Rolling With Change

Monday September 16^th, 2013 – Fox Lake, IL

   The advent of the technology age has made the majority of society nothing more than slaves to the computer. We walk around like zombies, oblivious to the beauty around us as we continually text, email and talk on our cell phones to other people in other places. Life as we knew it is dead.

   I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but it sure is different than anything we’ve ever known. I can’t imagine what my grandparents would say if they came back today for an hour and observed what daily life has become. I wouldn’t even know where to start as far as bringing them up to speed.

   I can picture holding up my cell phone and asking my grandfather to take a wild guess what he thinks it is. I wouldn’t even ask Grandma, because she was out of it when she was alive. She died in 2004 which is not all that long ago, but she had never driven a car or even owned a color TV.

   Grandma was anti technology, and I think it scared her. She did carry a loaded gun in her purse wherever she went, but I guess they had those in the old days so it wasn’t much of a stretch. That technology she was willing to accept, but anything of an electronic nature she wouldn’t go near.

   Gramps was pretty hip, but he died in 1981. What was the hottest hi tech gizmo then, a garage door opener? A solar powered calculator? A digital watch? It’s laughable to think how primitive we all were just a little over thirty years ago and what impressed us then. We were such goobers.

    I remember thinking how cool and cutting edge I was to have a cassette player in my car. Now cassettes are lumped in with all the rest of the outdated forms of technology like 78rpm records, 8 track, Beta and VHS tapes and even CDs. Pretty soon there will be holograms performing live.

   The juggernaut of progress keeps gaining speed, and a lot of people are getting left in the dust. Unfortunately, I’m one of them. I’m now officially the old fart I never thought I’d become. I like a lot of the modern conveniences, but I admit my needs were met years ago. I don’t need a faster cell phone, but they keep making them anyway. And I don’t need it to be a camera or calculator.

    I was fine without a cell phone at all until they told me I needed one. Now I can’t live without one, but it’s nothing more than an electronic leash. The government or anyone else can track me down anywhere I happen to wander on the planet. Is that good or bad? It sure doesn’t thrill me.

   Today I spent several hours shrinking my email backlog from over 200 down to under 10. I’ve been behind on that for I don’t know how long, and I wanted to clear it up so I did. I answered as many as were still relevant, but others had expired as far as expired dates etc. Who can keep up?

   I also read some really insightful articles on a website www.connectedcomedy.com written by an extremely sharp guy named Josh Spector. He’s not a comedian, but writes about what it takes to survive as one in this new reality. The business has changed, and the choices are adapt or die.

   I’m fighting with everything I’ve got not to get left in the skid marks like a lot of funny people I know and like who choose not to move forward. Being just a standup comedian is not how the game works anymore, and how can anyone win any game when they don’t understand the rules?