The Worldwide Culture Gonzo Squad, Inc.

There’s something I sometimes forget about my tech-friendly, comic-book-reading, dark-humored friends. They’re introverts. Sometimes I even forget that I’m an introvert. We all get along so easily that, when introducing one set of friends to another, I often wonder why everyone is being so quiet instead of the outrageously funny charmers I know them all to be. So here’s the thing. It takes a lot of energy to be social. It takes time, understanding, the following of many unwritten rules both universal and cultural. When talking to someone, if it’s expected in your culture that you look at them, you don’t actually look *at* their eyes, you look slightly through them. It’s like you’re looking at their brain. No, really. Try actually focusing on someone’s eyes sometime and they will become very uncomfortable. It’s like the cat that stares at you while you sleep. You’re not quite sure if they’re looking at you lovingly or waiting for you to die so they can eat your face. The point of all this is that we expend a lot of energy on connecting with each other. Energy we could be spending otherwise on great academic pursuits or building that time machine or doing some other great work of genius. But we don’t. We need each other.

Which is part of why communication technology and online communities are so amazing. You get asynchronous communication, but it’s also acceptable to wait a few days to respond to something. It’s in the medium you’re best at - I can dictate this article and then have it transcribed. You can read it, or have it read to you. We’re even delving into gestural interfaces. The technology is still a medium though, something that has to be processed and directed and managed, instead of a transparent layer between you and me. But it’s getting there. Someday very soon I will be able to vocalize that I want to contact Person X with Y message, and however they want to receive it will be how it gets to them. When they reply to me it will come in as short-form text, despite my preference for vocalizing outbound messages. Then there’s the simple matter of boundaries of when the people from this list can contact you, when messages from this other list get through, etc. The effort of adjusting to talk to someone from out of current context disappears. You’re capable of communicating with a lot less effort than ever before. This potentially changes us in a number of ways. I’m going to focus on two aspects in brief: emergence and communication skills.

Emergence is a really neat thing. It’s how individually stupid ants (or people) are able to accomplish really amazing things. And with ants, as it could also be argued with humans, there’s no *one* entity in charge. We used to think the queen ant (or the queen bee) was the mastermind of the entire operation. Now we know that they really just make the babies. There’s a really cool RadioLab episode on emergence, if you want to know more about it. Basically, the end point is that if we can communicate more clearly and quickly, we can accomplish even greater things. It’s more and more difficult to disrupt a larger system, and what is made once can be made again because the process is based in group consciousness instead of individually hoarded knowledge.

The not so neat part is that if we don’t have to learn to deal with people who are difficult, we all become a little lesser for it. Finding a way to communicate with someone who has difficulty understanding makes you a better communicator and gives them a better mind-net to which they can attach future knowledge. Toughing through it counts. Then again, if we overcome this, there will always be new obstacles to figure out. But for those who are difficult to communicate with no matter what the medium, the gap between them and everyone else will widen. And a group is only as strong as its weakest member. Those more concerned with altruism and kindness might say we need to look out for everyone. I am most concerned with efficiency and survivial, which oddly enough often coincides with looking out for the weak as well.

This ties into the big arguement about how online communication is negatively impacting the way individuals interact when meeting in meatspace, which is that we lose nonverbal communication. It seems that any concern voiced over online interaction is linked to this. So what about gestural interfaces? What about when we start assigning actual cross-platform, cross-cultural value to the movement of a hand?

Follow-up questions: will compartmentalizing to this degree affect personality fractioning? Is communication which is easiest with those of similar backgrounds/interests likely to lead to segregation along new lines?

As a staunch horror fan, I’m used to meeting people who have nothing positive to say about the genre. Who just don’t “get it”. Ironically, the same lot typically think of comic books as being juvenile, but that’s a discussion for later. They can’t see the worth of the thing. And, for my part, I begrudge no one this, despite it being an obvious sign on their part, of short-sightedness. But hey, we all beat our own path. However, I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit by and not speak on it’s behalf.

Most would rather encounter nothing in life that would upset their Mayberry status quo. Shiny happy people, holding hands, 24/7. But life rarely obliges. Most of us have memories we try to distract ourselves from, whether we admit it or not. It follows, that most turn away from real life horrors, out of some sense of self-righteous entitlement to calm waters. We fail to recall, at times, that it’s our world too. Even the unsavory bits. 

‘Went out last night to catch the remake of Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left. The trailer for the redux piqued yee olde interest. Thought I’d give it a go. I didn’t care for the original, as I’d always viewed it as rape porn, with no redeeming value. That and it tapped into experiences from my own childhood, I’d spent years forcibly trying to forget. Monsters on my back. Things I’d myself, pretended away. Pain in my stomach. Reaching for something soothing, out of fear. Black breath in my ear. As happens, those demons weren’t content to simply sleep. No matter how much I strove to wipe my memory clean. Childhood sexual abuse doesn’t just go away.

Horror, and all it’s little fissures, capillaries and subgenres, acts as a sort of catharsis for many of us. It’s the one genre (Allowances for Drama, but c’mon, when a drama crosses that line…it’s in horror territory, and *you know it*. Schindler’s List and Silence of the Lambs, I’m looking at you.) that allows us to dig deep, down down down to places we fear within ourselves and the underbelly of the world, and come out the other side, alive. Perhaps even kicking. More often than not, better off than when we went in. 

I get my popcorn, my drink and settle in the dark with the as-per-usual, obnoxious crowd. 20 minutes of commercials pass, few mildly exciting previews and I’m floating, drunkenly, through trees. I’m with a family. Retreating from the stress and toil of the world, to a holiday spot. Tranquility, dotted with the requisite loss and pain we all live with. But still, calm and serene. A twist, a turn and I’m face down in the muck, my clothes torn away, a beast pressed upon me, primordial gut-clearing distress punishing me…dirt in my mouth…blood under my nails…tears and cries aiding me not. No one’s coming to help me. Happy thoughts are blotted out and replaced by the feeling only the hunted can know. Through tears, I realize my fellow theatre patrons are all quiet. I doubt they knew what to expect, when they purchased their tickets. I doubt they had the slightest inkling what to do, aside from suffer quietly, along with everyone else. Here, where they’d doubtless come to expect sugary sweet excrement, ready for thoughtless consumption, they were being pushed to face facts. More, they were being made complicit. Welcome to the real world.

Some mistakenly call this glorification of the obscene. I call bullshit. It is through examining the monstrous tendencies of humankind, via such media, that I was eventually able to cope with my own victimization. Last House on the Left. I Spit on Your Grave. Jack Ketchum’s Girl Next Door. These are hard films to watch, without question. But they gave me the insight necessary to move beyond a mere pitiful victim, to a survivor not willing to lay down and play prey any longer. Horror movies gave me strength. More than any shrink ever even attempted. More than any bit of poetry was able. More than the most beautiful music ever came close to.

The world will punish us. Simple truth. But that doesn’t mean we have to just take it. We armor ourselves with knowledge. Especially of the sinister, cruel and hideous. Hiding from it acts only to tighten the noose. We owe it to ourselves to know. “There can be no light, without darkness” sounds so hilariously cliched, but it’s the goddamned truth.

That’s why I’ll defend my red-headed step-child of a genre to the end of my days.

Canadian film maker Rob Spence is getting a cyborg camera eye. He’ll use this to secretly record people for a movie about the upcoming surveillance society.

Looking at a cell phone camera, he realized that a camcorder could now fit into an empty eye socket. And since he had just had his eye removed — related to a childhood shooting accident— he figured he might as well use the space.

Engineers such as Steve Mann from MIT helped design the eye, which uses a camera originally deigned for colonscopies and was provided by OmniVision Inc. The device resembles Mr. Spence’s organic eye. Mr Spence says:

“The closer I get to putting this camera eye in, the more freaked out people are about me … People aren’t sure they want to hang around someone who might be filming them at any time.”

And that’s what I find interesting.

We’re filmed by machines every time we leave the house, are photographed at parties, tagged and disseminated all over the internet. Yet the idea of someone we know filming us without our knowledge still causes dread.

I doubt most of us are afraid of being caught doing something we shouldn’t. Rather, we’re afraid of looking strange to ourselves. Of seeing ourselves how others see us, before we pose and project our ideal self forth. This is the terror of the real.

But it’s not real. Films are edited.

We’re just seeing ourselves through someone else’s eyes and these have no higher claim to truth than ours. Like Marcus Aurelius, “I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.”

Like our own thoughts about ourselves, edited film can build a powerful lie. It can can turn our actual appearance against us or use our own words to make us look foolish. It turns one’s self against one. Looking at the screen, we are no longer what we think of us but what they think of us. And no one wants to be that.

The camera, like no other tool, uses lies to inspire the terror of the real. But, even without the implant Mr. Reese has, even without ever having to meet and be filmed by him, we already live with the dread he inspires and we have already become Eyeborgs.

We blog, twitter and upload photos to social sites. Anything a friend might or do might appear on the internet. Our third eye is an electronic surveillance device — quotes, images and opinions uploaded into memory then released to the public.

This is a power that writers, journalists and artists have always possesed. You turn the people around you into fiction, report on secrets and/or paint them how you see them. This power is now in the hands of everyone. And many of them are paying the price that writers, journalists and artists have always paid. A lack of trust, social ostracism and paranoia.

Like them, we also lose the ability to honestly view the world. Things are no longer what they are. Everything becomes a tool or a material in the building of a simulated world. Pretty soon we see everything through that little electric eye. No longer able to directly experience life, we instead look through the filter of: Can I blog this? Will this photo look good on Facebook? Is that comment Twitter material? Unreal and only half experienced, our lives become movies.

I, Eyeborg.

Everyone around us is also peering through that little eye. The spectacle becomes all pervasive. We have two cameras, filming each other’s lies, looping into nothingness. An electric spectacle that watches itself watching itself until there’s no signal, just noise. In that noise, we hear our paranoia.

We are Eyeborg. Resistance is Futile.

At any moment, we may be discovered as frauds. We may lose control of our own image and be confronted with an opposing and convincing reality; one that exposes us as the half-human, golem clones we’ve become. Our safety is only maintained by knowing that the people who know our fakery are also fake. Everyone has dirt on us and we have dirt on everyone.

Cold comfort in a cold war of mutually assured destruction; a constant threat against simulated identity against simulated identity; waged with espionage as we spy on and disinform each other; in Facebook proxy wars fought with explosive tags hitting unintended targets. Always blowing the god-damn, endless horns of personal propaganda. To no end at all.

This is not the first time humanity has found itself in such a state nor will it be the last. The first such occasion was probably the advent of language and the last was probably the printed press. The Internet is just the most recent and, perhaps, the most democratic.

So there are rules to these things. They’re hard to establish not because the technology moves faster than human social norms can appear. We start to understand how to behave on email then we’re blogging. We establish some rules for blogs, wind up on MySpace and find it overthrown by Facebook. We start to understand that and we’re already on to Twitter. And so forth and so on, faster and faster.

But here are three simple rules that have sensibly governed Eyeborgs for years and will, if correctly applied, sensibly govern us. Things that will reduce the paranoia, increase the confidence and allow us to be real people.  At least, some of the time.

Off the Record: Even reporters understand that some things are off the record. Though the trusted zone will vary from person to person, each Eyeborg needs one. I would suggest that email is always off the record. If people want to speak openly with you, they have options. FB Walls, Twitter, etc.

But, when meeting someone in private or public, we should assume that they are much like Mr. Reese and we are being recorded. Therefore the responsibility is on the person being recorded to say: “I’m off the record.” The recording Eyeborg should always comply.

The exception to this is when the person is engaged in a professional relationship with you that’s non-cultural, not part of a publicly funded office and has a reasonable expectation of privacy. They are not actors and there is no stage. Consent cannot be decently assumed here.

You have not paid them for their appearance. I want to film some stuff at my tailor’s shop. You can be damn certain I asked for permission first.

“Foodies” should all be shot.

Change the Names to Protect the Guilty, the Innocent and Yourself: This tactic has been employed by fiction writers since there’s been fiction writers.  Should you blog about personal matters, write under a false name and change the names of the people you write about.

Writing about your life and friends is not reporting. It never has been. It’s fiction and there’s nothing wrong with that. Figure out how to lie and how to use lies to get you closer to the truth. That’s the art of it. Trying to avoid hurting or exposing real people is the manners.

Good writers never really have good manners. You have to make a choice and, once you do, no bitching is allowed. Fulfil your office.

But remember this: Good fiction always points to ecstatic or fundamental truth. Bad fiction revels in petty truth. Know the difference. Facts can be employed by dishonesty just as lies can be employed by honesty. A malicious truth is worse than a malicious lie and neither are of any use to the honest writer. Neither is senseless self-aggrandizement. The office is more important than your ego.

And Mommy bloggers, who use their real names and the real name of their children, should all be shot.

Don’t Believe Your Own Propaganda: It’s fine to propagandise yourself and to become a fictional online character. When done properly, it might make you a better person in reality, while making for entertaining reading in irreality.

This is the art of persona and it’s completely legitimate. Play the hero, play the villain or play yourself, but never forget you’re only playing. Never believe your own bullshit. Believing your own bullshit is the first step to believing other people’s bullshit. Insanity lies that way.

These days, insanity lies every way. At least we have that in common with the past.

So you have a chance to meet a boyhood hero.

One George A. Romero (*A wonderful human being, should you care to know*). Director/Writer/Allaroundfilmicguru. He who gave the world Night of the Living Dead. Dawn of the Dead. Martin. Angry Wives (*AKA Season of the Witch*). Day of the Dead. CREEPSHOW (*My son demanded I tell George this is his favorite movie*). Tales from the Darkside. Land of the Dead. Diary of the Dead. And the soon to hit as-yet-untitled “? of the Dead” (*Yes, that means I saw behind the scenes stuff from the in-production film and you didn’t neenerneenerneener*). Yeah, there are tons o’ geeky ramblings I could insert right here. Force you to read me being giddy and retarded. Or, I could just assume the photo suffices (More here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30491193@N03/sets/72157614402404530/).

Moving on…

You, obviously, take said chance and spend a full 3 days chatting with the man, watching his films, partying with fellow ZOMBIE ENTHUSIASTS and basically creaming yourself to the point of dehydration. A grand time, to be sure. Fun, fun fun. But you don’t expect the messages/commentary of his work to come beating down your door, smacking you near sober (*I said “near”. I am a professional.*). Especially when you think you’re so well-versed, that you’ve nothing new to glean from his library.

George’s (*”Shit. Don’t call me ‘Mister Romero’” said with a waving-off hand and accompanying smile*) films, as I hope most of you know, are full to the brim with roastings of current society. Given his genius, those messages age extremely well. The man’s nothing if not on point regarding what we do and why we do it. More over, he cares. His work, so far as he’s concerned, is there to make us question our motives, actions and the outcome of both. The world we build and those we could.

On the second night of festivities, at a concert/screening, in full zombie face paint (*and no inconsequential amount of libations coursing through the ol’ circulatory system. SEE: Professional*), watching a film by one of the greatest filmmakers ever, realizing I was in a room full of MY PEOPLE, I felt moved to Twitter the happening. Which is no big deal, aside from the epiphany that Diary of the Dead is Romero “looking directly into the narcissitic and boundary free culture that now exists in the world of camera phones, computers and YouTube.” ”a meditation on life and death in the infinitely mediated world of blogs, file-sharing and incessant virtual connection.”***

George got me. Again. There I am, half way through thumbing a Tweet on my phone, and it hits me. I’m watching one of George’s flicks, doing, without being consciously aware, exactly what he’s portraying onscreen. Self-reflection via zombie movies. Pay attention folks. This is important.

“They’re us.”

George knows. He understands. And he’s patient. He coaxes us into finding out for ourselves. He knows he can’t just tell us. He provides us places to go to mull ourselves over. To the ten year old zombie afficionado in me, that means the fucking world.

***From The Light Factory and Reel Soul’s American Zombie event handbook

The weekend is coming up and the phone is ringing off the hook. You don’t want to answer because you already know who it is. It’s Cthulhu and It’s probably wondering why you guys never hang out any more.

Unwilling to offend this ancient horror from the other side, you finally realize that you must find something to do together. But what? Your new friends probably don’t know about your history with the Necronomicon and the last time you took Cthulhu out, It drove three Sushi chefs mad before causing unspeakable terror in the local bistro.

There’s only one reasonable option. You must summon Cthulhu for a quiet dinner at home. But even this is fraught with absolute peril. At home or out on the town, Cthulhu has never been easy to entertain. When Its not driving you crazy by the sheer unmitigated horror of double dipping, Its spilling wine on the carpet. Then, of course, there’s the odor.

You’ll find that dinner may go easier if you simply accept it as a chore and prepare accordingly. Before your old friend even appears, you may want to inform the neighbors that you’ll be entertaining unspeakable evil on Saturday evening. Though they may frown, they’ll be grateful for the heads up.

Tell your friends a little white lie. Let them know that you’ll be out of town for the weekend but, if they don’t hear from you by Monday, they should likely prepare for the end of the world. This lie is excusable because it will save them any embarrassment while imbuing your person with mystery.

Another concern is the furniture. In college, it might have been perfectly acceptable to sit on the floor with Cthulhu, smoking your bong and listening to death metal. And while Cthulhu may still approve of this sort of thing, you’ve grown up.

It’s important that you set boundaries.  Let Cthulhu know that this isn’t your old frat house but your home and, in your home, all guests sit on chairs. Luckily some modern designers have produced chairs that will support the unfathomable geometry that drives men mad just to gaze upon it.

(I suggest the Valencia 11 Leather Chaise Lounge. Not only will Cthulhu find this comfortable, it will also be easy to wipe any goo from the high-quality material.)

Now remains the question of what to serve. Seafood is an easy but cliched option that might enrage the ancient beast. (Remember those sushi chefs!) Human hearts are dreadfully difficult to obtain in today’s economy and the police tend to frown upon eating even the low quality, though well marinated, meat that can be found in your local hobo population. Though it is said that pig tastes much like human, you’d be quite foolish to assume your guest could not tell the difference.  It is, after all, Cthulu.

A selection of rare steak and a live goat should be prepared. For the steak, simply pan fry each side for two seconds to seal the blood within. As far as the goat goes, just leave it tied to the dining room table until Cthulhu is prepared to eat. Then use your best ceremonial dagger to slit its throat, draw a pentagram upon your forehead with its blood and offer it to Cthulhu. This always earns a belly laugh.

Do not listen to that laugh. It will certainly send you into the abyss of insanity. As a matter of fact, during your entire meal, you should take great care not to listen to Cthulhu and to avoid looking directly at It. The creature was not designed with the simple niceties in mind. Even a moment’s eye contact –with any of Its eyes— has been known to reduce the stout hearted to screaming blobs of trembling hysteria.

Having finished your meal, you may find Cthulhu difficult to get rid of. You have called up what you cannot put down. Fake yawns, comments about the busy day tomorrow or any subtle clues will be lost upon this ancient horror as It tells yet another story about the Sepultura concert you attended together.

Try to be understanding. For a timeless evil such as Cthulhu, twenty years ago might as well be a blink of an eye. Being immune to change, It will not understand that, these days, you have bills to pay and a boss to answer to. Any mention of this will likely meet with blank incomprehension or dismissive comments, which border upon insulting. He may tell you that: “You used to be cool.”

The only way to get rid of Cthulhu is to sacrifice someone else to it. Mention those noisy teenagers down the street and the lack of evil that seems to characterize their lives. Say something like: “Kids today, they just don’t know evil. I hear they practically worship that Justin Timberlake fellow.”

It’s a little known fact that Cthulhu is secretly jealous of Justin Timberlake, for two years even sported a similar hat to the pop idol, and that Its insecurity will encourage the beast to teach those kids a thing or two about real evil. Just tell Cthulhu where they live and relax. It’s their problem now.