iPhone Artwork

Okay, so maybe I still can't stand the word 'ap', but I did have a chance last night to see a cool one in action. Marc, the artist/illustrator I met at the Draw-a-thon invited me to pose for his drawing group last night. Everyone who attended is a working illustrator or illustration student, and the level of skill and talent was impressive. It was an inspiring environment too; it looked like one of those Italian villas people are always renting in Henry James novels (okay, so it was a former schoolhouse, with fourteen foot pressed-tin ceilings in Williamsburg, but I still felt like I was in Wings of the Dove). For the final hour long pose, Marc switched from colored pencil and paper (old school) to his phone (cutting edge, baby!). If you go here you can see not only the image, but you can also see a short video of the process. Scroll down for more artwork, including another iPhone sketch and video. I'm particularly fond of the pencil sketch of his sleeping wife a bit further down.


I have to say, just in the last year the art modeling has gotten me into some of the coolest spaces in the five boroughs: rescued mansions, 19th century renovated school rooms, the occasional church; oh wait, the churches were usually for rehearsals, not art modeling. So I wasn't always naked in those settings. Not always.


ANYway, go see Marc's iPhone sketches; apparently David Hockney has taken Marc's lead.


I'm still not gonna say 'ap'.

Small Victories

I thought you'd all like to know that this week I managed to do my laundry without destroying any expensive equipment. Perhaps you find it a bit pathetic for a man in his forties to congratulate himself for making sure that only actual laundry went into the washing machine, and that if I'm going to start with that, I might as well pat myself on the back for remembering to wear pants when leaving the house everyday this week, but I say we should acknowledge the victories of our lives wherever we find them, no matter how small and private.

And also, bite me.

**************************************************************************************

Doing my laundry, I fell into friendly conversation with an older woman there. She was full of interesting stories from when she and her husband spent a few years homeless. Suddenly she looks at me and asks, "are you Irish?"

"Well, I'm kind of a mongrel, but yeah, mostly Irish."

"I thought so. Most white guys don't have butts, but you... baby got back!"

I had absolutely no idea how to respond to this. But as with victories, I guess we should cherish all the compliments we receive. (She was complimenting me, right?)

Bang Rocks, Patrick Angry

This has not been a good week for me and technology. We have a wary relationship at best, I have to say. Even as I inch slowly into the twenty-first, okay, maybe the late twentieth century, embracing email (1998), getting a cell phone (2005) and cable internet (September 21st), I feel like I have still been watching it warily from outside the spaceship, hoping it hasn’t read my lips, and is about to shoot me into the ether.

I’ve had reason to be more wary than usual this summer, because of a number of struggles, though I guess some of them had more to do with bureaucracies than technology. First my wireless company informed me I was eligible for a free new phone, but when I got it, it turned out they had decided that what my high-powered, mover-and-shaker big pants lifestyle really required was a second LINE. I thought I had things quickly corrected with the helpful customer service person I spoke to ("this happens all the time," she said; yeah, I’ll bet, and what does that tell you?), but when I received my bill, there were the new line charges, complete with start-up fees. The second customer service agent was also helpful and accommodating, but next month the fees were still there, plus (naturally) a late fee. Third agent, third assurance that all was now resolved, and this time the bulk of the bill was corrected, and I decided I wasn’t going to contest the remaining annoying but reasonably small amount. To be fair, my bill this month showed that all the charges had been forgiven, meaning I was now ahead in payments, so it may have taken a while and a lot of aggravation, but we got where I wanted to go. More than one agent explained that the problem was due to the fact that charges were simply generated automatically by the computer, and it took a while for corrections to go through. In other words, the computer generally complicated and SLOWED THINGS DOWN.

There was a similar problem with some hospital bills I got this winter. I attended physical therapy twice a week for six weeks, in an (unsuccessful) attempt to alleviate chronic pain I’ve had for fifteen years. I was going to Bellevue because of their sliding scale fees, and was required to pay the bill before each treatment. More than once the cashier warned me to save my all my receipts because the system was archaic, I would probably receive bills for these sessions again, and it would take at least two weeks for the system to catch up with itself. Sure enough, I got several bills, including not one but two warnings that the account was about to be sent to a collection agency. I called the first time to find that they were about to bring out the big guns because they thought I owed $20. When I asked if that was the only outstanding fee, the cashier said yes, but it wasn’t. The second time the threat came while I was out of town for the month, so I had missed the "do it or you’re in big trouble, mister" date. That was this August, nearly five months after my final appointment. Okay, this problem has to do with archaic equipment, and chances are budgetary and scheduling concerns make it virtually impossible for Bellevue to upgrade, but still, I felt like I was caught up in a Terry Gilliam movie, where my credit rating might actually get damaged from a twenty dollar charge I had, in fact, paid.

Then this last month was the cable debacle (say that out loud, s’fun). I signed myself up for cable internet at my roommate’s request, so we could get a router and a home-networking system giving him wireless access on his laptop. So, I go on live chat (oh how I loathe that phrase now), order the whole package, and am told I should hear from my cable provider in three to five business days, but if I don’t, I should call them. Seven business days later I call Time Warner, and we schedule the next available appointment, which is ten days following. I chose not to do the self-installation since I believed I would be getting the whole shebang, router, and all. Nope, that doesn’t happen, so I wait a few more days at the ISP’s recommendation to get my ‘welcome kit’ in the mail with the router, cds, instructions, etc. The date passes, I go on live chat again, to find there is a mysterious hold on my order, which the nice agent claims he releases. Wait five to seven days, no router, no welcome kit, I contact them again, reluctantly going on live chat after learning that they make it virtually impossible to call on the phone, once again I’m told there is a hold, but now there isn’t, I should receive everything in twelve to twenty-four hours. He promises this is the last time I will have to contact them on this matter. Really. I’m chatting (live) the Friday before Columbus Day weekend, so I’m not expecting this timetable to be kept, but still, I feel a promise has been made. The following Tuesday I get a call from Earthlink wondering if I still wanted my cable hooked up because he saw I had placed an order, but it hadn’t yet happened. Back to live chat, since the number left on my answering machine doesn’t actually get me anywhere useful (they really really want you to use the live chat), saying I’ve had the hook-up for two weeks by this point, but I still haven’t received any of the other stuff I’d been promised, not even now, three days past the 24 hour deadline. This agent tells me that, here again, THEIR COMPUTER hasn’t registered the new information yet, as far as it’s concerned I have dial-up still, and more importantly, this information will not change until the 24th when my bill comes due. After that the computer will ‘know’ I am using cable internet, so then, and only then will it allow the router to go out. So, this guy tells me by the end of the month I will have all the equipment. I say I have trouble believing that, since I’ve contacted them four times now, gotten four different answers (though secretly I’m thinking this last one might be true, since it sounds the most plausible, and the least like something a customer would want to hear), and if the problem wasn’t resolved by the end of the month, I would change ISPs.

I get a phone call the next day from a customer service agent. She tells me she’s been reading all my correspondence with the company and ‘gotten frustrated’ on my behalf. She is pretty sure she knows the problem. When the cable signed me up, they signed me up for Road Runner, rather than Earthlink, both of which they handle. That does indeed prove to be the problem, so now, as of last Friday, I am waiting seven to ten business days to see if this equipment I didn’t even want and am unlikely ever to use finally shows up. I ain’t holdin’ my breath.

Then this last Monday I learned my cash card number had been stolen. To my good fortune the monitoring system caught it almost immediately and called me for verification. The thief managed to buy a $25 credit report, which scares me, but when he or she tried to buy a $400 airline ticket, no dice. This poor bastard thought this was a credit card, or he or she thought I had $400 to my name. Man, that kills me. How droll.

I’m relieved it all got resolved so quickly, and yes, that was thanks to technology, I admit, but I’m still freaked out by the theft. I’ve let the card out of my hand exactly once, to pay for a restaurant meal, almost every other time I’ve been swiping it through a machine at a store or paying bills online. Sure, it’s possible the waitress at the sushi place is the culpritt, but the odds really are it happened online. Some sort of worm, or trojan horse, or virus or phisher, or sculquer or cole-myner or theeph or sneeque got past my Norton protection that yes, I’m paying to protect me from such things even though we all acknowledge that it’s an uphill battle staying ahead the hackers, one of these little miters got through and read my number and the safety code. Chances are slim to none that this person will ever be caught, nor will I ever know exactly how it happened, so I don’t know how to avoid the problem in the future, short of not using the card. I feel this kind of defeats the purpose of the card. Granted I think the hologram is cool and all, but I’m not holding onto it for the artwork. I’m wanting to buy things with it, once in a while. At any rate, the replacement is scheduled to show up in a week to ten days. I bet it gets here before the router.

Then, for the grand finale (oh please tell me it was the finale), yesterday I elected to wash and dry my cell phone in the pocket of my jeans, thus necessitating the purchase of a new phone, even though I’m realizing today that I was actually eligible for a free replacement and will have to tackle all that if I want justice in the wireless world. I can’t blame that on technology though, much as I might like to. They pretty much warn you that washing and drying (on high, for thirty minutes) is not a great idea. This new one comes with all sorts of bells and whistles and I bet I never learn to use half of them. If I wasn’t feeling enough like a caveman through all this, the phone comes with an analog clock on the front, nice Roman numerals, and the twelve-year old selling me the thing pointed it out as a problem, but assured me I could switch it over to digital. Now slow down there, Youngin’, I’m not sure I cotton to your newfangled time piece there. Yes, I can speak digital, but my first language is still analog. When I look at a clock, I want to know what size pie-wedge I have to go. 11:47 doesn’t really register with me, but show me one quarter of a pizza (with just a bit trimmed off), and I know what I’ve got to work with before noon. But soon this tongue I speak will go the way of the passenger pigeon.

So. I’m considering joining the Amish, provided they let me bring deodorant, and some shorts.

All right, I use and appreciate plenty of modern conveniences; I’m a huge fan of indoor plumbing, electricity rocks, and I’m delighted to have been able to go as far afield as Seattle or Ireland without having to spend five days swallowing my weight in coal dust. Nonetheless I feel like modern life is kicking my ass, and isn’t going to stop anytime soon. Yes, I realize what the common denominator is in all this, so I’m working my Norman Vincent Peale as hard as I can, but damn.

Please don’t let me get shot into the ether.

Creeping, Creeping...

Over the years there have been a number of times when decisions of mine I deemed personal and of no interest to others would garner very passionate responses. I first noticed it when I was vegetarian (I'm not really, anymore, though I still avoid eating mammals). Okay this one didn't surprise me too much, I know it's a controversial issue bringing out strong feelings from lots of folks, but I wasn't interested in other people's decisions, I was just examining my own. I rarely volunteered this information, it never came up because I was preaching or judging the choices of others... but people often reacted like I was. They'd launch into diatribes about how it wasn't healthy or safe, or how it seemed like a good idea but they could never do it because they loved meat too much, or it sounded way too extreme, and why is killing a plant less cruel than killing an animal anyway (this despite the fact that I never claimed animal cruelty was the reason for my vegetarianism) and besides, who the hell was I to judge their lives? Often they'd turn into Prosecuting Attorneys, exerting a huge amount of effort trying to show how my choices were inconsistent ("well, do you wear leather? Do you eat eggs? Cheese?"), I guess so they could prove that I was a hypocrite. I was never sure what that was supposed to accomplish. You've established a personal (and highly rigid) definition of what true vegetarianism is, then shown how I fail to live up to it, so that means I have to go back to eating meat? Why do you even give a shit? I quickly learned that engaging in the discussion at all was rarely a good idea, because that would only increase the sense that I was looking down on them.

The best example of this was when I was in my local grocery store in Seattle. I was buying butter, something else, and tofu pups. I didn't really know the cashier all that well, but we had kind of a chatty relationship. He looked at the tofu pups, had never seen them before, then launched into the defensive dance, making sure that I knew that butter came from cows, so how could I be buying tofu anything if I was simultaneously buying butter. Dude, I don't care if you eat beef by the truckload, just don't invite me to dinner.

Like I said, this reaction wasn't all that surprising to me. What did surprise me (at first) is how strongly people reacted when I said I don't really like ice cream. I can't tell you how many people got insulted by this. I was deemed downright un-American more than once. I know the show Friends used this to comedic effect at one point, but the thing is, those reactions of shock and horror were exactly like the ones I regularly get. Again, I don't care if other people eat ice cream until their eyes bug out, I'm just not likely to pull out a spoon.

So why am I bringing all this up now? Because I am now typing this entry via my brand new cable modem. Yes, I've been using dial-up all this time, and occasionally, when I've mentioned that, people have looked at me like I've just pissed on their shoes. Okay, pity I could understand, derision even more so, but barely contained disgust? At times I thought I was going to be asked to leave the premises. So... yes, I am now cable-ized. Whoopty-do. Sure, things have downloaded faster, I see that, I just didn't have too many objections to how quickly they downloaded before. Generally "because it's faster" isn't a good enough reason for me to do anything, and it's precisely this attitude that causes people to look at me with absolute incomprehension. Or disgust, like I said. You know who you are. So, my technologically more advanced (*cough -addicted*) friends, you no longer need to shun me. One more step, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century for me.

I am NOT going to spend all day watching YouTube.

Some Ideas for The Mayor

Dear Bloomie,

I'm delighted to read about your growing interest in ecological issues, so I thought you would be a good person to tell my idea to. Because my union halls and credit union are all smack in the middle of Times Square, I've been spending a lot of time down there during daylight hours, and it occurred to me that it might be really cool if once, for a twenty four hour period, all the neon, all the electrically enhanced advertizing, all the giant Katie Couric heads looming over the area might be turned off. All of them. During daylight this might not look like much (though we might be pleasantly surprised) but I bet the dramatic impact at night would be spectacular. I have to look more closely next time I'm in the area to make sure there are still street lights, I'm not advocating a crime spree in the area (just curious, how did it work during the blackout of 2003, I wasn't in town), but as long as there are still street lights, we'd end up just going from neon, surface-of-the-sun brightness to normal city night. Maybe to get the maximum effect from the moment, the signs should all be turned off after dark, kept off through the next day, then allowed to come back on the following evening.

I don't know how much money this would actually save. I don't know who would benefit directly either, since I assume each business pays the electric bill for its own signs. I'm sure also that some advertizing firms would get their corporate knickers in a twist over this, saying they paid for x number of days of wretched excess, and by god, they better get x number of days, but couldn't they just get an extra day? Couldn't the non-lit day not count?

I realize too that a lot of those ginormous signs are probably fluorescent lights to begin with, which of course cost less to run than incandescent, but even if the money and carbon dioxide saved wasn't enormous (and come on, it's not going to be slight, is it), I think the emotional and visual impact would be. Just having the whole area suddenly go dark, it could be a huge promotional stunt. I bet if you asked, Al would be delighted to get involved as well.

In fact, I suggest combining this with another idea I've had for some time. I don't know if you've spent any time in Copenhagen, Boulder, CO, or Ithaca, NY, but all three cities have walking streets and they're really cool. I mean really. So why not shut down a stretch of one of the avenues, and turn it into a walking street for that twenty-four hour period? Again, I think the area that would have the best impact would be Broadway between, say, 50th St. and 30th St. I realize this may cause all kinds of hassles, probably extra police attention, etc, but come on, you do that sort of thing over much greater stretches of road several times a year. Would it really be worse than the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade? The Puerto Rican Day Parade? Gay Pride? I don't know if 5th Ave is better for this sort of thing for some reason, I don't mean to tell you your job, but a twenty block radius, even just ten, from 50th to 40th, would be really amazing and at Broadway it would include the greatest number of theatres. I was down in the area for a play on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, and let's be honest, many of those side streets all but become walking streets as it is, since the crowds are so huge. Frankly I think this would probably be easier to control than most parades, because there you have to control the crowds and allow for floats to move down the center. This would simply be closing the road to cars and taxis; maybe some special arrangement could be made for public buses, but again, what sorts of arrangements does the average parade require? Combining these two events really would make a huge impact in terms of cutting back on emissions, and it would create a festival atmosphere, without adding tents or stands. I suppose you could do that too, if you wanted to, but just having those area restaurants, theatres and other businesses open, I bet they would do huge business. Maybe you could allow the restaurants to seat people outside, thus increasing their business, and the festive, out-door feeling of the event as a whole.

I realize there must be lots about this sort of thing that I don't know, but as I keep pointing out, street festivals and parades happen in different parts of the city all the time. This would be taking some of the most congested areas of the city in terms of pedestrians and vehicles, and letting the pedestrians have full run of the place, just for a day. To be honest, I think one of the avenues should be turned into a permanent walking street (I figure 9th Avenue would be the least disruptive), but I know that reveals what a whacked-out tree hugger I am. Yes, I have to admit, I'm not a big fan of Times Square as it is. Seriously, if you added just a few signs in Japanese and some flying cars, you'd have the city of Blade Runner, and I don't mean that as a compliment . I mean, great movie, but I wouldn't want to live there, would you? I would love it too if incentives were provided for signmakers to return to older, less technologically demanding forms of catching the eye. At Broadway and 50th, the Snapple sign makes use of a technique I fell in love with when I first saw it in Dublin. Words are posted permanently, then the rest of the sign is covered with little metallic tags on hooks. When the wind blows, which of course it does constantly, the tags ripple and the light and color of the sign changes. Just on the basis of this alone, I'm more inclined to buy Snapple (except that it's overpriced sugar water with no legitimate claims for nutrition). Conversely, at Broadway and 46th, the Bank of America sign is so huge and covered with bulbs, anytime I'm waiting for a light to change on that corner, I wonder if I'm going to get a migraine. Seriously. And I haven't had one in over twenty years (see, my Mom and I each learned this great biofeedback technique that is supposed to get rid of migraines when they come, and we both found it seemed to cure us permanently of them, which is really cool, I can teach it to you if you want sometime, assuming you get migraines, though I should admit the same technique didn't seem to work for my sister, so maybe it's not fool proof...), but that sign, yowtch. Makes me adamant never to do any business with Bank of America. Okay, but I'm getting ahead of myself, am I not? These are long term goals, and I really want to focus just on this one day. One thing at a time, right?

So please, give this some thought. I bet it would garner you and the city all kinds of positive attention, would bring even more people to the area, and probably generate a huge profit without too many out-of -pocket expenses in advance for anyone. Just think about it, and let me know how I can help.

Regards,

Patrick

Subway Thoughts

Dear ipod Users,

I'd like to make an observation. I don't have hard data to back up my claim, but I'm gonna come right out and say it anyway. I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that if you're wearing earphones, your hearing is just a bit compromised. That's not the outrageous part though; I firmly believe that it also compromises your eyesight.

Stick with me here. I think specifically it affects your peripheral vision, not the full range per se. I don't know how to explain it; maybe those cords running beside your head apply mini-blinders to your vision? Maybe our peripheral eyesight is 50% auditory, and no one has done any research on it? Well, maybe someone has researched it, and posted their findings for public viewing, but I really can't be bothered. I know what I believe. So, my assertion: headphones compromise your hearing and your peripheral vision.

See, the thing is, you need both those senses when you're on the subway. Especially during rush hour. Add in all the people who deem it necessary to keep their sunglasses on whilst underground (you can't ALL be hiding from the paparazzi) then you have to realize a) your vision is definitely compromised and b) we don't know where the hell you're looking, or indeed, if you're even awake. Or maybe some of you startle real easy.

I know the unspoken rule among New Yorkers is never to touch a stranger unless you're ready for a beat-down, but if you're standing there in the middle of the car, with a gazillion people all around you, tapped into your mini-sensory deprivation tank, you can't get grumpy if someone taps you politely on the shoulder when he or she would like to get off. Honestly, lately I feel like I've been shoved into tight quarters with 8 million sweaty, surly Helen Kellers. Either chill the fuck out, or take off the damn earplugs and shades. Your choice.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Kisses.

I was trying to get this photo up in the upper right corner, where my profile goes. I still haven't figured out how to get blogger to do that; I see where the info is supposed to go, I know it's supposed to be a URL, I just haven't figured out what that means exactly. So for now, here's a picture of me canoeing off Mount Desert Island in the Summer of 2003. That place is gorgeous. I wish I could figure out a way to live someplace like that and still be an actor. A boy can dream.

We're Rolling Now

Okay, so after a great deal of struggle, I have successfully managed to add some links to this site, and am feeling more than a little pleased with myself. Pretty much everything I know about computers was either taught to me by Brian, or I figured out on my own. I'm sure this template is small potatoes by most programming standards (if it even warrants the name) but I was initially quite stymied. So it's something of a victory when I decipher which backslash, divot, dot, lesser-than, xxx quotation mark I HAVE to include, and which I don't. And of course NOT including stuff is just as important as including stuff, as anyone who works with computers knows.

This is not how my brain works, you have to understand. I think my general approach to life is a bit more loosey-goosey, scattering backslashes and semi-colons with gay abandon like confetti. Ampersands for all! I try to keep in mind that I'm dealing with code, which is to say a very specific language, so getting the symbols in the right place at the right time is no more unreasonable than getting the word order in Shakespeare's lines memorized correctly. I know this, but then I'm looking at little spike marks I didn't even notice were on my keyboard (I mean, really, who needs one of these ^ on a regular basis? No, really) and I start thinking, just give me a break. I know what I want to say, it's all text anyway, I am not putting dot dot backslash squiggley thing asterix on my website, I'm putting WORDS. We all agree on this, you're going to put words on my page too, that's where all this code crap is going, let's cut out the middle step and just let me do it.

Computers don't really respond to reason though. Yeah yeah, I know, it's me who is being unreasonable, problems with computers are almost always human error, the code is pure reason, systematic, orderly and unchanging, the computer can't work any other way, yada yada yada. I get it, I do. But bite me. You, the computer, your favorite programmer, step right up, take a number, form an orderly line, and bite me.

Well, this is going directions I hadn't expected. The fact is, I started this entry feeling rather pleased with myself. Not only had I finally figured out how to replace the template link with my own links, I'd even managed to add another link past the alloted number in the template. No, it wasn't really that hard, once I'd figured out what the data was and where it needed to go, it was just a question of doing it. Nonetheless, I'm feeling victorious. Is this considered programming? Did I just program? Certainly there were more steps and esoterica involved than is the case with my friendster account, for example, which is very much structured simply to provide gaps where one puts in one's text, as text. No doubt that's why I was a bit spoiled, computers are becoming more and more user-friendly, which I know to most programmers means they're becoming ridiculously moronic. I'm okay with that, and I renew the offer for them to bite me.

I'm making progress though. I might not be quite the Luddite that my mother takes pride in being, but the fact is I was dragged kicking and screaming into cell phone ownership, it took me years to switch from cassettes to CDs (still in progress, to be honest), hell I can remember when answering machines were cutting edge, and I wasn't the only one they made nervous. Now look at me, loving my cell phone (about to celebrate our one year anniversary), unable to contemplate life without an answering machine and voicemail, frankly addicted to email/internet (I'm thinking of starting an online support group for people who websurf too much) AND making use of the portable CD player my friend Jeff loaned me. And now programming.

Sky's the limit, baby. Next thing you know, I'll be creating new technology. I can't decide which to work on first, the teleportation device a la Star Trek (where the hell IS that stuff already), or the universal pocket remote control that turns off loud stereos playing on the street at three in the morning, with the option to fry the circuits if one is silencing a machine for the third time.

Hmm. I think the teleportation device may involve less litigation. And maybe I have some hostility issues.