Author: docthink

no one of consequence

Inconceivable! [or not]

One of the famous and favorite moments in The Princess Bride is when Inigo Montoya tells Vizzini:

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Watching the Yelling Shows this morning, I kept replaying Inigo’s line in my head.

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

I guess Inigo was wondering: Is it a misuse of language? A misunderstanding of what’s actually happening? Or, simply, wishful thinking? But ultimately the why doesn’t matter. If you don’t recognize the reality, you’re in trouble.

I was thinking about this as the guest on the show, in an ominously warning voice, said that people need to understand that Donald Trump is not a Republican, and he does not represent what the Party stands for (he said lots of other stuff, too, but that’s not germane here).

I think that this is the wrong argument.

What if people don’t care that he’s not a Republican? What if THEY are not Republicans, too? [There is a parallel argument on the Democratic side that Senator Sanders is NOT a Democrat, and my thinkings here apply to both parties.]

Earlier this week, Clay Shirky who, by the way, is a much better thinker than DocThink, wrote a tweetstorm outlining a theory of the redundancy of political parties in a networked world. He offers that parties used to be required to access media, to access donors and to access voters through organizing. He traces the arc of a scythe cutting down this syndicate starting with Ross Perot through Howard Dean and Obama for America. He posits that both parties are seeing an internal insurgency where “the people,” or at least a passionate sector of “the people,” are hijacking the party regulars.

I’m not sure that’s exactly right.* I think that we are seeing the hijacking of the parties’ infrastructure for people who may or may not be party members. It could be that the outsiders are not growing the party as much as using the party. They are disruptors.

Conventional wisdom sided against any 3rd or 4th party in the U.S. because of the infrastructure requirements to gain public office. It’s the party apparatus in each state that organizes and hosts primaries. The parties own the statewide infrastructure, the hosting of caucuses and elections, the rules, the timelines and the costs. They own donor lists and vendors who do polling and pipe and drape.

Smart outsider candidates are able to use this structure to launch their own campaigns with enough hat-tipping to the “party,” as long as they have followers. They can build their own followers

  • by addressing them DIRECTLY on social media and use this to pressure and gain earned media,
  • by raising money from them DIRECTLY online, and
  • by getting their names and emails and Facebook likes and Twitter follows to call on them DIRECTLY as well as ask them to call on each other when it’s time to GOTV.

We might be seeing a disruption on the scale of Amazon for commerce, Uber for transportation, Airbnb for lodging or Facebook for communications.

It makes me think, too, about another Clay. Clay Christensen wrote the Innovator’s Dilemma. I’m still working my brain through this but I think I’ll throw it out to see if it’s a useful model to apply. Christensen says*

  • Companies innovate faster than their customers’ needs evolve and eventually produce products that are actually too sophisticated, too expensive, and too complicated for many customers.
  • Companies pursue these “sustaining innovations” at the higher tiers of their markets because that’s what made them successful– charging the highest prices to their most demanding and sophisticated customers at the top of the market.
  • This leaves a gap at the bottom of the market for competitors to emerge and go after smaller markets with simpler products that might not be attractive to the “establishment” organization.
  • See a full and smarter version here.

So the people who were in the market, but couldn’t afford the goods are happy with a cheaper, less feature-rich version that they can have. Or maybe they don’t see themselves as customers of the Party as it is, and are open to an offering that better meets their beliefs.

But what about the Brand value of the Parties. Parties still offer a shorthand to understand where a candidate stands. I did voter studies in the 80’s. I know about party affiliation. But I also know about brands. So I’ll offer one thought. How does that brand–of establishment political parties–make people who are angry and left out feel?

The first Clay put out a stat that floored me. There are 150 million registered voters in the U.S. That would be considered a MEDIUM-sized group on Facebook. Shirky said, “All voters’ used to be a big number. Now it’s less than 10 percent of Facebook’s audience.”

Whoa.

in·con·ceiv·a·bleˌ inkənˈsēvəb(ə)l/adjective
     1. not capable of being imagined or grasped mentally; unbelievable.

* Apologies for my reductionist parsing of both Clays’ arguments. I’m just trying this out, Loyal Reader. I suggest you read them both and help me hone my Thinkings.

Posted on by docthink 3

Run On Stories

bunch of sneakered feet running

Driving along the parkway I’m imagining the backstories of the runners I pass. There’s a lot of them and I’m driving 35 mph, so I don’t have time to get too deep.

First up a runner I call Twinkle Toes. He’s wearing a matched true blue jacket and sleek shiny running pants with a true blue cap. As he’s running he pushes through to the tips of his toes from the pavement. It doesn’t look wrong, but it makes him look light. That and the sleek pants. In his head he’s repeating Portuguese vocabulary and grammar because he’s heading there for a gig in a few weeks. His personal Rosetta Stone practice is interrupted by Thursday’s meeting that failed. He pushes that away and starts to say the foreign words out loud as he runs.

There were big puddles, almost lakes, on the trail near the Zoo. Runner #2 did a back and forth hoppity hop to avoid drowning in one. Her boo is likely finishing off a second mimosa during brunch. She prefers to run alone but ends up feeling a little lonely when they hook up later, one tipsy and one sweaty. Maybe she’ll cut her run short and join Boo.

The next runner I’ll call Cletus. Definitely was an athlete in school, but more in it for the social side. He’s lumbering along in baggy shorts and bare legs and sneakers that have definitely been used. He has a filthy Giants hat pulled down almost over his eyes. Some untamed ends of dark curls poke out underneath the sides near his ears and above his neck. He forces himself to run at least two times a month. Usually concurrent with a hangover. He shakes the marbles around in his skull and feels like if he just keeps going he won’t throw up. It works. For a while.

Then came along the unrelated dogwalkers. 

The first man I’m naming Thomas is wearing a red, yellow and green tam. His lanky frame is topped by a silver puffer jacket. He’s accompanied by his lanky Doberman, Diesel. They’re stopped on the trail, facing each other having a terrifically animated conversation. They’re laughing about the joggers that didn’t want to run past them but didn’t have an alternative on the narrow path. One guy ended up detouring from the path by trying to run up the slick hill. He slipped and skidded right to Diesel’s feet. Diesel wasn’t impressed and was unmoved. He turned head to the side–as if to provide embarrassment space– as the guy tried to crabwalk backwards up the hill. Thomas gave the guy a hand up, brushed the leaves from the guy’s shoulder and cheerily waved goodbye. Now man and dog are chuckling at the unnecessary circumnavigation.

Next there was a couple with two dogs. I saw them just after the bridge, and I don’t know how they went around the bridge. I guess the path swung underneath it somewhere. The man handled both leashes. One for the big dog and one for the little dog, a common dog configuration. The big dog was hers. When they moved in together, the BigDog started having anxiety issues. It wasn’t just the pooping in the man’s shoe, but it was that, too. Since she loved the dog before she loved the man, they got a little yappy companion for BigDog. Now both dogs crap in the man’s shoe. But he loves her.

It was a cold day, but I spied a grouping of men in short sleeves running towards the boathouse in the shadow of the Watergate. They had military do’s. They stripped down, not even wearing caps, to show off their strength and fortitude to each other. The one called his mom later and complained about his overly macho colleagues. She listened and said nothing. Turns out that she’s distracted by the dark spot on his Dad’s lung x-ray. She doesn’t want to burden her son with the looming unknowns. Not just yet. She tells her boy to wear his hat next time and not to be worried about the others. They wanted to wear hats, too.  I agree with her.

The parkway split away from the path, and so the fuel for my tales ran out, too.

Posted on by docthink 2

Dyscussion

You know that email you wrote? Telling someone how absolutely and completely wronged you are by their cruel, thoughtless and idiotic deeds? You know that one? Don’t send it.

When I’m writing a howler, I very deliberately leave the “TO:” line blank.  That way, I can’t even mistakenly send it.

I’m definitely composing that ferocious email. I’m carefully going back and editing that email to hone all the barbs until they are quite sharp. I am ensuring that it is fully TO THE POINT and that no one could mistake my intention. Then I’m walking away. I might delete it right then. Or I might see it in my drafts folder later. I have never sent it when I saw it again later.

I, like you, need to get that righteous anger out of my system. I can’t imagine a scenario in which I need to put it directly into someone else’s system, just for one simple reason.

Nothing good will come of it.

I’m not motivated by making something bad happen. I personally get nothing out of exacting revenge. Ugliness I lavish will likely

  • escalate
  • screw me over
  • not make a whiff of difference in the other’s behavior
  • damage a relationship that I want (or need) to maintain
  • All of the Above

Hence, no good will come of it.

I’ve been contemplating rage-quitting Medium over the cycle of hurt and outrage that is brewing on that platform. But rage quitting feeds that shit cycle. So, if I’m leaving the platform behind, I will just pick up my keyboard and leave. Without a public fuss.

I was watching a clip from a TV show where grown men in suits and ties were calling each other names, being mean and dismissive, yelling over each other and, I dunno. It definitely was not civil. It was remarkably angry. It included glowering.  It was dysfunction dyscussion.

Is your goal to make some afraid? To force an error? To slam the door in someone’s face? To punish? To hurt? To win at any cost?

Let me be clear. I used to be much meaner. It just doesn’t work. Not for what I want, anyway.

Posted on by docthink 0

Too Much Blues

A huge pile of like nine pairs of jeans.

When I was fat, I had too many pairs of jeans.

Not like I had three different sizes in my drawer. I didn’t have the typical menu of fat jeans, jeans jeans and skinny jeans. Wherein the fat jeans were the ones you actually wore, and the jeans jeans are the ones you wore before you got stuck in the fat size and aspire to wear that day after a fast which will be the beginning of getting control over your eating, and the skinny jeans which are totally ridiculous and way past the point of aspirational to the point of downright laughable.

I only had the fat jeans. Just too many of them.

How many jeans can a Doc wear? First, you can only wear one pair at a time. Second, there isn’t much diversity in the style; it’s like five pocket or five pocket. Third, the color variation consisted of blue, blue-black, black-blue and black. And, fourth, if you were lazy and let them all get dirty, you’d end up washing two very large loads of denim and drying them all day.

As I was defatting myself, I didn’t buy interim jeans. This translated, over a period of many months, to pants that began to slip down and were held by my hips, then drooping past my hips until I had to keep hiking them up as they literally fell off my ass.

I got to delay buying jeans over the summer since I don’t wear jeans during swamp season. So, in the fall at the confluence of clothing absurdity and reducing to my goal, I went to Target and bought a cheap pair of new bootcut jeans. They were blue. I know, right?

They were fine, but I wanted a pair of Levis. I bought an olive green pair. About that same time, I loaded up bags of bigger sized clothes, including a shitton of jeans and put the bags on the porch for the nice driver to take to the thrift store.

My dressers and closet were amazingly unstuffed. I wondered why I had so many pairs of jeans (and elastic waist pants and granny panties and t-shirts). Enough!

I bought stuff because it was on sale, because it was a “new season,” because there was a color I didn’t have, because I like that label, because I’m bored and shopping. And because I’ve been programmed to buy via a bombardment of ads featuring skinny models in high heels and a good weave.

I’m over it. I did buy a 3rd pair of jeans to fit in my boots. And that’s it. The new rule is one in and one out. No more retail therapy. Instead I’ll take a walk. To the brewpub.

Beer is my shopping methadone. Hmmmm. Might need to rethink that.

Posted on by docthink 0

Tour de DC

Man and Horse sculpture at FTC

Met a friend and her delightfully punky son at the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery last weekend. There was beer. There was space for a crazed toddler with a full nappy to terrorize tourists. There was amazing art. Not all at the same time, though, but parts were concurrent.

After our parley, I gave her a hug and the sweet imp a kiss and exited the museum. I strolled past the Spy Museum even though it was drizzling. My hair didn’t care and it wasn’t too cold. I walked past the Shake Shack to my jalopy, which was expertly parked across the street from that cement monstrosity also known as F.B.I. headquarters.

I foolishly did a u-turn  (“Srsly, Doc! Have you no shame?” you ask. “Right in front of the heat?”) so I could circle the block to Pennsylvania Avenue. I drove away from the White House–that’s about six blocks in the other direction.

Instead I went left and passed the Department of Justice and the Archives. My whip  wheeled past originals of our nation’s founding documents like the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. They are just there.

Next on the right is the Federal Trade Commission. I have no idea what they do, but they have an amazing stone statue of a beefy guy trying to tame an even beefier horse. I love this sculpture.

I drive by the Canadian embassy guarded by Mounties on the left and on my right is the National Gallery of Art. The West wing has those beautiful Monets as well as the bronze cast and canvas ballerinas of Degas. Crossing 4th St, I pass the East Wing  of the Gallery where they hang the red and black triangles balanced on the Calder mobile.

Where Pennsylvania Ave merges with Constitution, I see the sometimes infamous U.S. District Court. It’s infamous when there are are dozens of reporters with their satellite sticks jutting in the air like a field of unwelcome windmills in Nantucket Sound.

If I look straight ahead, which really is the right thing to do since I’m driving, I see The Capitol. I’m grateful that it sits at the end of Pennsylvania Avenue because I get to drive and walk by it all the time–even now as it’s covered in scaffolding. It makes me feel so patriotic, so American. Like somehow I’m a founding father. It’s one of the best sites in our beautiful city.

On this trip as I jogged left onto Louisiana Avenue, I see three round blue orbs. The helmets on top of Capitol Police motorcycle cops. All three bikes have sidecars, too. I never see passengers in the police sidecars. Never. There are, however, covers on them. I imagine that they have an arsenal, like Detective Billy Rosewood from Beverly Hills Cop, underneath those hoods. The three follow Louisana Ave to North Cap Street, then they peel off towards the trains at Union Station.

I went up a a few streets then made a right on H Street, behind the station. I took the arched bridge across the tracks. At the end of the bridge is this crazy set of accidents waiting to happen where the new trolley will cross into traffic. The street cars aren’t starting up until next week. No street cars; no accidents; so no traffic jam. Not today.

I made a left at Sixth Street, NE. This is the corner for the new Whole Foods.

I’m on my way to Union Market to stop at the bread guy for tonite’s dinner and at DC Fishwife for tomorrow’s.

As I head up Brentwood Road to home, I can see the blue dome and spire of the Shrine. The same Basilica that Justice Scalia was laid to rest the day before and that we walked to for Easter Mass that time Baby Bear was two and his pants fell down around his ankles as he was walking to the pew. He was likely singing, too.

Welcome to my town. This Sunday drive was all of twenty minutes (including the 5 minutes in the market). Yup. This is where I live.

Posted on by docthink 0

Recursive Storm

bunches of beautiful green spearming

You look across the blue cloudless sky. There’s a bit of heaviness in the air, as you’d expect for this time of year.

It’s a pretty blue, both deep and true sky. There’s just a whisper of a breeze. Not a relief from the heavy, but as you’d expect.

Something feels a little off. The hair on your arms becomes attentive. Maybe there’s a murmur of an echo of that broken ankle or a low drone in your right ear.

You shake it off but empty the overfull ashtray on the porch. You don’t put the ashtray back on the table in the middle of the porch.  You put it on the shelf next to the house. You grab the rake and walk it back to the garage, picking up a few empty flower pots on the way. You stack them just inside the garage and put the rake up.

As you walk up the back porch steps, you realize that nobody picked up after that last party. There are beer caps on the table and an empty box that has a deflated bag of ice. Ice gone for months. You put the cover back on the Weber. You moved a chair and see an old crumpled napkin skip across the deck. Looks like the breeze is picking up and the color of the sky is getting deeper. You pull the red and white awning striped umbrella in the house.

Occasional big fat drops bomb the sidewalk and burst on the metal roof. It’s windy now and the sky darkens behind you. You run upstairs and pull the windows shut. Your fingers make sure the latches catch.

You step onto the front porch to welcome the monster storm and as the rain pounds you are sprayed. Flashes of light and crackles of thunder give way to sideways gale and the popcorn of hail.

You see the sky get that sickening color and close the door behind you. Crouch down in a safe place and listen as the freight train tears by above you. As you crawl out, you don’t know what to expect. You peep out to assess the damage. You pause. You’re okay. It’s a mess, but you’re okay. You begin to clean up and move along. It’s over except for the healing, and you beat that storm.

The weatherman tells you that the further you get from the disaster, the less likely it is to recur. It’s been two years, he said. Five is the magic number. See you in six months.

And this is where my analogy breaks down. It doesn’t totally work.

You are disquieted at the reminder that the danger is both random and maybe even brewing.  After you leave, you find yourself scanning the sky again for the portent. You will carefully search the sky for the next few days and then, hopefully, right a few picture frames and plant some mint.

Posted on by docthink 1

Sweet Dreams

sleeping dog lie

I had a hard time falling asleep last night.

Well, that’s not exactly true. I was reading a book* on the couch from about 10:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. when I woke up realized I was thirsty and that I needed to brush my teeth.

Boosted by post-nap energy, I watched funny videos with The Big Guy on his phone. We then groaned through that Buzzfeed list about why we need to burn down the Internet. Short answer, the person tweeting about their 80HD and the other person gay bashing because Rosetta Stone didn’t sit on that bus for nothing. Think about that.

So after doing enough Internet to feel very superior, I went up to bed.

I usually fall asleep within approximately 32 seconds of my head hitting the pillow. Last night, it was closer to ten minutes. That’s a hard time falling asleep for me. (Don’t hate insomniacs. You have other gifts.)

In those ten minutes I decided what to wear to work and what to have for breakfast so I could be super efficient and jump out of bed without hitting snooze and take the dog for a good morning walk. I spent the night with some weird dream about being on a train and having to balance luggage while carrying my friend’s sweet baby. Let’s not try and interpret that one.

The alarm fired about four hours after I fell asleep. I leaned over to turn it off.  You have to swipe right to turn it off, or you have to tap to snooze. I accidentally tapped and at that moment someone put an arm around me so I snuggled back in. Totally not my fault.

The other alarm in the room tripped and the arm de-enveloped. My cue to get up. I was thinking that the arm would have coffee waiting for me if I stalled. I closed my eyes and sank a little lower under covers.

Pop went the snoozed alarm and it’s time to get up for real. I sat up.

I did my lazy technique of making the bed. You can avoid walking all around the king size bed to straighten the sheets if you sit in the middle. From this position you can pull the sheets up and shake them out so the bed is just about made. Super efficient.

I started pulling up the sheets. I moved the pillow next to me. It was still warm from the arm. I put my head on the warm spot and thought about that nice strong arm. I fell back to sleep. The dog missed his long walk.

* This is a common euphemism for falling asleep downstairs.

Posted on by docthink 0

Setting Sail on the S.S. Crapper

shipwreck in Australia

Dammit people! Have you not yet figured out how the internet works?

Let me break it down for you. You tell your “woe is me” story publicly–like for example on Medium or on Facebook where you post to 1,327 “friends” and friends of their friends so it’s pretty public–and people crap on you. That’s what happens.

Also some people will reach out to you as if you are a beautiful and fragile flower. Those people then crap on the people crapping on you. And then the initial crappers pay back.

Yes, your personal misery become a crapfest all because you see yourself as a writer speaking truth to power or speaking your own truth. You’re patient zero on a crapfest of your own making.

I have pathos for you. Really, on a personal level, I do. I know you are going through something and you want to get it off your chest.

Getting it off your chest in a most public forum, however, is NOT a solution. It might be a step in getting to a solution. It may–and I say may in the most improbable sense of the word–be a work of art.

What it IS though, and this is true whether or not you explicitly invite it, is an opportunity for people to engage with you. And call you mean names. And ask why you are lazy, stupid, + all the variants of stupid, playing the victim, selfish, self-entitled, self-absorbed, self-centered, self-everything, unambitious, and/or petty. Some will oddly attack your looks and say you’re fat, ugly, lumpy, disgusting…oh, I could go on, but you’ve already read those attacks. Sorry. And even though it’s about them trolling for reaction and not about you, it still feels mean and painful.

Then there’s the relativist responses. You know, that you don’t have it so bad. That others have it way worse. You are having first world problems. I walked eight miles to school uphill both ways in the snow wearing tires for shoes and with a piece of moldy bread for lunch. And of course, think of the CHILDREN??

So, I do feel for you personally because your dreams aren’t coming true in the way you imagined, that your parents won’t pay for your dream wedding, that your job sucks, that it’s really really hard to be bombarded with messages about having it all when you have baby poop on your suit.

But when you publish it for all to see, expect that not everyone will see it from your point of view. They see it through their own crap-covered glasses.

Godspeed!

Posted on by docthink 1

Mockingbirds

a sample of a format for a handwritten paper

Dear Miss Harper Lee,

I know you’re dead, and therefore unlikely to read this, but I write it nonetheless, because it’s a letter not just to you. You are welcome to read it, though, if that is such a thing given your current state.

I wanted to thank you for my favorite teacher, Mr. Davidson. He loved your book so so so so very much. He made me love it, too. I bet he made other students feel about it, as well.

He taught us the word empathy via your story. I remember that day. I was at Carter Jr. High School.

He was a beloved teacher who tragically lost his young wife who I think also taught at the school. I knew that his wife died because there was a memorial to her in a glass enclosed garden at the school. I don’t know when it happened. It was before my time there, and as a 12-year-old anything 3-4 years prior was the equivalent of olden days. Also this was just something we “knew” and didn’t ask questions about at that time. Like Scout knew some things she just knew.

This is just background, though, because this thing we “knew” was just, you know, background. I don’t have any inkling if he was a different teacher before, since I didn’t know him before.

He didn’t bring his personal loss into the classroom. But, as you wrote, we all bring all of us into every interaction. I’m sure it impacted him, and therefore us, but that’s something I didn’t realize until many years later.

Yes, I still think about this English teacher who taught me to walk around in someone else’s skin before passing judgement (or was that you?). Trying to understand someone doesn’t make what they do “right,” but it acknowledges the other’s humanity, and that makes us more human, too.

I was a bratty smarty pants–not as smart as Hermione Granger but equally annoying. I would read ahead and do my assignments ahead because I was engaged. The class slowed me down. I bet my class participation included spoilers. Mr. Davidson let me write my final paper early. Then he had to do something with me as the class plodded through your novel.

He gave me my first book of poetry to read and sent me off on independent study in the library. I was to write a paper about Edna St. Vincent Millay. I didn’t realize at the time that he was encouraging me to keep my own independence and follow my dreams. Something else I realized many years later when I reread her and about her.

When he handed me back my paper, he looked at me very seriously. Me, Hermione Granger-esque, figured that I was in for it. I really didn’t understand poetry, and maybe I misinterpreted like everything.

He apologized to me.

He said that he was sorry that he was unable to challenge me enough. I heard this at the same time I saw the A+ on the top of the page.

I learned right in that moment that it wasn’t enough to do well or even excellently. Although that remains an ambition. In that exchange, I learned that it was important to stretch yourself as much as you can and to seek out people who will make you reach.

A few years later, I was in the high school gym watching a basketball game. Mr. D. was there and I hadn’t seen him for a long time (3 years which had become less like “olden days” but still a long time). I don’t recall the specifics of the dialogue, but I do remember what he said at the end.

He admonished my high school cynicism–translated to 2016 that would be the unending teen irony. He also told me that a cynic is simply an idealist. In that sentence, he created a space for me to be both.

I finally met up with Mr. D. in his office at the school three or four years ago (which in today’s time frame seems like just yesterday) after decades apart. I thanked him in person for his encouragement that I still draw down from. It wasn’t enough, but I brought him a coffee and a donut.

Thank you, Miss Harper Lee, for being a connector. And for your wonderful book.

Your loyal reader,
Doc Think

 

Posted on by docthink 1

Beauty By Nature

neon orange polka dots

The yogurt was a bit past its due date, so I knew it was a risk when I popped the lid open. I steeled myself in case it was gross.

It wouldn’t be the first time that I witnessed nature at work. Sometimes there is that gray fuzzy green growth. The fuzzy gets my attention. It makes me squirm, a little.

It was the organic full fat yogurt and about six or seven days past the end of its prime. I guess I could just toss it out and save myself the gross-out. I feel compelled, though, to recycle the plastic container. And you’re supposed to rinse containers before you put them in the recycling bin.

We’re really good about recycling at our house, so percentage-wise I’d be within the margin of error if I tossed the plastic yogurt container in the trash. I just don’t.

I braced myself for the surprise that waited inside and opened the lid. And, surprised I was. There were small neon orange polka dots spattered in a striped pattern down the side of the container and swirling in the remaining yogurt on the bottom. It actually was beautiful. Not edible, but beautiful.

The dots–the less pleasant name for the dots is “mold”–floated on the wall of the container so it very easily was rinsed off and washed down the drain.

I’m glad I opened the tub. So beautiful. So gross.

Posted on by docthink 0