Comfortably Numb: Technological Enslavement and America's Future

There was a movie that came out back in 1987. It was called “The Running Man” starring the current governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Interestingly, it took place in the year 2017, not exactly far off from our time. The premise was a game show that criminals would fight for their life through, ultimately with the chance of winning their freedom and a substantial cash award. It was a live show, where the numb and entranced masses cheered for blood, even taking bets on who would get killed first.

I mention this movie because I find it interesting and relative to our time. We have not come quite to that point in entertainment, but we are getting closer. Society in 2017 in the movie basically was reminiscent of a police state, where the government pacified the masses of people with these kinds of shows that were both outrageous and violent. The economy of the world has collapsed and the government is the ultimate authority on cultural activity, and all the while no one seems to care.

My generation and the generations behind me are pacified now. Everyone is worried about getting the newest BlackBerry or iPhone and new “apps” and no one really is paying that much attention to what is going on around them. Life is a party for many of them, and the majority does not have any interest whatsoever in current events. They drink, go to clubs, listen to music, fuss around on their cell phone, play video games, watch TV (not the news though), and they meander around worrying about the most trivial of things. Many of them are plugged into their MP3 players whenever they are going to and coming from classes or work, making any kind of human contact impossible. Human avoidance is one of the symptoms of what has evolved over the past ten years and if you have not noticed this behavior I suggest you take another look around.

Meanwhile, this country’s economy is going to hell. The Chinese hold an exorbitant amount of American debt. Iran is in the process of getting a nuclear weapon. A planned overhaul to the healthcare system for the worst was narrowly dodged but now being brought back to the forefront. Cap and trade is still being talked about. The Federal government is looking to pass another “jobs” bill to compliment the one that busted last year. Unemployment is still in double digits.

And yet, we are concerned about our cell phones, Tiger Woods, Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Jersey Shore, and any other slew of popular culture/technological mind entrancements that has enslaved this country. I am of the firm belief that while technology has its benefits, it will eventually be one of the causes of our downfall.

How many hours do you spend a day in front of a screen? It could be any screen: computer, cell phone, television, PDA, take your pick. One study from Ball State University concluded that on average Americans spend eight hours a day in front of a screen of some kind. Eight hours. That is one third of a day. And this is not considering people under the age of 18 mind you.

Pacification.

We as a country are fascinated with the trivial and are losing sight of the important things. For example, 54% of the eligible voting population voted in 2008. This was a presidential year, and half of America could really give a damn. But I bet they could tell you the latest happenings in popular culture. Do not even get me started on the off-year elections.

While everyone is so preoccupied with their newest and popular gadgets, music, and entertainment (no matter how bad and trashy the entertainment is becoming), things continue to get worse in this country and no one seems to care. They may acknowledge that something is wrong, but you will not see much action from these people. They are too busy to be bothered. And when apathy continues to the rule the day is when the problems become unsolvable.

“The Running Man” shows a population of people so preoccupied with glorified, outrageous entertainment that they cease to care the world they live in has fallen apart. And that is where we may be heading if we are not careful.

2017 may not be so far off after all.

The Mang
Conservative Capo of Youngstown

Here's to the Single People: Valentine's Edition

It is Valentine’s Day again. There is twenty some inches of snow on the ground, it is cold and unbearable outside, but nonetheless, that has not stopped Valentine’s Day from coming back again. A tremendous day for lovers, an awkward day for those who have been going out for a three weeks and are not sure how to celebrate, and a single person’s worst nightmare.

Valentine’s Day is what it is—a day for lovers. At least, that is what the card, flower, candy, and PajamaGram companies work hard to make you believe. After all of the commercials advertising the importance of Valentine’s Day (the flowers, the chocolates, the jewelry, the cards, etc.), it is completely understandable how people can feel extremely depressed on Valentine’s Day.

So in honor of all the single people out there who have to put up with this day (even when they might try to avoid it at all costs), I dedicate the following songs.





















Happy Valentines Day,

The Mang
Conservative Capo of Youngstown

Good Music is Timeless. Today's Music and Yesterday's

Last night The Who performed at the Super Bowl. I was actually pretty ecstatic to see them live, because they typically have forgone doing live shows (barring any kind of future tour they may do if that ever happens). And at the age they are at, and minus Keith Moon and John Entwistle, that is completely understandable. The Who may not be what they used to be, but certainly they still rock hard to songs that are actually enjoyable.

There are of course the critics. They can be broken down into two distinct groups. You have the people that are the original fans who are complaining because the band does not sound as good as it used to and that the lineup has changed. I know a few of these people and they present a legitimate argument. No, the band is not the same, and no they do not sound as good. Fine—with age, that is to be expected. If you can do 1/10th of what any of those guys do with a guitar or a drum at 60+, I would be seriously surprised.

Then you have the younger generation, probably anyone a part of Generation Y and forward. I do not include Generation X because that generation at least knows who these bands are. These people do not care for this kind of music, nor do they really appreciate or know what decent music is because mainstream music producers have loaded the airwaves with crap. They have been trained to listen to this crap. This is the generation that has grown up with rap music, grunge, boy bands, spoiled and overexposed teen queens (Simpson and Spears), and maybe caught the tail end of music from the 80s, if they were lucky enough.

If you have not already noticed the disdain I have for music of the current generation, then please take note of it now. I do not claim it as my own. I was fortunate enough to have been exposed to real music, and breaking out the vinyl is looking better and better as the years go on.

The problem you have is the music of today is not great. Rap music is not great, but rock today leaves a lot to be desired. As a genre, rap is a sorry excuse for music. It is neither timeless (a true sign of good music) or original. I am a fan of G-Funk and Gangster Rap to an extent, but since the mid-90s, rap music has been overrated. When was the last time you popped in a Nelly CD or a Tupac CD? How about Dr. Dre? I bet it has been a long time. For the most part, this music is not timeless.

Rock music today seems to all sound the same. I will tip my hat to the grunge scene, but overall it is a letdown. The genre lacks the major bands and groups. We do not have the John Mellencamps, the Van Halens, or the CCRs today. We have a lot of bands, but most of them are nothing to write home about. The number of rock songs in the top 50 has declined substantially between the 70s and today if that is any indication of things. A few of those top hits recently were covers of versions of songs done years ago. Some of these hits were not even original and likely made the top 50 because they have been done before.

In place of rock, we get a lot of single act pop groups and rap that seem to be glorified by the mainstream for whatever reason that may be. None of the music is timeless. When was the last time you popped in a CD from the early or mid 90s? If you actually have done so, I am willing to bet it was grunge related. I doubt you popped in a CD by Mariah Carey, Seal, Ace of Base, or any other slew of popular music that fell by the wayside and became cliché.

Good music is timeless. That is why Sinatra is still popular. That is why the Beatles are still popular. And yes, that is why The Who is still extremely popular today, even in their old age and less than stellar physical abilities. These kinds of groups had tremendous abilities and musicianship that has long been gone from the modern music of today. The songs these artists composed and performed are extremely memorable and definitely repeatable, and there were volumes upon volumes of good music over the period from 1950 to the early 1990s. There was a sense of originality and uniqueness that you do not find today.

And that is why I would pay decent money to see The Who as compared to a band like Nickelback any day of the week.

The Mang
Conservative Capo of Youngstown

The Obama Posters: Stylistically Communist With Comparisons

***NOTE***. Before jumping to any conclusions about our thought process here over at Mang Now!, we encourage you to first look at the image comparisons preceding this introduction to better understand our point of view and where we are deriving these opinions to follow. We do not, nor have we ever, believed the Obama Administration is communist, but we find it very intriguing that stylistically these posters are extremely similar.

I realize this article is coming late—almost an entire year late. But having been combing through political articles lately, I again came across this item that I wanted to discuss back in 2008 but have never got around to writing about until now.

The Obama Poster is something that is very familiar. We have seen this poster before at many places. Stores hung them up, restaurants put them in their windows, and people who were generally fans of Obama when he was running for office had them plastered everywhere. It was hard to not see at least one of these posters while walking down the street. At Ohio State, they were everywhere.

It is a peculiar poster and one that interested me greatly: the angle of the face, where the eyes were pointing, the use of the colors, and the overall feel of how it jumped out at me. I never liked this poster, and in fact it creeped me out. But it did intrigue me. I had seen it before, and though I had already determined long ago what the poster was similar too, I am only now writing about this because it popped back into my mind.

The reality is I HAVE seen this poster before, or at least the style. Two individuals in history were notorious for having this style of poster: Che Guevara and Vladimir Lenin. The comparisons of these images are downright creepy, because the similarities are unbelievably close. It was why the Obama poster made a shiver run up my spine, because the Obama Campaign has employed posters that were inherently communist in style.

You might be thinking a poster itself cannot be inherently communist unless it is in fact a communist poster. But if you look at historical political posters in America, you would find very few that are similar in style to the Obama poster. In contrast, if you were to look at posters from Soviet Russia and from communist/socialist states in South America, you would find posters very reminiscent of the style of Obama’s poster.

What does this mean? Well, that is something I will let you judge for yourself. If you look at the colors, the style, where the eyes are pointing, the expression, they all are extremely similar. Granted, not all communist posters are like this and some are completely different, particularly in different countries.

However, it is either coincidence that these posters happen to be alike or someone was doing their homework and came to a determination they wanted to make the posters of this style.

I do not know, but all I can present here is a comparison for you to evaluate.

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The Mang
Conservative Capo of Youngstown

Technology and Dating: Better or Worse Off Than We Were?

It has been a little while since last writing, but it has been a busy few weeks. Actually, it has been a very busy couple of weeks. There is a lot to talk about with the economy and the government, but though these are important issues (and certainly they need monitored closely and I encourage you to do so), I wanted to write about something else tonight.

Things are not simple today. That is not the same as saying things are difficult, because difficult times transcend decades and generations. Things are always difficult. What I am talking about is generally, things are complicated and not simple anymore. Even though we have advanced technologically and are more connected than we ever have been in history, the reality is things are more complicated than ever. Are we better for it? It is hard to say.

People are plugged in constantly. They are either on their computer, their cell phone, their iPod, their Bluetooth, BlackBerry, or any other electronic device constantly. Whilst partaking in such activities, you then have to deal with the barrage of updates for all of these devices that are supposed to “make your experience more enjoyable”, whatever that means.

Socially, there are countless mediums. Email, text messages, Facebook (and other social networking sites), cell phones, video chat (Skype), instant messaging, and so on. The ways to communicate are endless, and bearing that in mind, your ability to keep up with each of these forms of communication is necessary because while some people prefer one way of communication, others will prefer another way. And for there being so many ways to communicate, it has become completely impersonal as time has gone on.

Example? Let us examine the singles scene and dating/going out/hooking up and compare different decades so we can see the effects of communication/technology.

1980s. Your primary means of communication in the 80s was a land line phone. For those of you who already forget what those are, the phones plugged into your wall and did not drop calls. As a result, your only option for communication was by phone and phone alone. If you wanted to ask someone out, you would ask for their phone number. Yes, simple I know. You call the house, they pick up, you go out. Simple. Calls would occur between morning and 11:00PM (unless you didn’t have other people living in the house or you were perfectly fine waking everyone up). You would have to wait to call back the next day. There was great comfort in this, and it actually worked to the advantage of people because it forced them to wait and was not instantaneous. You can learn a lot about someone from their reactions to waiting.

1990s. Advent of the cell phone. Email was catching on, but the phone was the primary means of communication still, and it was not acceptable to ask people out by email or Facebook (which strangely seems to becoming more accepted today, God help all of us). The cell phone probably was the greatest invention for dating and going out, because it really did make communication easier without a.) having to tie up the phone line at the house and b.) having your family probably within earshot of your conversation. But again, this was very simple, because the phone (even in cellular form) was still the primary means of communication in the 90s. It, did however, open the door for instantaneous communication, which continues to pose problems.

2000s. This is where things have become complicated. Email is now officially a norm. Texting has become just as big as talking on the phone. You have vast social networking sites which are cool but at the same time one more communication you need to keep track of. Video chatting is becoming more widespread as computers have improved. You still have your cell phone, but with limitless capabilities. Online dating sites are becoming a regular thing for many people and serve as a primary means of communicating with people to go out with. Of course, this is without so much as knowing how much of that information on that person’s page is true or knowing the character of that person that you could at least get a glimpse at in person.

Amidst all of this in the 2000s, we are dealing with instantaneous communication. I have had some friends freak out when a girl or guy does not return their text message right away. I have also had friends completely give up because the other person did not respond to a phone call, only to find out later that the girl sent a message on Facebook. And then you have these damn games people play with texting. You know what I am talking about too.

And did I mention that unless you are completely disconnected from the world of Facebook (and few this day and age are), the person you are going out with pretty much knows who you talk to on Facebook, what you are doing, when you are on, who your friends are, etc. etc. etc. And that has been a big problem for some people I know, even when there was no basis for getting into a fight.

People also forget that it was only ten years ago when waiting until the next day to hear back was normal.

I put the question to you: Is this better than it used to be? Be honest here. You might legitimately find this to make things 100% easier, but from my own experiences and the experiences of people I know, this seems to be a point of frustration that keeps turning up. For me, it comes down to this: one or two ways of primary communication or twenty? Personally, I know which one is less aggravating. Unfortunately, the “crazy train” that is technology is not making things any simpler.

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The Mang

Conservative Capo of Youngstown