arm absolutely everyone including a handful of surviving humans to the teeth, and voila, more Hollywood mainstream coming your way. This movie was a bad choice from the start so I wont get any deeper than that. I admit, we were being stupid, and we paid a high price in time loss. Running a disk clean-up and faithfully watching the progress bar would have been more useful and oh so much more entertaining!

Enough, I say. Make it stop. A brief look at the news should be enough to conclude that we do not need anymore sensationalized killing. You’re not helping. You have the power to send out real messages of hope, of understanding, of compromise. You could be uniting communities and finding ways to dissipate anger, maybe educating people away from this reliance on violence to solve problems. Maybe shift the focus off the gun and the delusion of power which it creates and find heroes in people who are able to speak sense and reason things through to conclusion. I dont know but maybe “patience” and “empathy” could be underlying theme. Real problems are dealt with by employing reason, discussion, argument and profound thought. You guys know this. Just do it! And then make it entertaining because that’s your job.

And as for the actors, why not man up once in a while and say, “No thanks Mr. Producer, but I think you and I both know that this script sucks piles and is just another re-hash of the same old rubbish I have acted in so many times before”. “No” says Matt Damon, “I’m bigger now and I have outgrown the same old sniper/war hero routine. “Uh-huh” says Brad Pitt, “I wont take another life on-screen, give me an artistic challenge for a change”, and Bruce Willis, “Well…Ok, but just this one last time and then I want to try some serious acting!”

The Nail – A short story

I know now why I prefer to cycle to work.

I had left home that wintery day on my trusted bicycle, but circumstances had ordained that I was  to forget my keys at home. No fear, my wife would be at home on my return from work, but alas, on account of arriving late at work and catalyzed by the same circumstances that had caused me to forget my keys at home in the first place, I hurriedly locked my bicycle around a pole on arrival, not thinking that I would not be able to free it at the end of the workday for want of keys. My fate sealed, I determined to commute home on public transport after work and, ticket in back-pocket, I took my place on the 16:04 train from Hütteldorf to Helligenstadt, with the rest of Vienna.

The young man sitting diagonally opposite me immediately caught my eye. He was average in looks, or he so he seemed at first. Nothing in particular seemed out-of-place with him at all. Yes, I remember distinctly that he was blond, with no outstanding hairstyle, aged between 25 and 30, with light brown eye-brows and clear blue eyes, slightly enlarged by the optics of his rectangular framed glasses. He was dressed in a relaxed middle-of-the-way sort of fashion, or rather without particular respect to fashions of any form. But there was one other thing, a shining beacon calling for attention. Namely, the intent with which he was going about chewing the nail of his right index finger.

It was a sight to move the dead. Either his gloves were of that finger-tip removable variety or he had chewed straight through the end of it to get to his fingernail before my taking my place. Contrasted white against the worn blue wool his finger protruded a three-quarter inch ending presumably in the offending nail. The nail was however not visible, nor was it ever visible for longer than few erratic split seconds at a time, the problematic unguis otherwise permanently caught between the young nasher’s teeth. He had a good grip on the offending talon, and was not going to let go of it until he had ripped it (possibly root and all) from its bed and position.

The nail, though, seemed of the hardy sort, not prone to easy convincing, a nail of particular conviction and confident in its right to scratch and annoy as nature intends. Or maybe, generally, this ruffian posses as a rule strong and sturdy nails, or information may come to light that he routinely and purposely conditions his nails by clawing industrial strength hooked velvet, but what was strikingly obvious was that flapping abnormality of dead skin was there to stay. Why, why, for the love of God, he felt it necessary to tackle that unrelenting scythe there and then on the train in full view of the common commuter, men, woman and children equally un-spared, we will never know.

A contortionists of average ability would have found difficulty in keeping up with the range, scope and variety of positions assumed by this idiot as he expended all energies and efforts in the offensive. There were moments where the carriage held its collective breath in the belief that the tussle was nearing an end. Something would have to give, nail or tooth or digit must come off. The magnitude of the forces pulling pressing and resisting each in their own way could not be maintained for long without damage to the very fibre of one or the other. Gratefully the were no power-tools at hand. I shudder to think what injurious surgery he would no doubt have performed to himself, to our, the onlookers, silent horror.

What I am hoping to convey within my poor means is to which extent I was being annoyed by his remonstrating. I felt him, his irritating presence as acutely as ones knuckles rubbing down the course side of a conventional cheese grater, as potently disturbing as the stalest and smelliest of all the blue cheeses in Tirol and Burgundy combined.

I know that things like this are likely to happen, and probably occur behind curtains all around the world everyday. Maybe your neighbour is abusing a nail of his even now as you read this. I suppose even this very moment just behind the feeble parapet of your living room wall, the inhabitant of the cute bachelor flat you had actually intended to secure for your daughter before he had moved in, is leaning possibly against said partition with his foot up on his kitchen table doing untold and unspeakable crimes against his very own humanity with the help of a pair of pernicious hooked scissors. But say you, he does so behind closed doors, in the privacy of his own and home, and so let him be. This is the respect we give ourselves naturally and feel we deserve in return, failing which, common decorum considered, never another child would be born to this world. But the unscrupulous events described above, I remind the observant reader, occurred in the broad, even if somewhat flutterous day-light, as it was, illuminating the inside of this populous train carriage.

I tried to keep a straight face. I attempted hopelessly not to stare. The way in which we humans are drawn to view upon the gruesome is uncanny if not a trifle depraved. Ever notice how queues of traffic form around an accident scene even when accidented vehicles do not actually block any part of the road, drivers slowing down to a traffic jam pace for the sole purpose of taking into view as much of the bitter anguish as possible as they pass. Like the sole witness to an interplanetary head-on-collision, I was tuned-in to this horrible spectacle. The brutality was enticing, the savagery appealing. I was transfixed.

But then, with the single-minded strength of character hitherto reserved to world-beating war-heroes and primary school teachers, who have seen it all and no longer notice, I ripped myself up and away from the dismal display of neanderthalic manicurism, I upped and moved diagonally across from my erstwhile position to the bench next to his but one, which place was already taken by another unfortunate. We were all on that carriage unfortunates. Even those without a direct-line-of-sight to this blond preying mantis were disturbed by his gnawing by way of sound and well, just the general disposition of all the incubate was altered and disturbed.

From my new position I could not see him if and when I managed to delete or completely obscure the entire left-hand side periphery from my optic range. I managed favourably for a time, but I had started at a disadvantage in that I knew he was there, and so naturally I had an interest in knowing whether he had finally come back to sensibility and rejoined his class, the masses of common respectability, by stopping, just simply refraining to continue the illicit behaviour henceforth mentioned. And so, every so often, I would check on his progress more by force of habit than a need for the knowledge. Turning my head, the very outskirts of my periphery vision would allow in just so much light as my brain function would require to put together even the haziest of intelligible images. Bang, he was still at it, more crazed than ever, feverish, flush, reddened and obviously angered. Afraid, shocked and overcome by an all-encompassing sense of grief, I turned away, muttering prayers and silent promised to myself that I would never venture to turn my head to the left again. But alas, the scene repeats itself over and over, and time again we look, only to be once again be stricken with the anguish, ah the plague of twenty-twenty vision.

The lady sitting between us went mad. Clearly driven to a state of palsy of the senses by the drivel, drooling and continuous fidgittiness normally associated with such concerted nail-biting, she finally took charge of the little self-possession she had left and changed seat as well. Unfortunately her resolve faltered. As I mentioned, she had no longer the benefit of sound reason and logic left to her avail, and so, while she stood up with sporting determination she came up short and managed only one step before plonking herself, yes I remember distinctly, she literally swirled and plonked herself down on the seat diagonally in front of him, my former seat from which I had so narrowly escaped just a few moments earlier. This woman had landed in the devils lair.

Irritated to distraction, she no longer knew which way to turn, had no hope of resistance. She gave in, had no choice but to resign to the vision as I had done only some few moments before. In what were just a few seconds, but what must have seemed an eternity to her, she grew ever more mesmerized, until we noticed the last spark of fight flutter out from behind her eyes and she was lost to us. She was now forever his and would forcibly follow his every movement for the rest of the voyage.

I still think of him and that poor lady, and ride my bicycle to work.

Francesco Menconi 15/01/15

It’s the little things….

The true test of significant relationships lies not in the big issues, does not depend on the grand and pompous ideologies or fundamental beliefs, but in dealing with the little things… This is as true for business relationships as it is for the devoted conjugal couple as it is for two lovers in the park on a Sunday afternoon.

All the above have already decided all the big issues, such as religious persuasion, political perspectives, personal economic policies and whether or not there is life on Mars (or if Mars even exist), or they would not be in the relationship together. These important ‘deal breakers’ had already been ironed out in the courtship phase of the relationship, touched upon tenderly over through the haze of candlelight and red wine, or through otherwise boring business lunches and senseless rounds of golf, as prospective parties to the proposed relationships “felt” each other out. Essential topics out-of-the-way, and chemical attraction starting to become a force of its own, the parties draw ever closer and finally a match is made. Oh what joy if that were where the story ended…

It’s however never too long into a merger and acquisition deal that the employees of merging offices begin looking at each other down their noses and a distrustful air starts to lingers in the cafeteria. Seemingly too soon after the new logistics company was hired to handle the delivery of our products from Taipei to Timbuktu, we start to question their invoice and disagree with their methodology.

In love, as the glare of soulful infatuation fades enough to not have to where shades late into the evening, we start to notice the little things! “Honey, I’ve being meaning to mention the toilet seat”, “Yes, but you always leave your socks on the floor”, “OK, so I snore a little! You’ve known that from day one, and what’s more you found it funny back then…”!

And so it begins. Small little misdemeanant inconsequentialities that gradually collect and collide and contribute to an ever-escalating mine-heap of nuances and quite sighs and insinuations, quick retorts and petty accusation. Add a decent dose of real life with dumb-ass inventions such as interest rates and inflation, rent and the uncontrollable gas bill, and the joy of a couple of kids who don’t think sleep is important, and suddenly: “You know what, I really don’t think that’s funny anymore” and “actually I would prefer to do it this way!”. We become prescriptive, obtuse, stubborn and inflexible.

And there you have it. Say goodbye to tranquillity in the simplicity of the sharing, the pleasure of quiet company, or in business, the common respect born of necessity and profitability in dealing with each other. You have caught a severe case of ‘Littlethingalitis’.

But you are in luck because although there ain’t a vaccine, there is a cure, and the treatment begins with recognition. Really it’s as simple as that. If both parties can just be objective and shut-up for long enough to identify that they are being undone by the minuscule, being blinded by the detail of running a relationship, then the cascade can be averted and the proverbial sail off into the sunset can again resumed.

The law, in its collected wisdom relies to this day on the dictum ‘de minimus non curat lex’, which roughly translates into ‘the law does not concern itself with things of little import. And so too, it should be with us in our daily dealing with each other.

We know that the big issues are on par, at least enough for necessary compromises to be in place. We know we like and sometimes even love each other, and so, you know what, with a little effort we could let that last little comment slide, take the next unnecessary remark square on the chin, and maybe even do all the laundry, clean the kitchen and take out the garbage… literally without mentioning it.

I see it, I really do! Now if I could just convince my wife!

Francesco Menconi
11/11/14

The Root of all Evil

Image courtesy of Simon Howden at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Today, I pose a question aimed at the heart of evil. Could it be that the underlying cause of the varying degrees of violence, aggression and downright evil doings of our misguided species may be found in an over developed conviction in false beliefs and distorted perspectives? And it is a loaded question, considering the range and scope of barbaric, savage and ungodly crimes committed daily between the factions of our race on seemingly convincing religious, economic or social grounds, the aggressor always perpetrating atrocities with the conviction that he is acting within the strict prescriptions of his belief, and ultimately for the good of mankind.

Every person setting a bomb on a trusted public square, pulling a trigger at the ‘perceived threat’ in his cross-hairs, firing rockets or shells into civilians unknown, decapitating the corpse of some forlorn captured enemy, blowing himself to kingdom come at a road-blockade, or bull-dozing entire villages of the destitute and the helpless, does so believing to the core that he is doing the right thing. He needs to believe it, and it’s clear that he does, or he simply wouldn’t do it. The hypothesis is self-proving on that score.

So too, the petrified mother kills her children in the belief that it’s better for them to die by her own hand, the jealous lover slays the beast that has taken a fancy to his very own personal pride and joy; and family members stone a daughter and sibling to death to protect their family reputation.

Where does all this conviction come from? I mean, we cannot all be right, can we? How can we be so certain that we are not in the wrong? Have you no doubts? Let’s sit back and think about that for a second, as it’s of real and particular importance to ‘the other guy’, so let’s try to get it right first time, OK?

Now, I grew up in a divided South-Africa held in place by misquoted biblical texts and persuasive all-encompassing state-controlled propaganda, and I can testify to the blinding influence a person’s upbringing, surroundings, religious indoctrination and family traditions can have on ones perspectives, and maybe more importantly, on our perceptions of right and wrong. But all of that cannot and does not justify the evils committed against the subjugated masses in the name of order and white supremacy.

Why not? Because at some point, everyone attains an age of deeper contemplation when we try to formulate and order our beliefs. During this time we go about prioritizing objectives and we organise our principles into our very own personal code of conduct. Ah, we develop our set-of-values, and as life proceeds and we compare notes or clash with other sets-of-values, we adapt and change, swap-out and sometimes even completely scrap whole rows of data entered against that scale; which I believe is a healthy step towards attaining that universal goal   known as ‘wisdom’.

But every now and then, we get stuck and hold on to something deep-rooted, some or other principle built so concretely into our value-system, with roots so tightly intertwined with the rest of the value-base, that it seems impossible to denounce. And it is here that evil begins, and goodness ends.

Faced with this question concerning what he perceives as a direct attack against the fundamental core of his personalised pseudo-reality, the person decides, that’s right, he actually makes a concerted decision, to stop at nothing to enforce his perspective.

And you know what, that’s all it actually is… It’s just your perspective. Who’s to say it’s the correct approach? Another person in the same position, with a different set-of-values may actually see it from a completely different angle with any number of entirely contradicting reactions or ‘outs’. And then depending on the circumstances, a person self-conceited enough to believe in himself over the will of another, turns into the aggressor, the violator, the murderer, the racist and even the purveyor of genocide.

And the funny (…ridiculous) side of the coin is that the more I see of the world, the more I realize that a lot of these ideas and beliefs and feelings that people are seemingly willing to kill or to be killed over, are very often vague and aloof ideas, founded in speculation at best. That is as true for the religious extremist as for the man bludgeoning his buddy over the lost love of his adulterous partner. What’s more, it has become increasingly apparent to me that I was myself unable to faultlessly and relentlessly measure up to my own set-of-values, finding rather too many opportunities to fail by my very own standards. Who am I then, but an insolent hypocrite, to hold others to that scale?

Yes, it is good to have and to hold onto your belief and value system, and to follow their guiding light to blissful-whatever, but you may not purport to enforce those opinions, values or beliefs on others by way of violence or coercion, because the very second you do that, you undermine the very basis of all well-meaning values and religious intention, that of being good.

Francesco Menconi 13/08/2014

Man has been neutered

Cartoon by http://www.toonworks.de

Whilst not too many centuries ago men would have been yielding axes on the battleground, today we compete for places in supermarket queues, swinging our maxi-cosi’s and shopping baskets. Whence before we would make flash and usually justifiable decisions without reverence to anything other than God and our own take on good old-fashioned common sense, we now hesitate and stutter over whether the spaghetti is al dente or not! Our aim is to please and somewhere along the way we have lost our sense of self-importance. So I ask where did it all go wrong.

I think part of the decline is attributable to a guilty recoil brought upon by eons of physically enforced male supremacy. So now, modern man shies away from all actions or statements which might even remotely be construed as being threatening, physical or God-forbid, chauvinistic! Instead we try to rely on a carefully balanced rational and enter discussions with our opposite number using soft tones and measured statements. With our inherited guilt we intentionally disarm ourselves, and walk straight into a shit-storm. See, because as far as I can tell, it is just we men that have laid down the big guns!

What modernisation has failed to take into account, is that women were not exactly lying around dormant during all these eons of submission. No, they bided their time and developed extremely effective counter-offensive mechanisms to rile, conquer and defeat their suppressors. As we all know to well, a woman scorned will go to hell and beyond to emerge the victorious. All those long millennium of forced subjugation the members of the fairer sex were sharpening their talons into a wicked and cutting wit, blinding sarcasm and a blood-boiling affinity to seamlessly change subjects to include past arguments into even the most banal discussions! And all this, we men, the erstwhile undisputed masters of human destiny, must now just lap up without recourse to our natural strengths, and enter into battle using our comparatively underdeveloped argumentative abilities.

The result my dear fellows, is that if you are honest with yourself, you will notice that we never win an argument any more! And it’s not so much that we cannot hold and argument, but rather that the argument is constantly been derailed and exacerbated by clever undermining, manipulative and persuasive techniques, falling wholly within the comfort zone of any self-respecting woman.

Before I am misunderstood, let me clarify that I am not in any way suggesting that the methods of our forefathers is the way to go, but what I do stand by is that the current situation is untenable and cannot provide results satisfactory to the ideal of equal, balanced and productive interaction between the sexes. What I am therefore proposing is a ‘peace treaty’ of sorts, whereby the women-folk acknowledge that they are no longer in the same perilous position as when the male dominated by force, and accordingly that the time has come for them to also lay down their plethora of discussion killers, and enter the fray on a more civil, rational and constructive level.

The reality is that decisions need to be made, daily and all day! If ever we are to lay claim to that benchmark of civilisation that is equality between the sexes, then both parties to the discussions need to ensure that the playing field is level and not tilted by the threat of physical force on the one hand, nor a manipulative and vindictive streak on the other. When an agreement is reached, it should reflect the concerns, convictions and considerations of both parties, and only then can we say that the decision is representative of both parties.

In closing, it must be said that for this to work, the male of the species will need to man up, put the oven mittens down and reclaim at least some of that lost masculinity, which was after all what made us attractive to the ladies in the first place!

Francesco Menconi 29/04/2014