manilajones's Xanga

It is What it Isn't

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:38:56 GMT

I’m not the first one and I won’t be the last to state the obvious fact that MTV hardly plays music videos. As of January 2011, the only time of the day that MTV plays music videos is for three hours very early in the morning when mostly everyone on the west coast is still sleeping. The rest of the day MTV airs reality and game shows aimed at pregnant teenagers, New Jersey people, and homosexual college students. This hardly constitutes “music television.” The last music video I can recall seeing in its entirety on MTV was Bye Bye Bye by ‘N Sync, and that was way back when Carson Daly still gave a damn about children’s after-school programming. In this age and time where it’s cool to be ironic, MTV programming is equivalent to why hipsters think Pabst Blue Ribbon is good beer: it is what it is not.

The same can be said about MTV’s sister channel VH-1. What started out as an adult-contemporary music video channel, it is now a bastion of pop-culture that plays on the nostalgia that old people (read: born before 1980) have for things not current. Over the holidays I was surfing DirecTV and ended up watching an old Saturday Night Live episode on VH-1. I was watching a Weekend Update segment from, I would guess, around 2001 with Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon. As they were wont to do, these faux news-anchors were acting like sarcastic baboons. My wife, who was watching with me, laughed a lot and said, “Wow, this is actually funny.”

I should point out that my wife hates Saturday Night Live. She doesn’t think it’s remotely funny; in fact she thinks that it’s insulting to anything with a functioning brain. She’s not the only person who shares this sentiment. Many people say that the golden age of SNL was in the 1970s with iconic comedians like John Belushi, Chevy Chase, and Dan Aykroyd. Current episodes of SNL are widely panned for being unfunny and overly contrived, and I suspect the only reason people tune in is because of its musical guests (being a musical guest on SNL is still a big deal).

I agree with most people on this issue. I started watching SNL in the early 1990s with Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, and David Spade. Those guys made me laugh. Nowadays I feel that SNL isn’t really all that funny, and I’ve felt this way ever since the late 1990s. However, when I was watching that old episode of Weekend Update last month, I was genuinely laughing, even though I suspected that I wasn’t laughing when I saw that segment when it first aired roughly nine years ago. I clearly remember hating Jimmy Fallon. What has changed? Was Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon’s comedy ahead of its time? Am I losing my mind?

A while back I read an article in which Lorne Michaels (the creator and executive producer of SNL) responded to criticism about SNL. He said that SNL is not as bad as people say it is, nor was it as good as people remember it was. This struck me as being surprisingly prophetic about everything.

As a whole, we seem to be surprisingly cynical about the present. We stress out about our jobs, we worry about feeding our kids, and we fear nuclear war. Every decision we make is approached with skepticism. Is this show funny? Who should I vote for? Will this affect who I am? When will I die? Instant information via smartphones and the internet has made the present a hyper-reality. As such, we’ve become over-nostalgic for the past. This is why 30-year-olds like watching VH-1 and why extreme Republicans like dressing up as 18^th century New Englanders. Like Saturday Night Live, we’re under the illusion that the past was always better, even though it was probably the same as it is today.

Something about this makes me feel sad for the present, but then I remember that it is what it is not.

I Give Up

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 17:46:41 GMT

Early spring has historically been a boring time of the year for me. For someone whose disposition is largely dictated by sports seasons, late February and early March is typically bland. Football season is over and baseball season is only in preseason. This leaves only hockey and basketball. While I love hockey, I really don't get into it until the Stanley Cup Playoffs begin, and while basketball is exciting to watch, it's also boringly simple. Everything about the NBA can be summed up in three sentences. A complete basketball neophyte (like my wife) can sound like ABC's basketball genius Jon Barry by just reciting the following:

The Lakers are too long for any team to match up with.
The Thunder are explosive, but probably can't survive a seven-game series.
It might take the Heat another year to gel together.

Nevertheless, the lull during this time of the year is further amplified by Lent, the forty-day season in which guilt-stricken Catholics sacrifice a part of their lives. Many times this includes fasting, particularly on Fridays, but it also includes "giving up" a luxury or vise. Normally, this does not affect me. My Catholic friends' personal sacrifices over the years have never had a significant impact on my life and it has never been something that I particularly cared about. However, this has changed in the past three years. Every year since I became hyperactive in Facebook in 2008, I've noticed that people have given up Facebook for Lent. This has always bothered me because all of a sudden the Lenten sacrifice wasn't something personal; it became something that was publicized and something I had to know about. When someone gives up something like Facebook, people will notice it. People won't see their status updates anymore or see their comments on pictures and notes. You kind of get the feeling that these peoples' intent is to tell everyone that they are being pious. This is not the same as giving up, say, eating candy, which is something that you can do privately and can be more of a personal covenant between the person and God, but giving up a social networking site that you are actively a part of is inherently a public affair. I'm not a practicing Catholic, but as someone who grew up as a Catholic I think I still have some perspective. I just don't see how giving up a social networking website can make you a better person, unless you're using Facebook to cheat on your wife or sell drugs.

Ironically, the people who need to read this probably gave up the internet for Lent. In forty days, the world will go back to normal and there will be basketball and hockey playoffs to watch.

Advancements in Being "Liked"

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:16:30 GMT

Last spring I was on the popular website IMDB.com, the Internet Movie Data Base where uninformed movie fans go to become informed about movies that they are fans of. I was gathering information (or “data”, I guess) about Iron Man 2. Specifically, I was looking for the plot synopsis of the film. After reading it, I concluded that the plot seemed entertaining and engaging enough for me to want to watch the film in theaters. I also realized that Scarlett Johansson was in the movie, which made the film even more intriguing not because I enjoy her acting (which I do, sometimes), but because the tight black jumpsuit she wears as the Black Widow accentuates her large breasts.

Anyway, while I was reading the Iron Man 2 page on IMDB, I noticed that there was a Facebook “Like” button at the top of the page. I also noticed that it said, “Jason Bautista likes this.” “What in the name of Robert Downey, Jr. is going on here?” I asked to no one in particular. Why is Facebook on IMDB, and why is it telling me that my friend Jason Bautista likes Iron Man 2? Was this some kind of computer glitch? Does Jason like all movies on IMDB, or only super hero ones? Does Jason know about this?

I realized that I was asking the wrong questions. After that visit to IMDB, I started seeing the “Like” button all over the internet. For the past year now, it’s been popping up on news sites, sports sites, blogs, and just about any other website that has the potential to be Likeable. If you’re logged into Facebook while visiting these sites, that “Like” button will tell you if any of your friends “Like” that site, and if you “Like” a site, that action will show up in your Facebook friends’ News Feed. Or, in summary, Facebook has gone nuts and has taken over the internet.

Now, there is probably nothing wrong with what Facebook is doing. I’ve read their privacy policy and I’ve consciously agreed to it, so, if they’re giving away my information, I can’t complain about not knowing about it (although there may be ethical issues regarding Facebook changing their privacy policy every several months). Nevertheless, it certainly feels like all sorts of creepy. Ever since the mid 1990s when the internet became relevant to the average person, the internet has traditionally been thought of as a mysterious place. You could go look for information about anything discreetly and anonymously. Your identity online could be something completely different from who you were in real life. While this is still true, the arrival of social networking websites in the early 2000s opened up the internet. It made people more comfortable with expressing themselves and sharing their information online. And what we’ve realized is that people love talking about themselves. People love sharing pictures and status updates on Facebook, and Twitter helped carry this self-indulgent bullshit to our mobile devices. We’re witnessing the destruction of the anonymous cyberworld and entering a new era of self-glorification. With Facebook expanding its services to beyond the Facebook domain, it isn’t shifting the paradigm. It’s responding to it.

A lot of people don't like this. I am not one of them. As you may have noticed, I’ve implemented the “Like” button on my blog posts for the past year or so. This is undoubtedly self-indulgent of me to assume that anyone will Like anything that I’ve ever written. Furthermore, I have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a formspring page to add to the degeneration of my own humility. The limits of my ego are defined only by the limits of technology. I have no redeeming qualities.

As history has shown, the advancement of technology is a product of our own egos. You’ll have to embrace it or surrender to it. You just don’t necessarily have to “Like” it.

Caffiend

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:51:56 GMT

Every work day at lunchtime I go to Starbucks, and every time I go to Starbucks there is almost always the same lady working there. She always greets me in the same dreary way, robotically asking me how I am doing and what I want to drink. There is never any expression on her face or inflection in her voice. Qualitative reasoning does not lead me to believe that she has Bell's palsy or vocal chord paralysis, so I suspect that her problem is that she either (1) does not like her job or (2) does not like herself. Interacting with someone who is not happy with themselves is always uncomfortable. It's kind of like the experience you get from listening to a Nirvana song: any terrible feeling you have about yourself is instantly amplified. I always feel like my day becomes a little more ruined whenever I see her, but perhaps I just feel miserable because I'm sleepy and tired, which happens to be entirely why I go to Starbucks in the first place. Sometimes I think that depression and fatigue are the same thing: In both cases you're just trying to live through the grunge of your own existence.

I feel like I just described the entire essence of the city of Seattle.

Christians Never, Yesterday Forever

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 18:45:47 GMT

Barack Hussein Obama is probably not a socialistic Muslim terrorist. He’s probably not even a Muslim. But, if he is, indeed, a Muslim, then he’s a very lousy one at best because from what I have seen, it has been well documented that he’s a devout Christian and he goes to Church every Sunday, regardless of the fact that he likes to hang out with those evil Democrats.

Furthermore, Barack Obama is probably not a socialist, but, from a Christian standpoint, I don’t see why it would be such a bad thing if he is. I don’t know what Jesus Christ’s political outlook was, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he was a social fascist. If the fundamental principle of socialism is that everything must work for the common good (and since the driving force behind capitalism is self-improvement through ambition and greed), then I would suppose that Jesus would be a proponent of that philosophy. However, the current trend for Jesus fans right now is to vote for whichever policy is perceived as the least socialistic. Christians tend to be Republican because they feel that that party best represents their values. But, the truth is no one really knows what Jesus Christ’s values were. I don’t even know what my own values were ten years ago, so I would feel kind of arrogant to claim to know the morality of a homeless Jewish guy who was born around the year 0. We only believe we know what he stood for, and what we believe is usually whatever makes our lifestyle more convenient. The past is always rationalized by the present, and yesterday should never be interpreted in a wholly single perspective.

I don’t know how many Christian denominations there are, but the fact that so many exist suggests that no one in the history of the world has had any idea on what the hell Jesus Christ was talking about (that includes me and you). Christianity is like the song Yesterday by the Beatles. It was a song that was revolutionary in its melodies and chord progressions and it made you feel great every time you listened to it. And if Christianity is Yesterday, then the Catholic Church is The Beatles. Like the Catholic Church, The Beatles created it and made it all up. Yesterday (Christianity) belongs to The Beatles (Catholic Church) and it is only them who can capture its original essence.

But, Yesterday has become one of the most remade songs in pop music history. Each cover artist offered their rendition of the ballad, and each remake catered different sects of the musical fanbase. Bob Dylan’s version is like Protestantism because he’s revolutionary and rebellious. Ray Charles’ version is for the Charismatics and Pentacostals because they would rather believe than see. En Vogue’s version is like Gospel music. Heavy metal band Rage did a cover of the song, and they’re like Evangelicals because they’re fucking nuts. Leann Rimes was just a kid when she came out, so her version is like Youth Ministry. Frank Sinatra was married multiple times, so his version represents Mormon values. Just like Michael Bolton is a white guy who tries to sing like a black guy, his version is for the Jews for Jesus (it doesn’t make sense).

If you’ve ever heard a remake of Yesterday, then you probably thought that it kind of sucked, or, at the very best, was not quite as good as the original. Every Christian denomination tries to represent Jesus, and every sect believes they’re doing a good job, but it’s really just a cover. This is not to say that the Catholic Church best represents the “true Christianity” because they were the original Church. Even The Beatles can’t capture the original spirit of Yesterday, and that’s largely because half of them are old and the other half are dead. The essence of everything is always lost in time. Time hates humanity, no matter how much we try to convince ourselves that 30 is the new 20.

That settles it. Jesus probably doesn't give a fuck that the Beatles are now available on iTunes.

Facebook Friends

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 20:54:58 GMT

In a few weeks The Social Network will win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The screen writing was superb, the acting was convincing, and the score was masterful. Now, I should disclose that I am not a movie expert. I didn't study cinema in college; I studied biochemistry. Also, I don't even watch a lot of movies. I watch, on average, only about two movies a year. In fact, I kind of hate watching movies. Sometimes I think people who are really into movies are just normal people who like to sit in the dark and pretend to be artistic (kind of like photographers). I don't like to pretend; it takes too much effort. I'd rather just not watch movies and criticize people who do. I'm all about the easy way out.

In any case, that Facebook movie should win Best Picture simply because there has never been a motion picture that was so socially relevant to the time in which it was released. There is a good chance that you or someone you know has a Facebook account. Facebook is so big that if you don't have a Facebook, account, it is, or will be in the future, generally accepted that there is something wrong with you. Facebook is neither good or bad; it's just part of our culture and way of life. I, along with Facebook's five hundred million users, share this way of life, and four hundred of these people are on my friends list. So why the fuck am I so lonely?

I suspect that many people understand how I feel, regardless of whether they are actually lonely or not. Of the four hundred people on my friends list (who are not family members), I consider about ten of them to be current friends. The rest of them are former friends, acquaintances, and former co-workers from different periods of my life (elementary school, high school, college, professional school, and various work places). I interact with them everyday; I write on their walls, comment on their updates, Like their links, and vice versa. These are people that I am interested in and care about, yet I wouldn't mind if I never see any of these people again. This isn't meant to sound mean-spirited, but the reality is that I will probably never see most of these people ever again. There is no doubt that Facebook has made it very easy to keep in touch with people, but it hasn't revolutionized friendship as much as people think it has. It just revealed how we really feel about the people who have come through our lives.

Surprisingly, this doesn't depress me. A long time ago a very mean women explained friendship to me. She told me that if you could have at least one real friend on the day that you die, then you've had a successful life. Maybe she foresaw the social impact of Facebook. In a way, having friendships without having actual friends sounds kind of ideal. It makes it easier to be real. I don't like to pretend; it takes too much effort. I'm all about the easy way out.

Love and Expense (Valentine's Day)

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:09:35 GMT

I'm not white, and, despite what other people might think, I'm not black, Mexican, Mongolian, or Armenian. I'm not Indian, either. Nevertheless, I guess I am somewhat more ethnically-aware than most of middle America. This is because I grew up in Los Angeles, which is arguably the most culturally diverse city in America. I've done "diverse" things like eaten Korean tacos, gone to Chinese New Year parades, and attended Dodgers games. I even listen to System of a Down. My familiarity of other cultures is the direct result of (85%) being raised in southern California and (15%) watching a lot of Russell Peters. Ironically, I'm not as familiar with my Filipino heritage as some people might expect me to be. I don't eat the food very often, I haven't seen any of Jo Koy's shows, and I definitely don't speak the language. Whenever my mother speaks to me in Tagalog, I could kind of understand what she's saying only because, if she's speaking to me in Tagalog, that usually means that she's pissed off about something. My Tagalog vocabulary is rudimentary at best, but one thing that I have always remembered is that the word "mahal" means "love". And, I will always remember this not because love is beautiful and important, but because "mahal" is a heteronym and a homonym. While the Filipino "mahal" translates to "love", it also translates to "expensive", and this is everything we need to know about American Valentine's Day.

Anyone who has ever been in love can share this sentiment. This week, the flower, jewelry, and chocolate industries will experience their annual boom in sales because couples will flock to the stores to buy presents for their significant others. While Valentine's Day is a contrived holiday to get people to spend money, I don't think this is necessarily bad. Capitalizing on our emotions was what made the American economy great. Why else would we spend money for Christmas presents if we didn't care about people? Theoretically, I suppose you can love someone and not spend any money on them, but that might mean you're a socialist.

Money can't buy you love, but love is certainly expensive.

Three Thoughts on Super Bowl XLV

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 02:54:03 GMT

NUMBER ONE:

The Super Bowl has come and gone, which ostensibly means that Americans are now collectively five pounds heavier and will have to spend Sundays with their families. The week after the Super Bowl is usually the unhappiest time of the year in America. As always, the post-Super Bowl chatter is less about the game and more about the things that circumvented it. Aside from the Darth Vader kid, Eminem's shitty car, and Kim Kardashian's enormous butt, one of the biggest things people seem to keep talking about is the performance by Christina Aguilera. She delivered a fantastic vocal performance of the Star-Spangled Banner, but people can't seem to get over the fact that she screwed up the verses. To be honest, I didn't even notice it, and neither did the fifteen other people who were in the same room as me. "Twilight's last reaming" was wrong? It sounded right to me, and I'm sure it sounds just as patriotic as whatever you think the "real" words to the song might be. I'm not going to hate someone who couldn't remember the words to an antiquated song that no one knows the meaning to. Christina Aguilera has nothing to prove to American sports spectators: She sang the national anthem twice for the NBA Finals and was perfect each time. If you're going to diss Christina Aguilera, then make fun of how her weight gain is slowly morphing her into the blond Snooki.

NUMBER TWO:

The Super Bowl has come and gone, which ostensibly means that Americans are now collectively five pounds heavier and will have to spend Sundays with their families. The week after the Super Bowl is usually the unhappiest time of the year in America. As always, the post-Super Bowl chatter is less about the game and more about the things that circumvented it. Aside from the Darth Vader kid, Eminem's shitty car, and Kim Kardashian's enormous butt, one of the biggest things people seem to keep talking about is the performance by the Black Eyed Peas. They delivered a brilliant halftime show, complete with moving stages, blinding lasers, auto-tune, and electric suits. Fergie sang great, will.i.am auto-tuned perfectly, and Taboo stood around spectacularly. It was the most phenomenal show ever produced that everyone collectively hated. Now, it's no secret that the Black Eyed Peas make mindless music. If you don't like the Black Eyed Peas, that's fine, but that doesn't mean that they're bad. A lot of people recalled that the Black Eyed Peas made socially conscious and quasi-intelligent rap music in the 1990s. That is true, but what is also true is that Behind the Front probably isn't as good as you remember it to be. Everything from a long time ago always seems better, and everything always seems to get better as time goes on. Taste is subjective, and if you forget that then you will always be unhappy. The halftime show was simply just a performance by a relevant musical act in their prime singing music that people danced to at a football game. This was something that hasn't happened in the Super Bowl in a long time. If you were unhappy about the halftime show, then that was unhappiness that you deserved. If you feel you deserved something better, then go listen to whatever "good" music is in your iPod as often as you want.

NUMBER THREE:

The Super Bowl has come and gone, which ostensibly means that Americans are now collectively five pounds heavier and will have to spend Sundays with their families. The week after the Super Bowl is usually the unhappiest time of the year in America. As always, the post-Super Bowl chatter is less about the game and more about the things that circumvented it. However, I want to know why no one seems to be bothered by the fact that we call it the "Super Bowl." Of all the names of the major sports championships, the "Super Bowl" is the cheesiest name of them all. The NBA has the Finals, the NHL has the Stanley Cup Final, and baseball has the World Series. But, the NFL has the Super Bowl. "Super." Did an eight-year-old name this game? Are the players considered "super"? Are the Green Bay Packers now considered the most "super" team? Are the Pittsburgh Steelers any less "super" for losing the game? Could any hyperbolic adjective been used to name the NFL championship game? In the most violent of all sports played by the most lionized athletes of our time, couldn't we have come up with a more dignified name for the NFL Championship Game?

So, How's the Weather?

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 13:08:16 GMT

For the past week it has been snowing in forty states. While it has been clearing up, the majority of the United States is still gripped in a winter freeze. As I am typing this, it is thirty-six degrees in Atlanta, seventeen degrees in Chicago, twenty-three degrees in Dallas, and a balmy twenty-six degrees in Ogden, Utah. This is certainly noteworthy weather, especially for TV weathermen and global warming skeptics. Meanwhile, I live in southern California, and as I am typing this it is a comfortable seventy degrees outside. This is probably not as newsworthy as the rest of the country, so why the hell am I talking about the fucking weather?

You may or may not have noticed this, but people who talk about the weather have been under fire lately. I'm not talking about meteorologists who talk about weather for a living. I'm talking about people whom you barely know who talk about "the weather." This person could be your co-worker, your neighbor, the person standing behind you in line at the grocery store, or even the last person you went on a date with. These are the people who fill a silent void with the simple question, "So, what about this weather?" There is a popular belief today that people who make small talk about "the weather" are uninteresting, boring, and shallow. The theory is that these hermits are so lacking in social skills that the only thing that they are capable of talking about is "the weather." These people drive "interesting" people crazy. If you are someone who is annoyed by people who talk about "the weather", then there are a few things that you need to know.

People who talk about "the weather" aren't boring. Consciously choosing to talk about a topic that anyone alive can immediately relate to isn't considered shallow; it's smart. You might not find this interesting, but you need to remember that whatever you think doesn't always coincide with how the world works. If you care about postmodern photography or underground indie music, and consider this stuff "interesting", that's fine. But, you need to realize that there are more people who don't care about Jean Baudrillard or Cults. Just because someone is chitchatting with you about "the weather" doesn't mean that they are incapable of maintaining a more intelligent conversation. It's more likely that they just don't want to have an intelligent conversation with you. The next time someone makes small talk about "the weather", don't mentally roll your eyes at them. In all likelihood, they already despised you first.

In this climate of New Media, do we really need to keep talking?

#XANGA

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:39:30 GMT

Last night I had a curious exchange with another blogger on Twitter. She tweeted that she had been writing, but she was unsure as to whether or not she should post on her blog. (At the time, I was under the assumption that she had two blogs, one on Xanga and the other on Tumblr.) She asked her followers to help her decide. The following discourse took place:

manilajones: @callmequell Only if you post it on Xanga
callmequell: @manilajones Yeah, no. I definitely shut down everything there ever.
manilajones: @callmequell Are you saying that I have to single-handedly revive that site? Everyone is gone.
callmequell: @manilajones It's kind of over. #sorry

I was immediately struck with two feelings. One, I was surprised that she didn't have a Xanga account anymore, and two, I was disappointed because she, who at one time was a very popular person on Xanga, had apparently left Xanga exclusively for Tumblr. I don't know much about Tumblr, but I really don't see why that site might be considered a more reputable blogging site than Xanga. I mean, it's not even legitimate like Blogger or has the street cred of Wordpress. My eyeball test tells me that Tumblr is simply a place for hipsters to post their witty Twitter updates, only in size 72 font that begs its reader to "READ ME!! READ ME!!" But what the hell do I know about eyeballs? I'm not an ophthalmologist.

Anyway, this conversation resonated the fact that people are leaving Xanga at an alarming rate. I've been on Xanga for almost five years and I've never seen a mass exodus such as the one that we're witnessing right now. Readership is down, traffic is light, and Top Bloggers rarely get a hundred comments. The Xanga Team hasn't even updated for three months. Xanga may be that flash-in-the-pan website that high school kids signed up for ten years ago and are now just getting on with their lives. It's expected for things to change. That's just how the world works.

Five years ago I started this blog on a night that was not unlike most nights back then. I was lamenting my life, crying uncontrollably and listening to shitty music by Andrew W.K. (I suspect that this is how most Xanga blogs started.) A lot has changed since then; I cry significantly less and I now listen to shitty music by Christina Perri. But one thing that will not change is the URL to my blog. I really don't see myself leaving Xanga for as long as I write because I know that my uninteresting blog posts will be just as uninteresting as if I posted them on Tumblr. The host is never bigger than the blog itself. It's never "kind of over."

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Xanga apologist. The giant letters and the bright colors on the front page make it feel like it's a website for six-year-olds learning how to read. There are a lot of dolts and curmudgeons on this site, and I'm actually glad that some people have left. But I'll probably never leave. I might be rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, but if this ship is going down, I'm going down with it.

#thankyouxanga