I don’t have “25 things” to say

Last week, I experienced a writer’s equivalent of an ill child, on the verge of death with a rare, unidentified illness that only certain specialists can even identify, let alone treat.

That’s right. My laptop went into a coma. As I sat in the waiting area at the Apple Store’s Genius Bar, I nervously watched as my fellow Mac owners furrowed their bows over disastrous water spills and data loss. One woman sat and bawled uncontrollably as she explained that her final project – the one on the laptop, the laptop that was soon to enter intensive care – was due tomorrow, yes, tomorrow.

“Isn’t there anything you can do?!” she pleaded. “Please, please, just promise me that everything will be OK, doctor, I mean, Mac Store Jesus, er, Genius Man.” Her boyfriend stood at her side, delicately caressing her back and consoling her with reassuring comments: “It’ll all be OK … I’m sure it’s nothing … Did they already try..? Oh, well how about…? You can use mine if you… Yes, I know it’s a Dell but it’s… fine, you’re right, we shouldn’t fight here, now.”

And then, my name was called, and I met my own Personal Genius: Mark. He reassured me that everything would be OK. He was sure it was nothing. After trying to replace the battery and another cheap part, I received a call a few days later: It was much more serious than it originally seemed. Macy – yes, I’ve named my Macbook – needed to go on a little vacation.

A week later, I was back at the Apple Store to pick up my estranged child, and Macy is in better shape than ever before. And my data was untouched. A miracle if I’d ever seen one. I immediately built a new playlist for my iPod (named Pippi) and then embraced my inner narcissist by shooting a new Photo Booth series.

As I’ve returned to the interwebs at a more regular rate in this past week, I’ve faced the onslaught of the latest Facebook chain mail: The 25 things. According to a recent Time editorial, 5 million incarnations of this phenomenon have appeared over the course of the past week – 125 million “facts” for us to devour. As interesting as many of the facts have been, and as honored as I feel that my friends would want to share such dark and sometimes embarrassing facts with me, the whole thing has made me wonder. In this day and age, where our every move, every thought are recorded on a “newsfeed,” where and when will we draw the line?

As I log onto my Facebook page, the first thing I see are my latest three status updates from “friends” – in this case: A friend of an estranged friend whom I haven’t seen in five years, a friend from my high school loner-on-the-net days whom I’ve met in person exactly once and someone from Madison whom I downed Jaegerbombs with on one cold winter evening shortly after I attained my legal drinking age.

Oh, that one woman from that one class was tagged in a photo by someone I don’t know.

This guy is friends with this other guy.

Another twice-removed friend wrote a note. Miley Cyrus is on her way to the courtroom, apparently.

Someone else is no longer in a relationship. <Insert broken heart emblem here>

Why must we broadcast our every hurt, hope and desire for the entire world to see? Every time we log on, we subject ourselves to everything – a face we miss but can’t speak to, a “status” that used to be spoken aloud rather than read online, a party invitation that shows maybe someone has moved on more quickly than you could have ever expected. Maybe more than you ever will. <Insert stomach-sinking feeling sound effect here>

Sure, you’re probably thinking that this article is hypocritical. Isn’t blogging pretty much the same thing? Writing down thoughts that are shared with whomever happens to Google the exact phrase or stumble haphazardly across the exact link to sail their ship this direction. And you know, you’re right. I’m not above the machine we’ve created – I was just saying, is all.

From vampires to scientologists, a weekend in the city

Temperatures in the windy city have begun to plunge, transforming what was formerly a leisurely fifteen minute walk to the train from my apartment into a brutally chilly venture. Although the weather makes it tempting to stay indoors, there’s simply been too many exciting things going on around the city to miss out on. I trudge forth into the winter “wonderland.”

Friday night, original plans fell through and my boo and I decided to go and see what all this Twilight fuss was about. Much like the respective Jonas Brothers-Miley Cyrus-owning a cell phone before high school crazes of teens and tweens in the past year, I had apparently missed the boat on why the Stephenie Meyer novel was on the “hot list” of every girl and sexually-confused boy between the ages of 11 and 16. With our sudden lacking of plans and mutual fandom of vampire cinema taken into account, we decided to brave the crowds and shell out the dough to check out Hollywood’s latest box office sales savior.

Unparalleled, vacant emotion races across the screen.

We definitely underestimated the militancy of the crowd, even at the latest Friday night showing, which was predominately a non-teen demographic. Ten minutes before the show and we were left scrambling for far-left, second-row seats — only to avoid front-row seats. My neck and upper back have still not forgiven me for that lapse of judgment on the seating situation.

And, unfortunately, neither have my eyes and ears. Yes, the film was entertaining — the score, by Carter Burwell, was quite good and the eye candy was pleasing, for two of its strongest points. A vampire love story told competently from innocent beginning to dramatic end. That said, the storyline was somewhat tedious and one-dimensional, owing to the pedestrian acting, save from the odd, jarring special effects that took the visual experience of the film from average to ridiculously hokey in a matter of seconds.

It also didn’t aide my experience when I later learned that Meyer is a devout Mormon, planning to donate 10 percent of her earnings from the film to the Church of Latter Day Saints, one of the leading contributing organizations to the effort to pass Proposition 8 in California. This, compounded by the fact that one of the nation’s largest theater chains — Cinemark/Century Theatres — is owned by CEO Alan Stock, a man who donated $9999 to support Proposition 8’s passage equals lots of angsty vampire-fueled dollars for the Religious Right. What will they think of next? A teenage zombie love drama? (I hope so!)

But it wasn’t all bad. The raspberry martini at the attached bar/bowling alley wasn’t too shabby — I think it was called a 7-10 Split. So deliciously clever. And the film’s director Catherine Hardwicke’s breaking the record of highest opening weekend at the box office ($70.6 million) for a female director deserves some props.

Saturday evening was spent learning more about soul-suckers of another kind: Scientologists. After a day spent window-shopping in Lakeview, I wandered to A Red Orchid Theatre in Old Town to catch a performance of the Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant. The hour-long musical was very amusing, with the troupe of kiddies satirically telling the story of L. Ron Hubbard, dianetics, the E-meter and auditing through the ages. The staging and production values were extremely low-budget, which added to the allure of the message in the intimate space.

The show was first presented in New York in 2003, resulting in the threat of a lawsuit from the Church of Scientology, unless the word “unauthorized” was added to the title. Probably a good idea for the writers — the scientologists have some financial muscle behind them, to the tune of an estimated $500 million+ annual revenue.

Scientology has been in the news this week as Germany’s attempt to ban the cult, er religion, from practicing, on the grounds of its coercion of vulnerable people into financial ruin and personal harm, was dropped. In addition, just yesterday, Mario Majorski, an ex-Sociologist entered a celebrity centre in Los Angeles holding samurai swords and was shot to death by security guards. The man had previously demanded the church pay him $50,000 for “ruining his life.”

How could a loving religion be so life-ruining? What could inspire such seemingly unprovoked rage? As I started to do my homework, I had an answer that made it make a little bit more sense:

[Homosexuals] should be taken from the society as rapidly as possible and uniformly institutionalized; for here is the level of the contagion of immorality, and the destruction of ethics… No social order will survive which does not remove these people from its midst.

That’s L. Ron Hubbard, himself, explaining his views on homosexuality. And I’m sure this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Church of Scientology’s brilliance. Any readers have any other favorite nuggets of truth from Mr. Hubbard?