Photo: Wikimedia Commons

It was six years ago. I was still living in California, and I had one of the coolest jobs on the planet: I was one of the management team at the Mann Movie Theatres in Westwood  (see? I even spell theater all fancy). Just south of UCLA, in what is called the “Village.” You would often see one or two of Hollywood’s elite taking in a movie there, which was icing on the cake. I remember holding the door open for Angelina Jolie at the premier of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and leading Sylvester Stallone and his family to their seats at the premiere of Shrek 2: Fun memories that allow me to be the annoying name-dropper at parties. At the time, The Mann company was running four theaters there. Big monstrosities that held over one thousand people in the auditorium. If you have never been in a huge movie theater, you have never lived. Seriously, you’re dead.

On the night in question, the night that started Mister Sandler’s downward spiral, I was working in the Mann National Theatre. If you have seen the 2007 film Zodiac, then you have seen the Mann National. The point in the film where they are watching the Dirty Harry movie, and then move out into the lobby. No re-dressing of the theater was necessary – it opened in 1970, and had retained all of its seventies opulence throughout the years; gold carpet and all. It wore its time period proudly. That is, until it was leveled for a parking lot in 2008. This is the sad state of so many beautiful, huge movie theaters: Being lost to strip malls and multi-plex matchboxes with screens that are just a tad larger than your home television.

But that’s now. In 2005, it was still a bustling hive of movie-going activity. In fact, the night in question was opening weekend for The Family Stone. I was helping work the front door, taking tickets as patrons entered. When the theater was busy, the entrance became a sea of bodies, one person almost indiscernible from another: you just grabbed tickets, made sure they were for the current showing, tore them in half, handed one half back to the customer and said, “thank you,” with an occasional, “enjoy your movie.” One of the faceless masses, I did manage to notice, was holding some sort of hot-fudge cake-thing from one of the local eateries, dressed to go in a clear plastic container.

That is outside food. That is a no-no. Outside food is not allowed in a theater. Why? Because, seriously, your local bijou does not make enough money from straight ticket sales to pay the staff. They have to share the majority of it with the movie studios. They get even LESS, if your name is George Lucas. They NEED you to buy that over-priced popcorn. Customers walking in with cake, ice cream, soda pop and large pepperoni pizzas are verboten. That would start a bad trend, and before you know it, poof, your movie theater is flattened for a parking lot.

I automatically said to the blur of humanity in front of me, “I’m sorry, you can’t bring food into the theater, You’ll have to take that outside.” I remember a pause, and a very polite and subdued affirmative response, and the person stepped back through the doors.

Then, suddenly, a hush fell over the lobby. You usually don’t get quiet like that from hundreds of people going in to see a movie on opening weekend. It’s kind of odd, really. So I stepped away from my ticket-taking and looked around. It was really easy to see everyone, because they were all staring at me. All the patrons. All the employees. All the managers. All the people on the next block at the bookstore. Everyone.

Then one of my Manager friends, who is no longer my friend because he said this, said, “Dude, you just kicked-out Adam Sandler.”

What could I say? I had done the deed. Everyone knew it. I fell back to what I knew, and replied rather feebly, “well, he had food.” Besides, I was still stinging from the trouble I got into letting Paula Abdul bring her dog into the theater.

That seemed to appease everyone, and the bustle returned. But things weren’t quite the same. There was an uneasy feeling throughout the lobby. Would he crack again? Who would be kicked out next – one of the staff? Someone that looked at him funny? Getting a reputation can be quite disconcerting at the moment it happens – the romance and bravado are mostly things made-up after the fact.

There was also a new problem: Now Adam Sandler was sitting on a bench right outside the front doors, calmly eating his hot-fudge cake-thing. This is a problem because there are hundreds of people coming into the theater, and it will only take one person to scream “Adam Sandler I Love You! Can I Have Your Autograph?” to turn the tide, and make every person outside follow like hapless sheep, and completely clog the theater entrance. That would be bad, and it would be my fault. Ever wonder why famous get special treatment? Now you know: Crowd control.

So I stepped outside, offered my apologies, and asked Mister Sandler back into the theater. Once again, he was the epitome of good manners. He simply thanked me and went in.

Now, as I mentioned, a reputation grows. It’s like the preverbal fish tale, and mine was no different. I became “The Guy That Threw Adam Sandler Out Of The Movie Theater.” I was revered for my heroism under celebrity fire, and my upholding of the rules that make theaters run. Understand, that simple sentence left all others not in the know open to speculate, which is how a reputation becomes legend: Adam Sandler was drunk/toxic/cursing/waving a firearm/holding a detonator/insert your most imaginative celebrity situation here, and Vince drug him out to save all normal-thinking moviegoers everywhere. I let it go. After all, if I spoke of it myself, someone might remind me of the Paula Abdul thing, which I was hard-pressed to live down. Best that they kept the new story circulating.

A month or so later, I saw him again, this time at the Village Theatre. This theater has been around since 1931, and is even cooler than the National is (or, should I say, than the National was…). It was twenty minutes or so before the next show, and one of our staff had let Mister Sandler in early. He recognized me right-off, raised his hands and quipped, “I swear, they let me in.”

I don’t remember what I said, nor does it really matter, because I’ve realized something: I thought he was joking, but obviously, there was something more. I had kicked him out of the theater, and it was taking it’s toll. I understand now that the story was growing in his social circles as well as my own. Slowly but surely, it was becoming his Dianetics moment, being re-lived in his head over and over, to the detriment of his life and career.

Not convinced? Need proof? My friend, it’s obvious: Ever since that day, Adam Sandler has been making crappy movies.

Don’t blame him. It’s not his fault. He’s wounded. His decision-making faculties, especially when picking out projects to get involved with, have been severely impaired since that day. And it’s my doing. I’m the bad-guy. Blame me. I forcibly ejected a screaming Adam Sandler from the movie theater with one-hand tied behind my back while thwarting a box office robbery on my lunch break, and it has scarred him for life.

I now know what I must do, before he makes a movie where he plays ALL of his relatives, not just his sister (and I don’t know who screwed-up Eddie Murphy, but you need to CONFESS NOW and save his career, as well): Mister Sandler. Adam. From the bottom of my heart, I am truly sorry. I was simply following the rules on an extremely busy night – I was wrong. You are loved by millions who are looking forward to your next film, myself included. I wish you no ill-will, and hope that you will forgive me, let go, and move on.

I’m just so happy that in today’s modern world, we have the internet that allows everyone, myself included, to get these important issues out into the open and clear the air. And to ruthlessly name-drop for the sake of a few extra hits on a blog-post. You can bet I’m sticking Adam, Angelina and Sylvester into the search tags for this one. And, what the heck, even Paula.

If I only knew the name of her dog…

I hope you will forgive the title. People who know me these days know one thing: I don’t cuss. In fact, technically, my use of the F-bomb in the title was only as an example of a word that I think stinks, so I don’t think I’ve actually ‘used’ it. The other adjective, I admit, was only because it made a funny sentence and will gain extra hits from people silly enough to type one of those words into Google search for kicks. If you are one of those people, I actually like you, think you’re very intelligent, and wrote that last sentence just to appease the holier-than-thou overly-educated people who are purposely reading this blog and turning their noses down at your search habits. There. I think you’re all swell.

Now, back to the F-word. Why has it become the primary explicative in a world full of perfectly good descriptive language? There are so many more interesting choices in the english language, why must we fall back to this word time and again? I’m no prude, but, seriously, has the whole English-speaking population really gotten this lazy? Some people seem to use the F-word like it’s on sale two-for-one at Walmart, with a free carry-tote.

Take my first boss, for example. My first job as a kid was working at a lumber treatment plant. We would take perfectly good two-by-fours, four-by-fours, six-by-sixes and the like; shove them into a machine that would poke holes in them, so we could stick them into another machine that covered them with green water-proofing goo. This supposedly made the lumber better. And green. And warped. The owner was a hands-on, salt of the earth guy that thought the F-word was his personal invention. A typical conversation with him was as follows: “I can’t f-ing believe the f-ed up state of the f-ing government. Everything’s so f-ed up that they must have their f-ing heads all the f-ing way up their f-ing asses.” I can only imagine his parent’s dismay when his first spoken word wasn’t “mama.”

There we were, dragging cut lumber from one machine to another, while K-FUC radio would drone on-and-on for eight hours, with an hour reprieve for lunch. I would love to say that I only worked there a few days because I was appalled, but frankly, I was sixteen years old, and worried that I would be found dead under a stack of fallen beams, and my mother would get a call stating that her f-ing kid was f-ing dead, could she please come by and pick-up the f-ing remains?

I wasn’t a saint as a kid. I went through a phase where I tried out every profanity known to man, and even got comfortable with some of them. My best friend looked at me one day and asked what happened to my vocabulary. That gave me a moments pause, and I decided I’d cut down a bit. Later I joined a local church, and the last few words disappeared. I worked on the pastor’s radio program, and later even ran a children’s ministry for another congregation – there was no room for profanity. Even in the business world, profanity really had no place. I was in corporate communications, training and development, and a lot of retail management: You don’t cuss-out a customer, even if you run into one who is worthy of a few choice words, and you never asked the decent ones to have a nice f-ing day.

The thing is, as far as I can tell, no one is LOOKING for the f-word. We’re not asking people to tell us to F-off. English classes don’t espouse the use of the world’s most famous four-letter word. I’ve yet to see a review for a movie that stated the lead characters just didn’t cuss enough. No one minds that the cast of CSI doesn’t drop the f-bomb at a really grizzly crime-scene. And yet, people seem to offer it up in real-life like its filling a void in the universe that must be stopped before life as we know it ceases to exist. Did I miss that episode of Doctor Who?

I’d like to say that it’s an education issue, or a social issue, but the word seems to permeate all classes, colors and even age groups. It’s interesting that the Motion Picture Association of America will actually allow one use of the F-word in a PG-13 rated film, as long as it is not actually in reference to the sex act. Our hero can be ticked off, but he can’t be amorous. And that’s just fine for ages 13 and up. Hooray for Hollywood.

It’s a shame, really. We’ve lost the art of the put-down. Basically, the whole modern English-speaking world would fail a verbal sparring-match with Samuel Clemens, PG Wodehouse, or Will Rogers. All a person seems capable of doing any more as a pure gesture of anger is to scream “F-you.” Whatever happened to trashing their wardrobe, sexual proclivities, or familial lineage? What happened to stripping them bare of all decency and self-respect by tearing them down verbally to the point where they were sniveling children inside, giving up all hope as a human being? When we knew for certain that we had struck a nerve by the tears flowing down their less than perfect features, marring their ugly shirt, and then give them one last verbal smack-down for being weak, as well?

F-you doesn’t do any of that. It bounces right off of people. We hear that every day. Your grandma says f-you. Even the hero of a PG-13 rated movie says that. Once, anyway. Ask anyone 13 years of age or over.

So, my family has been in prison. Cell phone prison. We had iPhones with AT&T.

We’ve had them since the dawn of time. Well, actually, the dawn of the iPhone 3G. Recently, however, something important came to my attention: We don’t need traditional cell service, anymore. The world is evolving, and cell plans are not.

Here’s the deal – two iPhones and a simple cell phone for my dad. That’s one-hundred eighty dollars monthly. Why? Because we’re “special.” first, with an iPhone (any smart-phone, actually) you have to have a data plan. We are the unlimited data plan hold-outs – thirty dollars a month, for each phone. We have lousy cell service here in the mountains of Washington, so add another twenty dollars a month for the AT&T MicroCell (a service that lets you use your cell service over your internet connection).

Then there’s all the cost for the rest of the cell service that we’re not really using, because in the mountains, we rarely touch the phones. Even taking multiple trips into town, using Pandora all the way in and around town, we get nowhere NEAR the threatening level of data use that scares AT&T. Right now, At the time of writing, I used nine minutes call time of five-hundred fifty, one of the lowest calling plans, and I’m paying the bill in seven days. I have so many rollover minutes, that I may never be charged for a cell call for the rest of my life.

AT&T must love me – Paying for things we’re just not using. But no more – today, I’ve cancelled phone service to the two iPhones – no more Data charges, no more MicroCell charges, no more minutes charges – no more. Done. I’ll only be paying around thirty dollars for my Father’s phone, the only phone left on the account. Period.

Why this madness? Our phones are “smart” phones. They do things that used to be delegated to computers. You can load individual programs and run them. Things like Skype. Skype lets you place phone calls over the Internet. It started on the computer, but soon migrated to smart phones. We’ve had Skype on our phones almost as long as we’ve owned them. In fact, I thought it would be nice for my Wife and I to have an extra number. An actual dial-able phone number (with voicemail), and an unlimited US calling plan for Skype is around eighty dollars for a year (it’s a deal, one of them is half-off when you buy the other, but I forget which). That’s pretty easy on the wallet. Although the prices may be changing now that the big “M” (Microsoft) has taken over. We’ll see.

Now you’re probably seeing the logic: Skype plus Wi-Fi means no real need for AT&T. I thought about that, but I wasn’t convinced – what about being on the road? You still need some kind of service if you want to be reached on the road. My wife gets client calls often, and they need a way to contact her if we’re out and about. So, I had put the idea aside, hoping something cool would avail itself.

It was our iPads that finally helped me bring the last piece of the puzzle together. And not for the reason of ridding ourselves of the cell phone shackles. We only have Wi-Fi iPads, no cell connection. I got tired of our stops for a quick bite at places with no Wi-Fi. Shouldn’t everyone have Wi-Fi service by now? Shouldn’t the government make it mandatory, or something?

First I looked at our own cell phones for an answer to iPad connectivity, but AT&T wanted even more money to add Personal Hotspot service to the phones that already had that service built-in. Very annoying.

Next, I looked at stand-alone 3G “hotspots,” small, credit card-sized devices that, basically, use cell service as an internet connection. Trouble was, the cell providers wanted contracts for the service in exchange for a decent purchase point for the unit. Until I stumbled upon Virgin Mobile. They had a pay as you go service, twenty dollars a month for three-hundred meg of data usage, or fifty dollars a month for unlimited data. No contract. You can connect up to five devices at once. I thought of the pleasant afternoons my Wife and I would have sitting, sipping coffee, talking and playing War Of Words. Whether the stupid coffee shop had Wi-Fi or not (I’m telling you, mandatory…).

THEN it dawned on me: here was the answer to having Skype on all the time. Get the device, turn it on while traveling, and -poof- you can get a call. Heck, even the iPads have Skype, and the ability to use Bluetooth headsets; might just be able to leave the phones at home!

The purchase price of the Virgin MiFi 2200 was a little steep, one-hundred fifty dollars, but I found someone selling one on eBay for seventy: that made the experiment worth-while. Once I received it, I purchased a month at the lowest data plan, twenty bucks, then we drove into town with our iPhones only on Wi-Fi, connected to the hotspot. We could get calls at the Skype numbers with no trouble. We called each other and listened, the call quality was no different than a standard cell call. And there was the added benefit of being able to connect the iPads as well.

All for twenty dollars a month. Even with the purchase price of the hotspot, that’s one heck of a savings over the AT&T bill. Our cell costs have dropped from one-hundred eighty down to fifty (still have Dad’s cell plan). Haven’t found the need to up the monthly data charges to the fifty dollars a month unlimited data plan, but with the pay as you go plan, I can change that at any time – even drop it back down the next month if our data use goes back down. Note, however, that the hotspot isn’t very Mac-like, you do need to understand how a wireless router works to set it up properly. If you’ve done it for your house, you’ll understand after reading the instructions.

Right now we are always traveling together, but if that changes, I’ll get a second hotspot: We could both be on the road separately at twenty dollars a month each. I smile every time I think of that.

Now I devised this plan thinking about using our already-purchased iPhones and our iPads. You could start from scratch and just get a pay as you go phone, or use your newer iPod touch. Heck our next phone “upgrades” might actually BE to iPod touches (when they get Siri, of course…)! And, with the hotspot, we are wide open for all types of use, whether phone, Internet, laptops, iPads. This pretty much ends any troubles with connectivity.

“Can you here me now?” Yes. Even with no traditional cell service.

I’m still smiling.

We do all kinds of silly things under the pretense of respecting others. Especially in the workplace. We have developed all kinds of pleasantries of phrase that are, in reality, not very pleasant at all. Etiquette may call for them, but when you look at these phrases logically, there’s just no escaping it: they are as two-faced as a political candidate. Let’s take a look at a few of these, with the proper nastiness re-inserted where it truly belongs:

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but…”
Of course you mean to interrupt. That’s exactly what you’re doing: interrupting. If you really didn’t mean to interrupt, you’d keep quiet and wait for the person to finish. Obviously, what you have to say is much more important than anything this slack-jawed namby-pamby has to say, and the information that you need to give or get is much more vital than anything currently going on between the person you need to complete your task, and the even lower form of life that’s actually wasting the time of the person you need to interrupt.

“With all due respect…”
This one is always followed by some lengthy, carefully thought-out derivative of, “…your wrong.” Obviously you have no respect for the person your dissing, kindly stop the pretense. You know you’re better than they are, and you’ve known it ever since you met them, and you will continue to be better than they are for the rest of your natural life, which will be much longer than this cave-dweller will ever live. Your opinion is better, your knowledge is more thorough, and you could take him or her three falls out of five.

“Is this a bad time?”
A very interesting question, as it is only asked when it’s perfectly obvious that it IS a bad time. This question is never asked when the other person looks up, smiles and waves at you. It’s only used when you must interrupt, and the other party should stop making-out with the next-door neighbor’s wife to fit you into their schedule of heavy-petting. “Is this a bad time?” is basically the interrogative version of the statement “I don’t mean to interrupt, but…”

“It’s just my two-cents.”
Which, all modesty aside, you happen to feel are worth a thousand times more than this person’s two-cents. Even more when you account for inflation. Your opinion is much better than the drivel you just heard. In fact it’s always better. You have a whole, cataloged history in your head of all the ideas that you have had over the years that ate this person’s ideas for lunch. Dork.

I’m sure that you can think of one or two more. These phrases are gateway drugs to a higher form of manipulating your fellow man. Some people have it down so well, that they make a career of teaching selfishness as motivation. I suppose that we’ve always been a selfish society, but now information moves so fast that we actually teach the “me” mentality at an alarming rate. We have been programmed by the media for instant gratification: Our televisions and cell-phones work that way, why not our relationships? What we’ve forgotten is life is not a series of deadlines that we must push our way through, but a series of events meant to be savored and enjoyed.

Interviews have been conducted with the elderly later in life. One of the deepest regrets often mentioned was the failure to spend more time with family and friends, and less time working and striving for achievements that, in the long run, never really mattered. The “me” society thinks nothing of burning bridges, stomping on feelings and getting their own way, all in the name of greater success.

I don’t mean to interrupt your life, but, with all due respect, perhaps you should slow it down? It’s just my two-cents…

Being an intelligent former Californian, I knew that, when I moved to Washington state, there would be this thing called winter. In California, winter consists of a couple of rain storms that break-up the monotony of sunshine and trips to the beach. Washington, I knew, would be different.

So, before embarking on the journey, off I went to the local auto parts store to acquire snow chains. After all, you can’t be too careful. While I can adapt to the possibility of snow, my truck cannot: It’s a wannabe four-wheel drive-looking thing that really isn’t a four-wheel drive. It just looks cool when you go to the California beaches in-between the rain storms. After all, Californians shouldn’t worry themselves over silly things like the weather, as long as they can get to their auditions, the gym and the liposuction clinic.

Now the first thing anyone will tell you, if they know their snow chains, is that you should make certain that they are the right size for your tires. I had that one covered. I checked the measurement information on the side-wall of the tire, and the under-aged, minimum-wage clerk at the auto parts store, who was more interested in girls than his job, never really put chains on a vehicle because he lives in southern California, and, in fact, doesn’t even own a car, assured me that the chains he recommended were the correct size. So I stuffed them in the back of the truck and never gave it a second thought. I was officially covered in the snow chain department.

After arriving in the great Pacific Northwest, I learned that there was a “big storm” a year or so ago, but nothing since. The winters had been mild, and the “big storm” was a rarity. Thus I was complacent, and the chains were shuffled around in the truck to make room for more important things like groceries, the dog, and various blankets that seemed important to keep in the vehicle, “just in case.”

History has a tendency to repeat itself, and even the weather must comply occasionally. On my third year here in Washington, we finally had another “big storm.” It really wasn’t bad or frightening, but you had a real hard time getting out of your driveway with only a two-wheel drive vehicle. It was obviously time for the snow chains. Out I went to open up the previously never thought about package of chains.

Now, understand, I was told by the non-driving, sex-starved party hound at the auto parts store in California that for my bad-ass vehicle, I should get the best. Don’t deal with those silly cable things that you just drive up on, connect and go – no way. That just wouldn’t do. I should get the real-deal. Actual chains. That’s what I needed.

And there I was, with chains in-hand. Real chains. Big, complex-looking chains that were tangled into something resembling chain mail. And I played D&D once – I knew my chain mail. After untangling the things, I was faring no better. They still looked utterly foreign. Thankfully, there were instructions. They were printed in full-color, with pictures, on a large plastic sheet that they insisted you should also use to put your knees on while you installed the chains. I thought that was a nice touch: They even thought to include a mat.

So I read the instructions. Then, I read them again. I looked at the pictures. I double-checked to make sure that I was on the English-language side of the sheet. The words, pictures and actual chains sitting next to the truck did not seem to resemble each other in the least. I attempted to do as the instructions asked, but, somehow, the chains never really wound up on the tire. Behind the tire, in front of the tire, half-way around the tire with the other half dangling precariously – No configuration that I could manage to get them in around the tire actually looked safe, or even legal. So, still being at the house, I decided to head back in and consult the great internet oracle, Google.

Amazingly enough, the thoughtful company that included the plastic instructions/knee mat, had videos right on their website. They explained that the chains could be put on a tire in only three minutes. I laughed. But, then they slowly went through the steps one-by-one, and the little pilot-light in my brain started to glow a little brighter. After the step-by-step portion, the gentleman putting on the chains went through the steps in “real-time,” showing that, indeed, it was only three minutes per tire.

I went out re-charged and excited. I had wasted an hour and a half with useless fumbling, but I now knew the score. I was about to actually put on snow chains like a pro.

I nelt-down on my instruction mat, and started to work. After only three minutes, I realized three things:

1. The video was shot in California.
2. On pavement.
3. In sunny, 70-degree weather.

And then I cursed the snow chain gods. Obviously, it was some kind of conspiracy. No one in their right-mind could do this correctly without a degree in engineering, and I suddenly felt for every poor schmuck who had to get out of their car in the middle of a blizzard and kneel in penance on the holy snow chain instruction mat, praying for a traction miracle.

Two-hours and two completed tires later, I slowly drove my truck out of the driveway. Proud, but wanting to throttle someone. I didn’t know who, but someone should suffer the way I suffered.

Maybe that kid in California. Once my hands thaw-out.

Love them or hate them, Apple has a plan. Perhaps it’s global domination, perhaps it’s just creating beautiful products that work together. In any case, the newest things to hit the Apple ecosphere are the much talked-about iCloud service, and iTunes match.

In a quick overview: iTunes Match fixes the problem of syncing the music that you want to your satellite devices (in my case, the iPhone and iPad). Those devices don’t have as much space as your computer hard drive, and plugging it into your computer to sync, choosing which tunes to copy – really annoying. With iTunes Match, your devices sync over iCloud, and you see all of your music on, say, your iPhone. Pick the album or songs that you want to hear, and the music is loaded to the device for listening. There are more details, but that about covers the basic function for which it was designed. The major difference between iTunes match and the other guys is that iTunes doesn’t load all of your music up into the cloud from your computer. If they have your “match,” They push their own copy of the music to your other devices. The only music that they upload from your collection are tunes they don’t have, like your Metallica concert bootlegs or a particularly old Gene Autrey album.

With that fact in mind, there’s an interesting side-benefit: since Apple is loading the matched tunes to your phone from their servers, why not also load the music to your computer if you need it? Let’s say you ripped CD back in the dark-ages of digital music. You know, 2003. Then, a 128k .mp3 was considered pretty high-quality, and took up very little precious, expensive (for the time) hard drive space. Now we realize that 128k sounds like crap. Music pirates won’t even touch 128k files for free. Even music services like MOG stream at 320k, so you are now very aware that your 128k files suck.

But, darn it, you cant find that CD to re-rip it at a better quality. You’ve moved three times, and possibly loaned it to a nefarious neighbor that never returned it, then played it very loudly (and often) after you left the neighborhood. What to do?

Simply delete it from iTunes on your computer, and re-load if from Apple’s servers, just like you would load it to your iPhone. Since they are 256k AAC files, They sound miles better than that old 128k .mp3 drivel. Poof! Instant upgrade.

So, 25 bucks (24.99) sounded like a great investment to tinker with the service, and maybe fix a few old recordings. I not only synced all my music and did some album replacing, but tried some nasty cheating to see if I could trip-up the service.

After setting everything up and letting iTunes Match do its work, I can say that  iTunes match is not perfect. However, it’s no slouch. Using an algorithm similar to a program like Shazam, iTunes Match scours all of your music, matching your songs with Apple’s, then uploading anything that they don’t have from your computer to the cloud. Oddly enough, a few mainstream albums managed one or two songs that didn’t match, even though they technically should have. I have an Alan Parsons album completely matched except for the last song, and quite a few others that are in a similar state. There are all kinds of theories running around: lousy bit rates being too noisy to match; new, remastered albums not being a perfect sonic match to the original releases. Whatever. I’d say Apple’s about ninety-nine percent accurate, and that’s quite an achievement.

The biggest trouble that I had was with classical music. But (and pay attention) it wasn’t Apple’s fault at all. My problem with iTunes Match and classical is totally the fault of the music industry.

Too often, classical recordings are seen as commodities that can be passed off, shuffled and re-released over and over again. They are faceless pieces of music that are often only known by the composer who wrote them, not the conductor or symphony that performed them. One company releases an older recording that they purchased from another label. Five years later, they get rid of it, or go under, and someone else releases it. But, hey, it’s only a forty-five minute recording of a Mozart symphony, let’s add this concerto to fill-out the CD. A Barry Manilow album is always the same album, even if they decide to change the cover a bit. He released them with a certain title, in a certain order, and it will stay that way well beyond the day when Mr. Manilow is no more.

When iTunes matched one-half of an album, which was one concerto, it would not match the other half, which was a different concerto. Obviously, someone re-released half of the album that I owned on some other album that I didn’t, but iTunes recognized the songs, just the same. Another series of albums, the complete Beethoven symphonies, was re-released by another company, but given completely different covers, and were no-longer seen as a set, but individual albums. I guess when you spend your life in the bargain bin looking for inexpensive classical albums, expect a rocky time with iTunes Match. Once again, my classical woes were not Apple’s fault, and kudos to them for finding the works they had on their servers at all.

Lastly, as I do with all new techie things, I had to try to push iTunes Match to it’s limits, trying something utterly wrong to see if I could stump the service, and learn how things work in the process. To do this, I flat-out lied. I tried an experiment to see if a true Music Pirate could get away with murder. I picked an album that I don’t own, have no recordings of, or even really wanted (but that’s beside the point – its an experiment, dammit!), looked it up in the iTunes store and got to work.

Using an MP3 editor, I took a DIFFERENT album that I actually own, and changed all of the tags of the MP3 tracks and renamed them to match the artist, album name, album cover and track names. Would iTunes match see all the false data and give me a pass? Would Apple give me an album that I didn’t own? I Loaded my counterfeit album into iTunes, and asked the Apple music gods to match it…

…And Apple did. ITunes Match matched my fake album – with the actual album that it WAS – NOT the fake one that I tried to pass off on them. Sorry pirates, you’ll just have to steal your music from somewhere else and load it into iTunes. Even though iTunes had all of the wrong data that I forced down its throat, it still matched the individual tracks to the real album. Looking at those results, I walked away with the following insights:

iTunes Match is based solely on the sonic signature of the music tracks to make a match. It also leaves your titles, track order, etc. in tact. This makes perfect sense, especially if you didn’t like the name of the Thriller 25th Anniversary album and re-named it simply, Thriller, the way God intended it. It won’t confuse iTunes Match, which will still match the tunes, and leave the names the way you like them. The same goes for album covers (mostly, it did change one from my collection) and your own personal playlists or Frankensteinian album creations. I’ve made a couple of 80′s compilations with my own cover – iTunes matched the songs, and left my info intact.

So, overall, I give iTunes Match what I call an “Apple” A. Other people may complain about the less than 100% matching ability, and give it a “real-world” B, but I’ve been around the Apple universe long enough to know that there will be updates to address the issue and make it a non-issue. At that time, Apple will forget the issue ever existed, so they can tout how perfect it was right from the start. Even after Steve Job’s passing, the ‘reality distortion field’ is still firmly in place. It’s a part of his legacy. That, and some really cool ideas like iTunes Match.

People should be allowed to age gracefully. Plastic surgery ruins that. It takes perfectly decent-looking people and turns them into Heath Ledger’s Joker.

It starts with a little snip here, a little tuck there. But, just like drugs, a person gets hooked. Suddenly, the person’s mouth is way too long, they can’t blink, and any resemblance to the person they once were is gone. They don’t even look like a distant relative – more like something from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.

This is what George has done to the original Star Wars trilogy. First a little cleaning, then an extra alien or two, you know, to make Tatooine look a little more populated. Then some of the dialogue had to be fixed. Then some more. And while we’re at it, might as well stick the emperor from Return of the Jedi into The Empire Strikes Back, even though he wasn’t cast at the time of the second film. Oh, and some more dialog changes, while we’ve got him in the studio. And hey, what about windows in the cloud city? Seems silly that they wouldn’t want to look at the clouds they’re hovering in, why didn’t we think of that before? And even though Han is a scalawag, it’s rather rude of him to shoot first and ask questions later – even though that’s his character throughout the series. We need to fix that. And the latest? Darth Vader now says “no!” before throwing the Emperor off the bridge, because we really didn’t understand that he had a change of heart. Us audience members are stupid like that.

I actually have the DVD special editions of the first trilogy (you know, the ones made before episode one). They have the original untouched films as bonuses. They’re the only versions that I watch. No, Lucas didn’t really care about them. They’re not cleaned up very much, and he didn’t remaster the audio, and they don’t look as nice as the Frankensteinian new versions on BluRay, but they’ve aged gracefully, and they’re still more fun, wrinkles and all.

To age gracefully is to let go. To move on. To realize that there are other horizons in life to attain and experience. The Joans of this world are trying to relive the past, the Georges, trying to rewrite it. These days, Star Wars and plastic surgery seem to have quite a bit in common.

On one of the various scraps of paper that I drew some initial concepts for mort way back in the Reaganomics 1980′s, I added a simple, frustrated sentence in the center of the page:

I remember a kid in Junior High, he could draw at the drop of a hat – beautiful, cool-looking and complete characters doing things: fishing, driving, running – with seemingly no effort at all.

I was never that guy. I could write. I was a writer. THAT I could do with seemingly no effort at all. The drawing thing, that was hard. And it still is. It’s getting better, mind you, as I continue to press on week after week. But I’m not what you’d call a natural.

Back then, when I tried to create a Mort comic, there was all that erasing that I had to do – not just of the underlying sketch, but half of the stuff that was supposed to be seen, as well: I just couldn’t get the arms, or the nose, or the ears, or the pose right. Not much of it at all, actually. So way back in the 80′s, I gave up – I just couldn’t imagine ever getting it right.

Fast-forward to today. As of this writing, Mort has been on the internet for two months.

What happened? My iPad happened. Oh, sure, I probably have a lot more spunk, more patience, wiser things to say through the character, blah, blah, blah. But the truth is, without my iPad, there would be no Mort Monday – The old notes would still be in a drawer of my desk, collecting dust.

With my iPad, there’s an “undo” button. Boy, does THAT beat the pants off of trying to erase the nose that I just screwed-up. Sure, Photoshop and other computer programs have an undo as well, but I could never master the tablet – it was just like trying to draw on paper – from across the room – I’d draw on the tablet, and the line appeared on my computer screen. In fact, it was more frustrating than the sheet of paper. With the iPad, I’m drawing right on the screen, and seeing the results, just like I would on a piece of paper, but with the difference of more flexibility after it’s on the page, and, of course, the “undo” button. After all, for a cartoonist, I’m one heck of a writer.

Where it starts

I’m using Art Studio by Lucky Clan. It can do a heck of a lot more than I’m doing with it, that’s for sure – I’m just creating line-drawings, not paintings, but I do take advantage of the different layers that you can draw on. For those not familiar with programs like Photoshop, each layer is like a pane of glass – you can draw on it, and see through to the layers above or below. This way, I can draw a quick sketch, then place a layer over it to draw it in more completely, without touching the sketch underneath. This allows you to tinker, undo and erase portions of the drawing, while leaving the sketch underneath intact.

I start with a base background of graph paper, so I can size up the characters and composition of the frame. I know that’s non-traditional, but I’ve liked graph paper since I was a youth: four squares per inch, five squares per inch – ever seen ten squares per inch? They’re really small…

The Phases Of The Mort

Each frame of the comic is a single drawing on the iPad. Since the iPad works best with your hand, I’m practically finger painting, which I must admit is kind of cool… (sure, go ahead, try to use a stylus – it’s clunky, and you’ll lose it anyway – use your hand).

Where it ends

After I have the four frames saved, I send them over to the computer. Currently, my first-generation iPad doesn’t have the resolution to do up the full four-frames on a single workspace, so for the final layout I move over to Photoshop on my Mac (Feel free to feel sorry for me and send me an iPad 2 for experimentation at higher resolutions…).

The template is all set, I just change the comic number and date, then drag in the four frames and size them down to fit the sheet. After saving the current comic, I load it into my website, which is a WordPress blog running ComicPress theme. I also print out a full-page copy and load it into my Mort binder, which now has much more than a few unfinished drawings from the 80′s.

In some ways, I feel like an animator – By using layers, I can keep a background and re-use it, like Mort’s park bench or Artist Point. I also have the ability to grab Mort layer out of a comic frame and use the image somewhere else, like a promo piece, or the “Phases Of Mort” picture, above. At first, I was dead set against that – I thought I had to be true to each frame, redrawing it all from scratch. Then I realized it’s just a part of the merging of art and computers – why NOT take something that you’ve created and use it for something completely different? After all, unlike my schoolmate, who was totally at home with a pencil and paper, my creative tool has always been the computer, whether I’ve been creating an audio project, video project, or now, a comic project.

And perhaps it actually gives me an edge-up over those attached to their pencil and paper. I’m taking a medium that I’ve always been comfortable with, and adapting it for use in a medium that I’m less comfortable with.

In any case, This wouldn’t be happening without that cool iThing, as Mort would call it.

I spend my television hours guessing the endings of most procedural dramas. Frankly, if I can’t guess the ending of a procedural drama, it’s because it’s jumped the shark to try to fool people, making for a ridiculous ending. It seems television writers are so busy banging out CSIs, Law & Orders and Castles (yes, plot-wise I dump Castle into the bad category, even though I do like the show) that they are painting by the numbers when it comes to plot.

I can’t guess Fringe.

Sure I can see some general directions, but I can’t guess it at all. J. J. Abrams and crew are willing to do pretty much anything; kill important characters, change reality, make good guy’s bad, change reality, erase character’s entire existence, change reality, seemingly throw giant monkey-wrenches in the plot that you think you’ve figured out – and change reality.

Not only did the original cast wind up playing themselves as evil (or well-meaning) opposites within a second universe, which is possibly one of the most over-used plot-lines in science-fiction, not only did they manage to do it with style and panache, but now they went and changed the reality of both of these universes, changing the histories and relationships of all the characters in both places – basically giving the actors the net result of playing FOUR versions of themselves: the old universe’s realities, and now, the new reality of the current shows.

It keeps evolving into a new series, and yet it is playing out a singular story-arc.

Fringe always gets compared to The X-Files, but I have to say that ultimately, it’s Rod Serling-caliber. I don’t just mean Twilight-Zone caliber, but more than that, Rod Serling himself. It’s the type of television that Rod spoke of when he was interviewed about what he saw for the future of television way back when Zone started – something that brought art to the masses, not Kardashians and tattoo shows and people bidding on crap in a storage-locker – truly thoughtful television.

I urge you to check out the previous episodes and catch up. Watching Fringe has become my favorite pastime, and, frankly, one of my favorite TV shows ever. There is NO sitting in front of the television and sapping your brain dry with Fringe – I am constanly challenged, surprised, and delighted with the stories, plots and performances. What other television series literally changes the opening credits depending on which universe (or time) in which the story is taking place? Right now all the credits are a color that they’ve never been before – and I’ll leave it to you to figure out why.

Fox has been gracious, allowing Fringe to continue with less than stellar overall ratings, due to a strong fan-base, and (I hope) a realization that it’s just darn-good television. This is something that will make all related parties quite a bit of money in it’s afterlife of DVD sales and syndication. I only hope that they know when to truly end the show, giving it a satisfying farewell. I don’t want it to run forever, taking up space, but coming to a strong conclusion, which is very difficult in the ratings-driven world of network television.

In any case, I’ll enjoy the ride as long as it lasts.

Unfortunately, his death yesterday leads me to believe that he and his staff had bigger fish to fry than my simple thank you – but the message was heart-felt, and truly sums up my experience with Apple – So I thought re-printing it here could be my own public thank you to a person whose vision and drive has given me products that have inspired my own creativity in ways that I never imagined possible:

From: Vincent Hase
To: “sjobs@apple.com”
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 12:38 PM
Subject: My iPad Is A Living Sheet Of Paper

Mr. Jobs -

I realize this is a monitored email address, but I’ll send some direct praise, anyway – perhaps it will get mentioned to you!

I’ve been an Apple person almost as long as there’s been an Apple – From my first II+ to the present (yes, even the ‘lean years’ when you weren’t around). I’m already well aware of the form and function of Apple products – it’s second nature to me. Perhaps you might even call me jaded: I know the products are good, and I don’t even think about it any more – I just enjoy.

Recently, however, I had an epiphany – and I am now doing something that I could NEVER have accomplished if it weren’t for Apple, your vision, and your team’s amazing ability to bring theses products to life.

My drawing ability is not the greatest – Never properly trained, never took the time to master the form. When I was in my twenties, I wrote copious notes for a comic strip that was dear to my heart. In fact, I had always wished that I could be a cartoonist – But I just couldn’t get it together. I’d spend so much time erasing that it wasn’t worth the effort. Even the computer couldn’t save me – I was more than proficient technically, being a web designer and audio/video guy, but still lacking in the ability to draw something out. Tablets didn’t work for me, either – I couldn’t get my thoughts into a decent drawing without a ton of struggle, and had long since gave upon the whole idea.

Time has passed, and I’m now in my forties. I was recently tinkering with an iPad drawing program (Art Studio), and it dawned on me – why not try to draw my comic with it? I pulled out my 25-year old notes for my comic strip, and gave it another go. I am TOTALLY comfortable drawing directly to the screen, and the ability to “undo” saves me hours of scrapping a paper drawing and starting all over again. Using the iPad in this way has made it a living piece of paper, allowing me to adjust at will.

I’m STILL not the greatest artist, but now there’s a new webcomic on the internet: Mort Monday (http://www.MortMonday.net). I’ve produced a new comic every Monday for the past two months. People are actually reading it, and I’m gaining fans on Facebook for a simple little guy drawn on my iPad.

If it weren’t for the iPad – the notes would still be in a drawer, collecting dust. I can literally say that if it weren’t for the iPad, this would have NEVER happened!

I don’t think any language can properly express my gratitude. I’ve always used Apple products and achieved great results (remember, practically jaded) – You’ve taken me over the top.

It’s a shame that all I can type is: Thank you.

- Vincent Hase
– Maple Falls, WA