Oldsters

They talk on the phone, turn on the television for news and poke at touch screens.

We went to SUCH a good restaurant yesterday!

I found Wilma & Frieda's Cafe on Yelp.

Save me the criticism. That's the new America, backlash. That's how people establish their identity, by criticizing success and going against norms, especially the supposedly smart and educated. Kind of like this measles thing. You didn't vaccinate your kid because Jenny McCarthy shook her booty on MTV and told you shots made her kid autistic? Do you get your financial advice from a prostitute? Do you quiz your caddie about quantum mechanics? Then why would you believe nonsense that has no basis in facts? Oh, that's right. Get sick today and these same people tell you to take zinc and all kinds of over the counter remedies because western medicine is a criminal syndicate out to kill you.

Hogwash.

Yes, Yelp is based on advertising. Yes, some of the reviews are bogus. But the truth is Yelp adds some coherence to chaos. Something we sorely need in the music business. Just imagine if we rated the best records. Imagine the bitching! But the truth is we'd have a list that those who don't live for tunes could check out. But it doesn't scale, so no one is doing it. Or techies inundate us with top lists everywhere, adding to the confusion. Ever notice there's one Google and one Amazon? Can't there be one site that rates all the records? If I have to go iTunes, Spotify and Amazon I'm overwhelmed, I'm out.

But I was in at Wilma & Frieda's. I once had a girlfriend who always wanted to go to the same restaurants. I turned her on to El Cholo and Moonshadows and we couldn't go anywhere else. They were great, but I yearn for the new experience. Which means you can have a bummer, but you can win too, like at Wilma & Frieda's, which rates oh-so-high on Yelp.

It's one of those breakfast/brunch places. You know, the kind that opens at the crack of dawn and closes in the afternoon, and we went for brunch and I had a short rib melt that was so savory, the memory still haunts me. That's right, we're searching for excellence in food, McDonald's is tanking, we want the unique, but in music it's all me-too. Oh, save me your music. Just because you made it that doesn't mean it's any good. Are you gonna open a restaurant in your residence, do you think you can compete? Then why do you think you can compete in music?

Oh, I hear you, you hate the negativity. Wake up! Life is hard and in America if you stop climbing, you're falling. Either find something only you can do or resign yourself to being one of the teeming masses abused by the system angry at those who've broken through. Sorry for the truth, but it bugs me that people equate passion with success. Passion helps, but it's not the only element.

And then we went to the Holocaust Memorial. That's right, in Palm Desert, whodathunk? But my mother, who can barely walk, is a culture vulture, she knows all the sites, she insisted we go. And damn if it wasn't intriguing. Very moving. And then I tried to watch that Holocaust documentary on HBO and even I got queased-out and had to turn it off. When they're throwing the limp bodies over their shoulders...maybe everybody should be forced to watch this, to help eradicate man's inhumanity to man.

And I also watched "Togetherness" and "Girls" on HBO GO on my iPad. I'm warming up to Lena Dunham, way past the fact. Her internment in Iowa at the writer's conference creeps me out, all the holier-than-thou people putting each other down, reminds me of Middlebury, where they insist they're better than you, even though they're the ones who are gonna cast aside their dreams when they graduate. Posers posture. Winners do the work.

And I'm planning to return to the big city today, but I can't get over the little things my 88 year old mother does different than me.

Like turn on the TV. It's supposed to snow in NYC so...

Who turns on the TV? If I want the news that's the last place I'd go.

And then she's telling me what the weather lady said. Huh? There's an app for that. And the app said it was gonna be 68, even though my mother insisted it was gonna be 72, like the TV said.

The app was right.

That's the difference between oldsters and youngsters, the latter go to the internet.

Like my mother trying to transfer her "New York Times" subscription back to Connecticut. This is better done online. The internet makes no mistakes, there are no humans involved. Get on the phone...

They couldn't find my mother's account. They told her to call the international delivery number. Since when is Palm Desert another country? Then again, most people can't name their congresspeople.

So I got her the right number, after divining that she wasn't registered online. She was so frustrated.

It's amazing to see her poke her finger at the iPhone. They call it a TOUCH screen, but so many people do this, makes me laugh. As if the phone is full of buttons as opposed to sensors, as if they're riding an elevator as opposed to using a haptic screen.

You know them. They take their index finger and jab. And no matter how much I tell my mother to softly touch, she still does this.

And she uses her phone a lot. She's calling her buddies all day long. Whereas I can leave home and return to no messages. I never talk on the phone. Texting suffices.

As it does for the youngsters.

We're in the midst of a media sea change the oldsters cannot fathom, the baby boomers in power can't either. If it's not available instantly, on demand, we'll steal it or ignore it. My mother's friend bitched about what the "Times" was putting on the front page...I told her most people never see it, they just go online, to the homepage. Huh?

That's right, Cablevision introduces a wi-fi phone and there are some who still think cable television is forever.

But the truth is, if you're not busy reinventing yourself and your habits, you're being left behind.

And something is lost in the transition to the new world. Stuff like record stores, but do we really need phone books?

No.

Live long enough and you get left behind.

Either accept it or catch up.

http://www.wilmafrieda.com

http://www.palm-desert.org/arts-culture/public-art/art-details?id=42


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