Month: February 2012

Nielsen Looks at Baby Boomers

We certainly continue to be perhaps the most influential generation of all time. I’d like to think the reason for this is more than just a sheer numbers. Indeed — think about this — we shall forever be the ONLY generation that bridge the era of black and white televisions and telephones without dials with today’s world of exploding technology in every sector of life. It’s mind boggling, and, I think, spiritually significant.

On a less esoteric note, I came across some information from Nielsen studies about our generation that you might find interesting. We:

  • Dominate 1,023 out of 1,083 consumer packaged goods categories
  • Watch the most video: 9:34 hours per day
  • Comprise 1/3 of all TV viewers, online users, social media users and Twitter users
  • Time shift TV more than 18-24s (2:32 vs. 1:32)
  • Are significantly more likely to own a DVD player
  • More likely to have broadband Internet access at home

I’m Mad As Hell and …

Have you seen the movie? Know the line? …”And I’m not going to take it anymore!!”

It’s too bad the Occupiers, as my significant other affectionately calls them, couldn’t get it more together with their plans to take back our economy and get the oh-so-evil- banks.

It’s not only the banks, though. It’s the media, the educational system, the government, corporate America, and all large enterprises that are in it for the G-word (guess what, it’s not God).

GREED.

Fact:The gas price in my city has risen 25 cents in a month and a half!

Fact: Our local media touts the fact that we have now gained all the jobs we lost during the recession. What they don’t say is that most of these jobs are of the minimum wage variety.

Fact:The government announces monthly unemployment claim figures, which have been decreasing. What they don’t say is that so many people, especially those in the Baby Boom sector, have given up that they don’t bother to apply anymore.

Fact: Yes, I’m working. No, my salary is not going up. Yes, my salary has decreased by 30% because of budget cutbacks in the New York State educational system.

Fact: The still critical state of the economy has fallen off the media edge and into the abyss.

Out here in the trenches we’re doing our level-headed best to deal with a difficult situation. We’re constantly re-assessing, re-arranging, and re-assorting, and living a life that becomes simpler daily. Simple is good. This I don’t object to. But for God’s sake, (ours too), can we ever deal in truths and reality in this ever-dimming society? Will we always be trapped by complicated bureaucracies where so many give up before getting what they need? Can large companies always reap obscene profits at the expense of us simple folk?

Give up, who me?

What did you say the name of that lake was? Walden? And there’s a cute little cabin for rent?

I’ll be packed in five….

The Tunnel Man

Did you ever watch that TV show, Beauty and the Beast with Ron Pearlman and Linda Hamilton? Ahh, I am aging myself. It was one of my favorite shows back in the late 1980s, and I loved it for many reasons. I loved it for the purity of the romance between the two main characters. I loved it for the excitement of each weekly adventure. And I loved it, perhaps most of all, for the magical, under-world kingdom of the Beast in the bowels of the New York City subway system.

In some perverted way, I envied the Beast his cozy and seemingly safe home away from the fears and dangers of civilization. I often imagined how I might fashion my own underground refuge, how I would live and feel safe – something I rarely experienced in my above-ground life.
Today I can across this article about one of the last true tunnel dwellers, a man named Anthony Horton who died, consumed by flames, with his body found burned, deep, deep, deep in the tunnel, in an old crew room in the F-train tunnel at 63rd and Lexington.

He was a gentle man, so they said about him. He discussed art, and he drew, and he even collaborated on a book with a woman he met on the subway one day. He liked his underground life, even preferring it to the “normal” life above ground he tried once. He talked about his dog a lot, he loved his dog, and I can just imagine the two of them together down there, cozied up all warm together while storms – real and symbolic – raged above. But they took his dog away one day, and just thinking of it now makes me cry.

Said one who knew him: “He was kind. He was not bothering nobody.”

And yet, they took his dog away.

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