What's Changed in Twenty Years? The PC

When my grandparents were still alive, I felt a strong connection to the reflections they shared of years gone by.  One theme that struck me again and again was the incredible number changes they witnessed during their seventy-plus years.  No other generation, it seemed to me, had undergone a more significant transition than they had.  Automobile to airplanes.   Handguns to nuclear weapons.  Terror of deadly and debilitating diseases to reliable vaccines.  Radio to TV.  Recorded sound, starting with LPs and evolving to CDs, to recorded video, first in a theater, then on TV and then on home video.  The discovery of DNA.  Electronic appliances.  Satellites.  Space travel.  Moon landings.  It’s mindboggling to me how so many of this generation managed to ride the wave of technology with grace.

As a college student in 1990, I once lamented to a friend that my generation (I believe we’re still called Generation X) had witnessed technological advances that paled in comparison to my grandparents’ generation, that there was not much left to discover.  Sure, you could make a car safer or more efficient, or you might allow for personalized space travel, but these achievements would merely be variations on a theme.  What was on the horizon that would truly change our world?

My friend thought about this for a minute, and then answered, “The personal computer!”

Nicely done, Mark.

At that time it was hard to me to recognize how personal computers would change the world, mostly because I didn’t have one.  None of us did.  We’d hoof it over to the computer lab on cold and snowy evenings and attempt to get Pascal to sort our data sets properly, and then we’d wrestle with the dot-matrix printer, rip off the perforated margins of our assignments and trudge back home.

In other words, personal computers weren’t so personal.  My friend Eric had had one as far back as 1985, and in high school he’d allowed me to compose my term paper on Alfred Hitchcock on his Mac.  That was definitely helpful and cool.  But life changing?  And where was MY computer?  Here we were five years later, and nothing much had changed.

My lack of vision when it comes to computers and their eventual counterparts – cell phones, navigation systems, ebooks, and the like – is probably why I’m not an entrepreneur or an innovator.  But did ANYone really see the next twenty years coming?  The first time I heard of the Internet was in 1993.  Could anyone at that time have predicted that in fifteen years there would be Youtube?  Amazon?  Facebook?  Wikipedia?  Googlemaps? 

Obviously, some did.  They’re billionaires now. 

I think it’s fair to say that what we’ve encountered during the past twenty years is as monumental as anything prior generations witnessed in the same span of time.  Maybe even more so.  The rate of change had been staggering, not just in terms of inventions, but it terms of real life changes.  Our ability to access information and communicate with other people is beyond anything most could have ever envisioned (excluding Ray Bradbury, who predicted it all by 1951).

In ten years time, will my children lament to a friend that there’s nothing more to discover?  If they do, I’ve no doubt that they’ll be blown away by the decades to come.  The capacity for human ingenuity is boundless.

A Quick Quote

While I'd like to write something vast and epic and heartfelt and meaningfull as 2011 approaches, I find that sledding, movies, parties and card games are devouring the 16-day break that just two weeks ago seemed infinitely long. 

Instead, I'd like to finish 2010 with a quote from Keith Richards, whose biography, "Life," squeeked into a few top ten non-fiction book lists this year (I'll refrain from giving a full review of the book, but I think I can summarize it in a few words: guitar, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, fight with Mick, drugs, love, drugs, composing, off drugs). 

This quote is, to me, among the best ever put down on paper:

"Mick's album was called 'She's The Boss,' which said it all.  I've never listened to the entire thing all the way through.  Who has?  It's like 'Mein Kampf.'  Everybody had a copy, but nobody listened to it."

It brings tears to the eyes.

So there you go.  A very happy New Year to everyone, and I look forward to an exciting and healthy 2011.

PKH

Ringo's Signature Drum Fill

I recently heard a radio interview with Ringo Starr, who was promoting his latest solo album, “Y Not.”  And as much fun as it was to hear one of the Fab Four reminisce in a relaxed and affable manner, I winced upon hearing a recording of Ringo and Joss Stone singing the new track, “Who’s Your Daddy.”  Good gracious me - embarrassingly bad. 

But regardless of what you can say about Ringo’s singing and songwriting prowess, you can’t knock his drumming. 

Or can you?  Certainly, as snot-nosed children, my friends and I did, as if somehow playing drums for the world’s most successful rock band deserved admonishment.   True, the movie “The Caveman” had just been released and warranted some condemnation, but it wasn’t really Ringo’s acting that was the target of our reproach – it was his drumming. 

And what was wrong with it?  Well, it wasn’t over-the-top, flashy and intricate.  In short, we criticized Ringo for not being Neil Peart, John Bonham, Keith Moon or Bill Bruford.

In hindsight, this seems rather silly.  After all, one didn’t need ten toms, seven cymbals and a double kick drum to lay down a solid rhythm track on “I Saw Her Standing There.”  And while Ringo’s virtuosity might pale in comparison to some other drummers, today I appreciate his minimalist playing.   Listen to tracks like “She Said, She Said,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Come Together” and “A Day In A Life,” and I think it can be agreed that Ringo was an innovate drummer and an important contributor to The Beatles’ sound.

But what really sticks with me when I consider Ringo’s drumming is his signature drum fill: two sixteenth notes on the one beat, followed by a sixteenth rest, followed by four or five more sixteenth notes.  Here's how it sounds:

The earliest example of this drum fill that I can find is on “Hey Jude.”  Then, during the recording of the White Album, the man either fell in love with this lick, or he was in a creative rut, for he played it on no fewer than five songs (and multiple times on some of them – check out “Helter Skelter”).  He continued to use the fill for the remaining Beatle albums, especially on Abbey Road.

But it’s a great fill: simple and memorable.  Without further ado, here’s a compilation of Ringo’s Signature Drum Fill.

Of Overcoming Memories

The most interesting part of a medical procedure I had last week wasn’t the procedure itself or the results (I’m fine) – it was the loss of memory, not only of the event itself, but of the hour or so afterward when I was drinking juice and conversing amiably (I presume) with nurses and my wife.  That I was fully clothed as I became aware of my surroundings was perplexing, but also very cool.  Did I dress myself?  I suspect so, but I have no recollection.  Did I speak to my wife on the way home from the hospital?  I know I did, but again, I can’t actually recall – it’s more of a hunch I have, the same way I used to have a hunch about speaking to a particular person during a drinking binge, but without that nagging sensation of having uttered something monstrously stupid.

Since then, I’ve wondered about amnesia and how wonderful it would be to target memory loss at other episodes in my life:  my three strike-out performance at a baseball game.  Several drunken stupors that should have led to total memory loss, but regrettably didn’t.  Or my high school graduation, during which technical difficulties reduced my slide show that had been set to music, to a silent movie screen and the sound of jeering students.

The movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” my vote for the best movie of the last decade, addresses this desire, as heartbroken characters choose to wipe away all memory of a hurtful relationship.  But the ability to selectively forget a particular event or a particular person would come in mighty handy for others:  consider the aspiring author, songwriter, performer, inventor, entrepreneur, or anyone else whose desires bump up against incredible odds (these days, almost anyone looking for a job).  Imagine how much harder one might endeavor if the memory of past rejections or crushing comments could be erased.

During college, I always admired those who could bounce back so easily after a woman’s rejection.  I remember a friend of mine saying, “She doesn’t want to go out with me.  So what?  The next girl might.”  This is, of course, what separates the most successful people from the rest of us – the ability to either forget one’s failings, or the drive to overcome them.  You may be unmoved by J.K. Rowling’s prose, but she earned her success, for she persevered in the midst of rejection.  Others far more talented than she are still waiting tables because they gave up perhaps one submission too soon while Rowling was sending out yet another manuscript to a prospective agent.

Consider others whose memories are short: the baseball player who erases his last at-bat, the actor who bounces back from a poor review, the doctor who strives even harder after losing a patient, or the philanthropist who overcomes the enormity of a crisis.

Even though I’d still love to forget parts of my high school graduation, I suppose that in my own modest way I’ve used this episode to my advantage.  Ever since that technical breakdown, I’ve been obsessed with preparation when it comes to performing or public speaking engagements. 

But what about the rejections that are sure to accompany the aspiring writer?  There are only two options.  Give up, or get going.  Or, as the Stephen King character narrates in “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”:

Get busy living or get busy dying.

Censorship is Dead: How E-Readers Will Save The World

Earlier this year I read Fahrenheit, 451 to my daughters, and in addition to enjoying the story, I was amazed at Ray Bradbury’s prophetic prowess.  Interactive games, wall-sized TVs, mobile entertainment devices , sound-bites in the news, the dumbing down of society that began with the elimination of classical education – this guy saw it all fifty years before its time.  And he’s still alive, able to comment on today’s technology and how his books are perceived fifty years beyond their time (though some of his works might simply be timeless).

But what really caught my ear while reading the book is the theme of censorship and how it may unexpectedly be a thing of the past (something Ray Bradbury might have been hopeful for, but certainly didn’t predict).  In our modern world of eReaders – my family just purchased its first: a Sony PRS-950 – it’s not unreasonable to think that the advent of electronic books has not only revolutionized book-publishing for the better (and might yet reinvigorate the periodical industry), but has also made censorship an impossibility, a thing of the past, a relic of tyrannical regimes and small, isolated pockets of modern-day society.

For those who might not be familiar with the contents of Bradbury’s book, in Fahrenheit, 451 firemen actually start fires, their target being for the most-part books which been outlawed for years.  The idea that firemen once put OUT fires is a myth spread by liberal-minded folk who are now in jeopardy of being rounded up and eliminated. 

In fact, today physical books ARE being eliminated.  Just last July, Amazon announced that eBook sales outnumbered hard-cover book sales for the prior three months.   And while some may perceive this as bad news, and while there’s still something to be said for curling up with a good book made out of honest-to-goodness paper, I can’t help but think that the advent of electronic books – in addition to making book publishing a more profitable and equitable industry – has all but eliminated the idea that specific books might be eliminated from the face of the earth.  Censorship is, in fact, dead.  This wasn’t the case just over a half a century ago, when the attempted elimination of the Jewish people in Europe was accompanied by the attempted elimination of an entire culture.  Similarly, languages of native people everywhere were too once considered in jeopardy of being eradicated. 

No longer.

If one can e-mail word for word The Bible or Shakespeare’s Sonnets or Huckleberry Finn in a matter of seconds to anyone in the world, it seems implausible that we’ll ever find ourselves in a position to seriously worry about a manuscript’s disappearance. 

Torahs were once in rare supply, but even if every hand-written scroll was confiscated and burned, a million more would survive with the click of a button.

Backward states in the U.S. and backward countries who fear truth and the human condition might try to inhibit the free-flow of ideas and art, but what barrier can they possibly enforce in the modern day?  Even if all the servers in the world were to suddenly break down, or if a space bomb were to destroy the tens of thousands of satellites – working and defunct – that now circle the earth, eReaders would come to save the day.  Unless you can confiscate the electronic reading devices of every man, woman and child, you have no chance of eliminating a book from circulation.  Home printers coupled with eReaders make this idea an impossibility.

The world has shrunk in many ways.  People have become dumber in many ways.  Divisiveness rules the airways.  There’s much to be cynical about.  But censorship – the fear of eliminating a culture, a religion or a language – is now a think of the past.  It’s no longer a threat. 

And this is something to feel good about, a small way in which our society has progressed, a word which  can’t often be attributed to modern man.