Are iPhone Apps Flawed?

No matter what time of day or where you may happen to be at any given time, if you aren’t standing close to someone right now who owns an iPhone, you soon will be.  And as soon as you’re in close proximity to someone with an iPhone, that iPhone owner is going to use at least one iPhone app as he or she stands close by. 

Any iPhone owner I’ve ever spoken to has waxed poetic over the fantastic apps they’ve downloaded from this, that or the other App Store.  They’ve downloaded apps to help them shoot 1080p HD movies and they’ve downloaded apps that allow them to “play a collection of highly expressive Touch and Smart Instruments that sound just like their real counterparts.”  They’ve downloaded apps that organize and compare photos, and they’ve downloaded apps that allow the user to ”create beautiful letters, flyers, reports, invitations and more.”   They’ve downloaded apps that are responsible for business presentations complete with  themes, custom graphic styles, transition options and even animated 3D charts, and they’ve downloaded apps that  ”create innovative spreadsheets in a few taps.”  

We get it.  Apps and cellphones are the wave of the future according to the vast majority of people living on the earth at this very moment.  They are more reliable than humans, and where humans are known to err, apps and cellphones are thought of as infallible. 

So let me share a little story with all of you about the infallibility of technology.  You see, technology is flawed and it’s flawed because technology is the child of the human experience and the human experience is one that creates and invents, and re-creates and re-invents, on a continuous basis.

Yesterday, I was hanging out with friends when one of them whipped out her iPhone to show us an amazing app she’d downloaded.  Since I only use my cellphone for phone calls, I always find these moments particularly amusing.   The-company-that-shall-not-be-named advertised its app by stating that this app, along with others from the-company-that-shall-not-be-named was ”revolutionizing the way computers interact with humans by building machines that can sense the world like humans do.”

The app supposedly could dead-bang-on identify how old a person looked to others in seconds by way of its “incredible artificial intelligence engine” that would scan your photograph and reveal “with a high degree of accuracy“ how old you look to others, but most specifically, how old you look to the “advanced artificial intelligence engine.”

My friend with the iPhone went first and the app very complimentarily placed her within a few years of her age.  My friend to the left of me went next and to her pleasure, she was pegged as looking eight years younger than her real age.  Seeing no harm in joining in on the fun, I went next and what transpired next proved to me that technology, like humans, sometimes lies and when it does, it lies like a carpet.

My friend snapped a shot of me with her iPhone as she’d done with herself and the second victim of the app.  Then the app scanned and “accurately” estimated my age as being 16.  Sixteen?  Oh my!  I haven’t been sixteen since well …

Since the first Apple II computers went on sale.

Since the NAVSTAR Global Positioning System GPS was inaugurated by the US Department of Defense.

Since the first ever Quadraphonic concert was held in London by Pink Floyd.

Since the first commercial flight Concord flew from London to New York.

Since the first MRI Scanner was tested in Brooklyn, New York.

Since NASA’s Voyager I and Voyager II were launched unmanned to explore the outer solar system.

Since EMI sacked the Sex Pistols and booted them off their record label.

Since the original “Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope” was first released in theaters.

Since President Jimmy Carter granted pardons to American Draft dodgers from the Vietnam War era.

Since the population of the United States of America reached 216 million.

And because technology is flawed, I’m more than willing to go with human fallibility because no one blindly believes that any human is ever 100% right 100% of the time … but much of the world incorrectly believes that technology is 100% right 100% of the time.

I’ll gladly take a flawed world with flawed people who know and understand they are flawed, over a flawed world run by flawed machines that are trusted implicitly by blinded people.  Yes, mistakes are wonderful as long as you know mistakes will be made and can be made and have been made over the years.

Discovering Hidden Nuggets

Every once in a while, all of us have stumbled upon something so incredibly beautiful that we can’t believe how it is that we never found it before this very moment.  This was the case last week when I came across a video by Richard Poon singing the incredibly beautiful “The Last Time.”

The song was so smooth and so heartfelt that it was impossible to miss the innocence and sincerity at the heart of the piece.  The chord progression and the arrangement harkened back to another time and place, and I wondered how it was that this song wasn’t part of my big band repertoire.  Surely this song was from the thirties or forties.

The first time I fell in love was long ago;
I didn’t know how to give my love at all.

I searched in earnest for the name or names of the songwriters.  I delved through the many music folios and 78s in my music collection and came up empty-handed.  I found it all very perplexing considering how amazing this song is.

I searched the Internet and came across a number of songs with similar titles but none of them were the song I was hoping to find.  It became a mystery of sorts, truth be told, and I wasn’t about to be deterred from finding the answer to the question:  Who wrote this incredible song?

I’m wise enough to know when a miracle unfolds;
This is the last time I’ll fall in love.

I finally found another version of the song on YouTube.  This time, it was being sung by Eric Benet.  Now I know a bit about Eric Benet.  He’s had more than his fair share of pain and heartache.  His father died of cancer.   In 1993, his girlfriend died after lying in a coma for five days after having been injured in an automobile crash.   After three years of marriage, he and Halle Berry called it quits.  If ever there was someone who deserved a happily ever after, Eric Benet certainly seems to be a prime candidate.

And then I learned something very interesting about the song in question.  The song was part of a group of songs he’d written about his relationship with Halle Berry.  It wasn’t a decades-old song that had aged well but rather a relatively new song that had all the hallmarks of a decades-old song.

To find that once in a lifetime, this is it
I’ll never be the same.

Now that I knew where to start looking for information on the song, I discovered that it was written by Eric Benet, Amy Sky, David Foster and Foster Gillies.

The next time I hear a song I don’t recognize that sounds like it came from another era, I’m going to start hunting a little closer to home … checking recent releases.  Who knows?  Maybe I’ll discover a few more hidden nuggets to add to my music collection. 

It Might Be You

When I was in New York in December of 1982, I decided to see the new Dustin Hoffman movie ”Tootsie” at a local theatre in Manhattan.  Christmas was just a few days away and the movie poster – showing Dustin Hoffman in a sparkling red beaded evening gown, perfectly coiffed with gold pumps on his feet standing next to a more casual male-attired Dustin Hoffman  — had a sort of Christmas feel to it with all those sequins on the evening gown … even though it wasn’t a Christmas themed movie.

The one thing that stood out for me where this movie is concerned is the theme song that was performed by Stephen Bishop.    It was the kind of song that, at 21, I wished I could write not realizing that I already had.

The song had a reflective longing without being overly sentimental and it was the sort of song that appealed to a broad spectrum of people, not just the under 18 group or the 18 to 25 demographic or the over 40 crowd or what was eventually renamed the zoomer generation.

Looking back as lovers go walking past
All of my life
wondering how they met and what makes it last.

That sentiment — wondering how people stay with each other for decades — is something that has echoed long and loud across the past three generations.  Recently, there’s been a spat of news articles about married couples celebrating 70 years , 80 years … even 85 years of marital bliss.  What I find most intriguing is the fact that all of them have a similar recipe for success: the ability to argue constructively with each other.

Not one of them has ever been quoting as saying that their marriage has enjoyed longevity because one of them is always right and the other of them has learned to accept that as a fact.  Not one of them has ever been quoting as saying that their marriage has lasted because they didn’t say a word to their partner about how wrong they always are on any given subject.

What they do say is that they’ve learned to listen to what the other has to say on any number of subjects. 

Some of the questions reporters asked were easy to answer.  Was it always bliss?  Of course not.  Did they still argue from time to time?  Of course they did.  Were they birds of a feather or where they opposites that attracted?  Yes they were.  Which one?  Both.

Each couple shared that over the years they’d had more than a few humdinger doozies of a fight over the years but at the end of the day, they ironed everything out and apologized where warranted with the knowledge that neither of them would hold anything against the other.

So many quiet walks to take
So many dreams to wake
And with so much love to make.
I think we’re gonna need some time;
Maybe all we need is time.

For most of these couples, they were barely out of their teens when they married but they understood the seriousness of making commitments.  They knew they didn’t know everything and they were willing to learn … from each other, from their friends and families, from the community.  They were open to working hard at making a home, having a family, building a future, enjoying the good times and riding out the bad times. 

This meant they had to invest in each other and themselves …. their hearts, their souls, their thoughts, and their time.  And like any good investment, it takes time before an investor can start collecting dividends.  This is what all of these couples knew then and to which they held tight over the years.

This is how they found themselves still together after all these years and celebrating 70 years and 80 years and 85 years of marriage between them. 

Does this mean that those who find themselves divorced are failures?  Not at all.  But here’s the nugget of truth to be found in reading about these couples:   There’s something to learn about personal and professional relationships from couples who have learned to navigate the relationship pitfalls and chasms that are part every person-to-person interaction.

Total Idiocracy

A couple of weeks ago, I happened upon an interesting movie starring Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph.  I’m not a fan of either Wilson or Rudolph and I’m certainly not a fan of movies that seem to have a ridiculous plot but it was Saturday night and I didn’t have much else planned for the evening.  I watched the opening credits roll by and within minutes I was questioning my judgment about watching this movie.  It was, well …. ridiculous.

It’s usually at this point that I’ll turn the TV off and find something better to do with my time but for some strange reason, that night I just kept watching and hoping the movie would get better.  Truth be told, the movie wasn’t scoring any points with me on any level … not with the plot, not with the background music and foley, not with the cinematography, not with anything.  It was billed as a satirical science fiction comedy but that was a loose description at best.  Then something happened.

The more I watched the movie, the more I realized that it was a cautionary tale more than anything else and once I realized that, the movie took on a completely different tone.  I’m not talking about the music courtesy of Buck Owens and the Buckeroos — although that added a delightful aspect to the movie – but rather I’m talking about the toned down message in the movie about the dumbing down of society. 

You see, Luke Wilson’s character was put into suspended animation by the army for what was supposed to be one year but due to unexpected circumstances, he wound up hibernating for 501 years instead and that’s where the story really takes off, complete with objectionable language and inappropriate references.

From that point onward, there’s a certain kind of zaniness — and underlying future reality of the situation – that ensues.   He meets the President of the United States who looks at him and says, “So you smart, huh?  I thought your head’d be bigger.” 

The movie shows how language might devolve into twisted versions of the original versions, whether you’re talking about the House of Representin’ or Monday Night Rehabilitation.    It also talks about how reading has fallen into ill repute and literacy is something to be ashamed of if you happen to be somewhat literate.

In reality, the Washington Post reported in a news article dated December 25, 2005 that only 31 percent of college graduates could read a complex book and extrapolate from it.  The article went on to state that while more Americans were graduating from college than ever before and that more Americans than ever before were applying for admission, they were graduating without the skills required to understand basic instructions and tasks through reading.

In 2008, the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) administered tests and the results showed that 14% of Americans had extreme difficulty with reading and writing comprehension, which meant they met the criteria for being legally defined as illiterate.   The NAAL was able to determine that in the U.S.,  adults with a high level of literacy are at 19%, a low level of literacy are at 49.6% and a moderate level of literacy at 31.4%.

In other words, the movie “Idiocracy” really isn’t that far off the mark with its premise and that should trouble those of us who watch this cautionary tale.  The future doesn’t necessarily look all that bright when seen through those shades.

I won’t give away too much of the movie but I’d like to leave you with this snippet nonetheless and a wish.  If you ever have the chance to watch the movie on late night television, get a bucket of popcorn read, sit back in that comfortable reclining chair and get ready for an interest time.  You won’t regret it.

You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up)

Yesterday was Autism Sunday, an awareness day that began in 2002.  This signals the beginning of Autism Awareness Month and more than ever before, society needs to take a look at what is known about autism spectrum disorders and review the stereotypes that surround autism spectrum disorders.

It’s not that those diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder are the only people with a disability who are misunderstood.  On the contrary, it would appear that anyone with a diagnosis suffers from discrimination and bullying in excess of that experienced by their healthier peers.  But the fact of the matter is that autism spectrum disorders are the whipping boy of disabilities in many respects.

This past weekend, while listening to videos on YouTube, I came across a recording by Josh Groban entitled, “You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up” and it struck a chord with me.  While the first two verses were powerful, it was the chorus that hit home hardest.

Everybody wants to be understood
Well I can hear you
Everybody wants to be loved
Don’t give up
Because you are loved

How often do people diagnosed with a disability feel unheard by family, by friends, by doctors, by specialists …. by society?  And how often are people diagnosed with a disability misunderstood by family, by friends, by doctors, by specialists … by society?

Dr. Ralph Nichols, the man who created the Minnesota Listening Model,  said that “the most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.”

As we make our way into the second day of Autism Awareness Month, ask yourself if you truly listen when people speak to you.  Whether it’s a senior or a child or anyone in between, do you really listen to what that person is saying or do you politely ignore the noise that resembles words all the while nodding your head and pretending to listen?

Some of the best conversations I’ve had have been with toddlers and pre-schoolers as well as octogenarians and those who are even older than that.  I’ve learned things that I might not otherwise have learned had I not been listening to what was being shared by others with me.

Last year when Charlie Sheen was having his moments in the media, my son asked me if what was going on was the reason for the idiom “star craving mad.”   The question stopped me short for a moment and then I laughed … not because my son had misunderstood the idiom “stark raving mad” but because he had shared a moment where a different perspective of what was going on with Charlie Sheen was presented.

This is what happens when we truly listen to people who are speaking with us … we embrace the opportunity to see a different perspective than that which we already hold or that society has labeled the definitive perspective.

When it comes to listening to people, I feel that Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (22 September 1694 – 24 March 1773) said it best when he said:  “Many a man would rather you heard his story than granted his request.”  You see, most people are able to accept that the answer to a request may be NO but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who is comfortable with not being heard … being ignored, being marginalized, being dismissed.

This may be nothing more to you than a commentary on a personal blog about how most people don’t take the time to truly listen to others, especially those with disabilities, but to someone who needs to be heard, knowing that someone out there wants to hear and understand what they have to say might matter a great deal.  I’m hoping it does.

Moms of Kids with Autism Have Complaints

On  March 19, 2012 there was a news article in the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics about the impact childhood autism has on parental employment and earnings.  The results were even harsher than many expected and as harsh as parents of children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder have been saying for years.

To put what the study said in very understandable terms, let’s say that mothers of children with no health limitations earn $30,000 per year. 

The study revealed that mothers of children with a diagnosis other than an autism spectrum disorder earned 56% less than the mothers of children with no health limitations.  That translates into $13,200 per year.  That’s quite a drop in potential income generating power!

But mothers of children with an autism spectrum disorder earned 35% less than the mothers earning $13,200 per year. That translates into a yearly income of $8,580 per year … well below the poverty level identified by Statistics Canada for a single person, never mind a single parent raising a child with health conditions.

The study showed that across all three groups (fathers of children with no health limitations, fathers of children with a health limitation other than an autism spectrum disorder and fathers of children with an autism spectrum disorder), fathers were not impacted.  One can speculate that the reason for this is that the father is generally the higher wage earner and as such, the financially prudent decision in a two-parent family is for the mother to shoulder the issues pertaining to raising a child diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.

In almost 10% of two-parent families where a child is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, only one parent generates the family income.

The conclusions of the study were that families of children with an autism spectrum disorder face significant economic burdens that other families with and without other health limitations do not face.  When substantially less income is coupled with expenses that must be incurred on behalf of a child diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, the economic impact on the family is that much harsher than most realize.

Imagine what the study would have revealed if they had included what happens in single parent families of a child with an autism spectrum disorder. 

If the worst income for a mother in a two-parent family was $8,580 the question that begs to be answered is this:  How does a one-parent family of a child with an autism spectrum disorder make ends meet?

Registered retirement savings plans are cashed in.  Investments and savings are decimated.  Anything of value is sold.  And at the end of the day, that’s still not enough to stay afloat.

What happens if a single parent of a child with an autism spectrum disorder finds themselves in the position where the only option left is to apply for welfare?  Anything and everything that can be converted into cash must be converted.  That means insurance policies have to be sold.  If something is being held in trust for anyone in the family unit, that interest has to be sold off.  Tools of the trade for those who are self-employed are exempt but by the time someone has nothing left to sell in order to pay the bills, the tools of the trade that are left are almost always obsolete since it’s rare that someone will purchase older tools of the trade unless they happen to be collectors of memorabilia along the lines of buyers on shows such as American Pickers and Canadian Pickers.   Yes, most parents go this route, believing that sometime in the near future, they’ll be able to pick up more work to help pay the bills and slow the massive financial hemorrhaging.

In Ontario, the asset limit threshold for a single parent raising one child is $1,610.  Sure there are exemptions but the problem with the exemptions is that by the time a single parent family of a child with an autism spectrum disorder asks the government for help, what could have been exempt was already sold off.  The problem with that is that in the province of Ontario, anything that was sold off in the three years preceding the application for assistance can be used to disqualify the applicant.  If the government deems that the price that was paid for an asset wasn’t as much as they feel could have been paid, that’s going to impact negatively on the application.

In Ontario, as in many other provinces, there are only two things that determine an applicant’s eligibility:  the applicant’s financial situation and the applicant’s willingness to take part in activities to find a job.

What isn’t taken into account are the hours invested by the applicant of a child with an autism spectrum disorder into dealing with medical appointments, therapy sessions, counseling for the child, school meetings, school emergencies (and trust me, any parent of a child with an autism spectrum disorder will tell you that there are lots and lots and lots of school emergencies), IEP meetings, placement meetings, and more.  All of that impacts on what the government perceives as an applicant’s willingness to take part in activities to find a job.

Can you imagine what happens when other serious health issues are blended into the equation?  What was previously an extremely difficult situation now becomes an almost impossible situation.

Some of you may be wondering why I’ve chosen to share this with you today.  The reason is simple.  My son is 16 years old and I’ve been a single parent for nearly all of those 16 years.  I’ve busted my sides to give my son and everyone involved in my son’s care what they need and want in order to address my son’s autism.  I’ve done likewise with regards to addressing his other serious health issues:  Myasthenia Gravis and a bilateral congenital kidney defect.  I have done likewise with regards to addressing his lesser health issues (of which there are many).  I’ve managed to hold my own for 16 years, with some years requiring more belt tightening than others.  To that end, I’ve experienced a personal satisfaction that I’ve survived against all sorts of odds that would have taken many of my friends and acquaintances down to the ground.

There’s so much I could say about how society fails to embrace families of children with serious health issues.  Negative societal attitudes with regards to disabilities is almost as crippling as the financial devastation that results from dealing with disabilities.  The people diagnosed with disabilities aren’t the problem; the way society treats people diagnosed with disabilities and their caregivers is the problem. 

The next time you have a chance to see the parent of a child diagnosed with disabilities, especially an autism spectrum disorder or an autism spectrum disorder alongside one or more other conditions, ask yourself why you haven’t stepped up to the plate as much as you could have.  Instead of making excuses for not contacting parents of such children, pick up the phone or send an email.  Ask if they’re available to work on contract basis so both you and those parents can benefit from the wealth of knowledge and resourcefulness that is part of who they are and part of their lives.

And if you know they are worthy of recognition for what they do, then start recognizing them.  It doesn’t have to be a trophy or a nomination.  Something as simple as accessing their expertise and paying them a decent contract wage for that expertise could surprise the daylights out of you.

Or, if it’s easier for you, you could just find lighter fare on Facebook or WordPress or Twitter with a simple click of your computer mouse.

Eight Weeks Later

Today is an unusually warm day in most states and provinces according to people flooding social media networks with messages and weather reports.   Since this is officially the last day of winter, I thought it would be nice to take one last look at the winter we’ve just experienced.

One reporter shared that historic temperatures were being seen in 75% of the U.S.  Why, even north of the border, Toronto has broken its previous weather record for the last day of winter with a balmy 19.9 degrees Celsius, or 68 degrees Fahrenheit for readers living below the 49th parallel.  

The coldest March 19 on record for Toronto was back in 1939 when the city suffered through minus 20 degrees Celsius (which is minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit).   Those are the temperatures that people who aren’t familiar with Canada expect to read about when considering if they should pack up the winter gear and head up north for a ski trip.  And the truth of the matter is, it’s not uncommon for snow to be on the ground as late as the end of April in many parts of Canada.  In fact, there have been blizzards at the end of April in Alberta that were so bad, they shut down highways and there have been blizzards in southern Saskatchewan just as the much anticipated first day of May was about to hit. 

Now this isn’t to say that parts of the U.S. haven’t had their own epic snow storms late in the year.  In fact, Minnesota has had some memorable snow storms worth noting.  And, of course, there was the Superstorm of 1993 on March 12 and 13 of that year that tracked from the western Gulf of Mexico to the Florida Panhandle and up the eastern seaboard to Massachusetts.

Maybe that’s why I find today’s warm temperatures in Canada and the U.S. worth noticing.

I haven’t any idea whether we’re in for a scorchingly hot summer or if we’ll be dogged by mediocre temperatures from June through October.  What I do know is that today being the last day of winter, it’s far cry from this photo I snapped seven weeks ago headed into Toronto.

Yes, it was a mild winter this winter in terms of the amount of snow that fell and temperatures, but winter is winter and there’s no way anyone can describe how cold winter is with words that don’t impart that lack of warmth.

So today, let’s bid winter adieu until he comes back three seasons from now, and let’s celebrate the fact that spring is upon us again.  Throw open your windows and let the spring air in, and remember this day well in days to come no matter what the weather might be then.

Cartier and Celebrity Apprentice

The other evening, as I watched Celebrity Apprentice, I was reminded that while reality TV has its place in programming, the quality of commercials has declined over the years.  The creativity that was a hallmark of many commercials in TV’s early days seems to have fallen away and advertisers have taken to catering to the short attention span viewer with a reasonable amount disposable income at their fingertips.

I usually mute the television when commercials are shown between show segments but this past Sunday evening, one commercial grabbed my attention before I could mute it.  I suppose it was partly because I caught sight of a sparkly leopard that shimmered in the light against a dark backdrop.  It was artistic and that’s why I stopped a second to see where this commercial was headed.

I was half-heartedly expecting the commercial to come to an abrupt end after 30 seconds since this appears to be the standard these days when it isn’t a 15 second abbreviated version of the 30 second commercial.  I was enchanted by the story the commercial told … a commercial that didn’t appear to have any spoken or written words describing what was on the screen.  The music was a lush orchestration by Pierre Adenot and it was as breath-taking as the images before me.

The director, Bruno Aveillan, had crafted one of the most amazing commercials I had seen in decades and in the end, after 3 1/2 minutes, the story came to an end.  This was more than marketing and more than advertising.  This was storytelling that one hopes to find at the movies.

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of watching this commercial, take the time to click on the video below.  Sit back and allow yourself the luxury of experiencing what passion is all about.

A Hundred Years Ago

There are times when looking back a hundred years just for curiosity’s sake uncovers some of the most interesting and intriguing trivia.  That’s how it was that I came across three important things about music that have roots in the year 1912.

The first was that Woody Guthrie, who was born in 1912, was named by his parents after then-President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson.  In fact, his given name was Woodrow Wilson Guthrie.  For those of my readers who are too young to remember any of the songs Woody Guthrie wrote, I’d like to say that if you’ve ever sung “This Land Is Your Land” at school, then you’ve sung a Woody Guthrie original.  What most people don’t know about Woody Guthrie is that with his recordings of the early 1940s he always included his own “Copyright Warning” as he called it and his “Copyright Warning” was this:

This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin’ it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern.  Publish it.  Write it.  Sing it.  Swing to it.  Yodel it.  We wrote it; that’s all we wanted to do.

Back in 1912, a jazz and blues music icon was born and his name was Sam John “Lightning” Hopkins.  At the age of 8, he met Blind Lemon Jefferson at a church picnic in Buffalo, Texas and was convinced that his future lay in being a musician.  What most people remember most about his music is that his songs were filled with humourous double entendres and you could always count on hearing introductions that made you laugh long before the song started, even if he did have a sour take on life and love.  It’s easy to see in such songs as “Fast Life Woman” where he sang:

You may see a fast life woman sittin’ round a whiskey joint,
Yes, you know, she’ll be sittin’ there smilin’,
‘Cause she knows some man gonna buy her half a pint,
Take it easy, fast life woman, ’cause you ain’t gon’ live always …

And then there was John Milton Cage Jr. who critics consider to be one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century,  also born in 1912.   He’s best known for his controversial 1952 composition 4′33″.  It’s a singularly odd piece in three movements, all of which are performed without a single note ever being played.   How can this be considered a piece of music?  The composer intended for the sounds heard within that silence to be the piece as opposed to the four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence that most thought the piece was about.  It was, without a doubt, the piece of music that most irritated and delighted audiences insofar as many thought of it as a cop-out while others thought of it as pure genius.

And so, here we are a hundred years after these three musicians were born and each of them is known for something that is uniquely theirs alone.  One has to wonder who is being born this year that will have an impact on society a hundred years from now.  Wouldn’t it be interesting to speculate in years to come as to who those three may be?

American Pickers Sing

Antiques and memorabilia have always been of interest to most people, whether they buy them or visit museums to look at them.  For many people, the House On The Rock in Wisconsin has to be about the most famous American Picker-style museum imaginable.

For almost a decade now, North Americans have been enamoured with reality television and so when I first learned that someone had somehow managed to make a reality show from dumpster diving and barn sailing, I didn’t rush to see how that worked.  I have to say that if it hadn’t been for Thomas suggesting I watch the commercial for this season’s segments, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with the show.  But sometimes advertising and marketing can entice even the most reluctant audience to tune in and this was the case with the ad for American Pickers.

Now maybe it’s because I remember David Naughton being the face on all those Dr. Pepper commercials in the late 70s and into the early 80s, and maybe it’s because I enjoy seeing someone do a great parody of a well-loved and familiar point in time, but regardless of the reason, when Thomas shared the American Picker commercial with me, I was impressed with the attention to detail that had gone into parodying David Naughton.  In some small measure, you could say that Mike Wolfe vaguely resembles David Naughton of days gone by.

For a parody to work well, it has to share many of the same elements as the original it parodies and so I thought I’d dig up the original that’s closest to the American Pickers commercial.  I watched more than a few versions before settling on this one to share with readers.  Listen to the lyrics to see what I mean.

And now let’s watch the American Pickers commercial.

When all is said and done, whoever created this parody knew what he was doing and he knew the market he was hoping to capture.  How do I know that?  Because after watching the commercial, I was intrigued by who these two guys were and although I’d be hard pressed to say that I’m a regular audience member, I can say that whenever I have the time to catch an episode of American Pickers, I’m there.

Maybe it’s time for you to find out if you’re an American Picker fan.  At the very least, you might find out you’re an American Picker commercial fan.  Ad truth be told, I’m looking forward to see what they’ll do to promote the show next season.  Maybe they’ll consider doing something somewhat reminiscent of those Mr. Popeil or K-Tel Records commercials from the mid-70s.  That would be interesting.