Welcome to New Zealand...My Precious

I’ve finally made it to New Zealand.  "Middle Earth." 

A place where people are as obsessed with “The Hobbit” as Americans are with, guns, not paying for anything and wanting the service of everything, and the "Freedom of Obesity".

Given that this was the first flight I've ever had of longer than 7 hrs (sad, I know), I wasn’t fully prepared for that which is the misery of a window seat in the meadows of airline claustrophobia.  Add to that the guy next to me who was mouth-breathing into my ear while he slept, and it gives you a lot of time to NOT rest and think.  

Between the flight and the 6+ hours spent in the car (on the other side of the road) en route to Queesnstown for New Years, a few things came to mind...

1)   I was 1 of 2 black people on a 400+ person flight.  Turns out the other black guy was a kid from Mizzou who was taking a college trip with his class. Who knows though; I guess we’ve got better places to visit like Washington D.C. … or Atlanta.

2)   I have NO idea what people are saying around here:   

   Every time I hear “mate” I have to unthink of Animal Planet  

   "Edgen nethin ells” translates to: “Would you like anything else” 

     One guy mentioned that he worked as a “Shiff”, and it wasn’t but after another 20 minutes of hearing him phonetically re-pronounce other words in ways I’ve never heard, did I realize that he had actually said, “Chef”  

3)   California is beautiful, but New Zealand is incredible--Then again, it could just be novelty.  But I don't really care...it's sick!

They should call this Lake Listerine.

4)   I’m upset with my American education since, although they TRIED to teach us the metric system in school, the rest of American society has done nothing to incorporate it into American life. 

"Your bag cannot be over 23 kilograms”
 “As we make final descent into Auckland, it’s about 18 degrees Celsius on the ground”
"Queenstown is about 500 kilometers away”

My WTF face

I mean, I get it. It’s my fault for being an arrogant American and not taking it upon myself to learn this stuff, but no one retains information that they don’t need to use everyday.  (See figure: Calculus and Chemistry)

Anyway, we’ve another 2 weeks and today we're kicking it off with some wine tasting.  I’ve gotta tell you though, New Zealanders are a kind yet shy people.  Also, it’s abundantly obvious that while there are plenty of Polynesians around here, the Black American is something that they’ve only seen on television. 

Oh! And I need to learn the rules to Cricket.  

My Album Titled "21"

I should be ashamed of myself for having not posted anything here in the last 18 months, however a lot has gone down since I last visited this blog.

A new job, new friends, and a discontinued relationship will do that to you.

So given that socializing and working make for a relatively dull lifestyle, I decided that I needed a hobby.  Since most hobbies cost money and my extracurricular cash is paying the rent of my local bartenders, why not turn to the world's best form of free entertainment; music.

I'm usually quite reluctant to share stuff like this with anyone given I primarily make these songs for myself and my own inner peace and relaxation. But hey--

Maybe you'll get a glimpse into my soul...

...though probably not.

Among other reasons that I typically don't share this stuff:
a) It's not polished
b) It's taste agnostic
c) It's truly all over the place; and
d) It really is JUST a hobby so some of it's pretty bad

Either way, I'm certainly not trying to impress anyone with this--And whether or not you listen to a song more than once should be all the opinion you have anyway--

Oh yeah--It's called "21" in honor of the 21st day of the year.  The best day the world would ever know back in 1984. Bahahahah

Download Here: http://ow.ly/glRCf

What Has Happened to Originality?

Listen to the radio and you'll find yet another remake of a classic song.

Go to the multiplex and you'll find yet another remake of a classic film.

Go online and you'll find yet another remake of someone else's opinion or idea.

Arguably, this hyper-connected world is killing our ingenuity and originality as any idea, approach, opinion, or strategy can be simply lifted from elsewhere. Now trust me, I'm a huge proponent of learning from others, but where do you draw the line between guidance, and regurgitation? After all, why bother to learn anything when you can drop it into a search?

Even the simple act of performing a web search means that billions of people will be pulling from the same repository of information. Wikipedia has revolutionized the way that we access facts, but it has also devolutionized the way that we problem solve, research, and deductively reason.

The same can be said for music. Turn on the radio and 90% of what you'll hear you will be remade songs from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Technology has revolutionized the way that we RE-create music, but it has also devolutionized the way that music is created.

So this begs the question...who's to blame? Do we blame technology? Or do we blame ourselves?

First off, yes. Technology makes everything in our lives easier. But given that we are (apparently) inherently lazy creatures, we certainly have no problems indulging ourselves.

I also think it comes down to the fact that because there is so much information passing by us at any given moment, we are actively and passively influenced by all of it... So like a web search, our brains just go for the most immediately accessible, relevant solution that we can get our grubby little neurons on.

Whether Music, TV, Film, Politics, you name it--We simply can't avoid performing someone else's song. That, and in the information age there's the unspoken notion that "'tis better to contribute nonsense than to contribute nothing at all".

Remember when technology use to make our lives functionally better? It seems that now days technology makes our lives conveniently better. Problem is, the way that we think seems to have followed suit in that instead of seeking functional knowledge to create something new that's of value, we seek convenient knowledge because it's easy to replicate.

What are your thoughts?

Why Should You Volunteer?

Since late 2009 I've been volunteering with a program called BUILD. This organization, veiled in entrepreneurial endeavors, is intended to facilitate the pursuit of underprivileged students toward college; many of whom will be first generations students in their families.

Because these students are early adolescent high schoolers however, it certainly doesn't come without challenges. Romance, drugs, stresses of school work, stresses at home, and popularity routinely pepper the conversations that I overhear and I often catch myself playing parent while forgetting that I'm only but 12 years removed from those same discussions. Yet, despite providing a different perspective than what is fed to them by their parents and teachers, they actually provide me with a sort of 90 minute/week oasis from my own adult stresses. Work, relationships, family; all of these things are pushed away when I'm with these kids.

I can only hope that I'm able to marginally do the same for them.

With that, I figured that I'd share a commercial that we filmed for their business, "Sleep Well Pillows". These are travel pillows that the kids have made by hand and have been selling to friends and family. All of the editing was done by my 10th grade kid, Marco (he's the one that stretches into Bria's face!)

Either way, if you're thinking about volunteering, wherever that may be, I highly recommend it. It'll put a new spin on the way that you see your life, the lives of others, and the intersections between each. And besides, spending my Saturday with them was one of the best afternoons I've had in a long, long time.

When a Child Lies: Something to Consider

Since I haven't posted in while, this certainly isn't meant to shed light on anything; rather, to make you think about the following idea.

One might argue that lying is one of our most primitive forms of self preservation. Similar to a child's natural inclination to say "mine" when challenging another for food, lying presents the opportunity to reliably manipulate any situation into one's own favor. While a worrisome milestone, it's also a milestone indicative of growth and socialization. What I want to explore however, is the sophistication and maturity required to lie on someone else's behalf.

I would submit that most children under the age of 5 are incapable of lying for someone else. No matter how well adjusted, it's simply not a cognitive process that has realized itself. Naturally as that child develops, their understanding of the world around them expands from self-preservation, to collective-preservation. There's the benevolent realization that they cannot survive without the assistance of others. Thus, whether lying on behalf of their best friend who makes English class easier or lying to Child Protective Services because they wish to remain out of foster care, there is a high degree of complexity required to manipulate an externalized situation. So given all of that, what's the motive?

Pfff, I don't know!

But I would certainly love to understand more about the true intentions of a child and how they influence and manage a situation constructed through their own falsehood. Are they innocently destructive in this lie? Constructively cruel? Both? Or neither?

Either way, I would personally find it both comforting and disturbing to learn that my kid is able to externalize a lie. While it would be indicative of better socialization and awareness, it might also imply a trajectory of deception that, if left unattended, could be cultivated into a dangerous personal trait. Clearly my take isn't scientific, but it's certainly something to consider. It's easy to see self-preservation in action, but what exactly is going on when such a young mind is capable of manipulation not only for self, but for others as well?

Twitter: The Next Social Bookmarking Site

Is it me or is Twitter is becoming nothing more than an RSS feed powered by people who I think are interesting? Now, before you bunch your hipster flannels into a wad, I understand that the purpose of The T is to share ideas with the social web in fewer characters than a text message. However, without context around your personal motivations for sharing, how is that any different than a social bookmarking site?

It's not... At least I don't think so... Then what's missing?

Color. WHY exactly are you sharing that link about Dopey Financial Group bringing in a new CEO? Does it affect you? Are you outraged? Tell us what compelled you to click that share button! Though at this point in Twitter's evolution people can deduct when you're simply trying to move traffic to your site or suck up to another user by retweeting their portfolio of blog posts, let me be clear with my idea here:

The mere act of sharing something does not inherently illuminate your motives behind doing so.

A lot of brain neurons fire between the time that we decide to share an article and its final postage to Twitter, but those dots remain vastly disconnected. Clearly your interests are peaked, so why not take that one step further and tell us why. The ubiquity of sharing these days has made way for vain and whimsical "participation" by way of a personalized message board that we figure people want to see. Why then, would you want your sole contribution to the Twitter universe to be a regurtiation of links from CNN, Mashable, and Huffington Post? To each their own, I suppose, but again- If I'm looking for that, I'll just visit Reddit or Digg.

Thoughts?

Lying Makeup