One More Note on "The Secret"

One of the dramatized stories in "The Secret" tells of a boy who desperately wants a particular bike. Not just a bike - a specific brand. He cuts photographs out of magazines, watches jealously as other kids ride by on the same bike he wants. With the power of positive thinking, and apparently some meditation (he's seen looking at the cut-out advertisement in a park-like setting), the universe realigns. One day the bike he's so greedily been pursuing appears magically at his front door, delivered by a grandfatherly-looking man.

Greedy little boys will be rewarded if they just keep a postive attitude?

The Secret

I recently had the chance to view "The Secret," the DVD that's becoming a marketing phenomenon. It purports to reveal an ancient secret that has, until now, been shared with a select few - the wealthy and successful elite around the world. The video includes instruction and commentary from authors, "visonaries," professional philosophers and metaphysics experts...all presented with an air of mystery and intrigue, including brief re-enactments of ancient heroes rescuing "the secret" from oblivion (though we never actually are told what any of these historical re-enactments represent).

"The Secret," as it turns out, really much of a secret. It simply presents, in an entertaining format, some basic human truths that have been understood for eons - but for which most people lack the focus to follow effectively: "Do Unto Others as you would have them Do Unto You," "What comes around goes around," and so on. The program discusses having the right attitude (i.e. if you are negative, negative things will happen to you).

I've found that most popular self-help books are just creative reworkings of these same basic principles. Each book, or video in this case, packages the same message for varying audiences.

It all comes down to setting goals, focusing on your goals, and maintaining a positive attitude.

It's not a secret. It's a challenge.

Taj Mahal

I was trying to explain to someone today the experience of standing before the Taj Mahal during my visit to India this past summer. The Taj Mahal is such an icon of world history and simulataneously a symbol of a country, a belief, of architecture, of peace...of an almost endless array of interpretions that it almost seems unreal.

Standing there in the vast courtyard, facing the actual structures that comprise the Taj Mahal, after a exhaustive trip throuugh crowded roads, Indian countryside, and a throng of venders descending upon our little American group, it wasn't difficult to feel grateful for the experience. As I walked up to the complex, I placed a hand on the cold marble base upon with the Taj Mahal was built. As beautiful as it looks in the traditional photographs of which we're all familiar, the true beauty lies in the intricate detail - carvings and inlaid designs that are invisible from a distance, but are nevertheless the elements that in in total are the Taj Mahal.

The Me Syndrome

Quite a while back, I wrote here about a series of ads promoting the treatment of something called "Restless Leg Syndrome," or RLS - which also happens to be my initials. Recently, I happened to come across a couple of brochures on the disease, with tips and advice that make me feel just a bit uneasy. Here are a few examples:

"People with RLS describe their symptoms differently. For some it's a creepy-crawly, tugging, pulling, twitching, or itching sensation..."

....not the first time I've heard that.

"Primary RLS is characterized by unpleasant feelings in your legs."

Fine, I'll keep my hands to myself.

"Nearly half of RLS sufferers have a family history of the condtion."

If I make you so miserable, just tell me to leave!

"Only your doctor can diagnose RLS."

I prefer to use my own doctor, thank you.

Search Results Update

Yesterday, I looked at the stats for this page to see what search terms most commonly brought people here.

Currently, the lead search term is "Johnny Gosch," the missing child case from the early 80's that turned up in the news late last summer when photos turned up, purportedly of the boy tied and gagged shortly after the abduction. After several weeks, the photos were vaguely discredited (i.e. no solid evidence) and the story disappeared from the newspapers. I suspect it's turning up again after the Shawn Hornbeck case brought that unsettled case to mind.

Another search term that still turns up on a regular basis is "Wickshire School," the long-closed elementary school I attended in New York. Somebody out there keeps searching for information on that school, and returns to my page. As yet, I haven't seen any comments from fellow classmates...

There's also quite a few searches for "rich boy" or "rich boy's real name," which I am guessing relates to some pop-culture reference I'm not familiar with. Anyone know what it means? [Edit: he's a rap/hip hop artist]

Shawn Hornbeck

Whenever I hear about cases like the Shawn Hornbeck case (that's the boy who was kidnapped four years ago and just recently was returned to his family along with a recently abducted 13 year old), I can't help but wonder about other missing kids like him who are still out there, somewhere, surviving as the world moves on around them, unaware of their situation.

It's almost as if we should have another flag next to those "MIA" flags created to keep alive the memory of soldiers missing in action. Maybe, for missing kids, Shawn Hornbeck is that flag.

MMPG, Part 2

I continue to play the "massive multi-player game" World of Warcraft , which now has over eight million players, wandering through vast worlds of fantastic creatures, heroic quests, magical powers and epic battles. In short, these games are the gaming equivelant of the epic movie - an incredible visual experience in which one is involved and impacts the action, as opposed to simply watching immobile and apart from the action. In "WoW," we're not watching characters interact on screen with other characters - we're the characters, interacting with other people's characters. As the technology continues to advance, and possible character interactions become more complex, the similarities to the cinimatic world will expand.

Gaming is already a huge industry, bringing in more revenue than motion pictures. Games like this are just early examples of the future of entertainment - fully immersive, fantastic environments - experiences unlike anything that currently exists. This won't replace filmed entertainment - no more than televsion or motion pictures destroyed reading - this will eventually become another vast form of entertainment.

If you think people live their lives precariously through their favorite televsion show, just wait until they can live in that program, as well.

Massive Multi-Player Gaming - Part One

About a month ago, I decided to experiment a bit with massive multi-player gaming. For quite a while, I've been fascinated with this online phenomenan, which enables people around the world to interact in rich virtual worlds. Some games, like Worlds of Warcraft, consist of millions of gamers, and have spawned entire independent industries created to serve them. These industries will buy and sell the virtual items used in these games (i.e. online 'currency,' weaponry, armor) for real-world money. For example, an online player will pay $20 to recieve, within the game 500 gold coins...which he can use to advance more quickly within the game. The companies who offer these items sometimes have legions of low paid offshore (for example, Chinese) workers who spend their work hours trolling the games and accumulating items for sale to the highest bidder. Some call it cheating; others call it entreprenuership. Either way, it's people spending real money on something that doesn't actually exist for the benefit of dominating a non-exist world with imaginary characters that in turn represent real people you may never meet. This begins to sound like contemplating the origins of the universe...

My Space Personalities

One of the annoying aspects if MySpace is the tendency for a large number of people to create alternative personalities that have no relationship whatsoever to their real-life personalities. Language and attitude are transformed into something wholly artificial - and obviously so...it's an extension of kids immitating gangsta style - with LA origins in weapons, gangs and drug abuse - suburban kids imitating ignorance and a heightened form of arrogance - pretending to flip off the very lifestyle from which they will continue to benefit.

Return of my Blog

Here we go again...

Under intense pressure from my reading public (translation: under a suggestion from my nephew), I have decided to resume writing my blog.

Stay tuned....

End of the Line?

The Johnny Gosch case is in the news again, with news that the three kids featured in the photographs that turned up on the doorstep of the long-missing boy's mother have been tracked down. They're all now in their early 40's, and police have said that the man they spoke with claimed that they had been given firecrackers to pose bound for a man when they were 12 in the late 70's. Since Gosch went missing in 1982, that would seem to indicate that these photographs had nothing to do with the case in question.

Johnny Gosch's mother still claims that one particular photo, showing just one boy, is absolutely her son, and asks why the "proof" that the photos are fake hasn't been revealed to the public. At this point, I would hope that the men who posed for these photos as kids would step forward to put the matter to rest for the sake of Johnny Gosch's mother. If not, the secrecy will add yet another layer of speculation to this tragic story. If they don't step forward, even if privately to the Goschs mother, then she and the world must ask, "Why?"

Observatory Scene Investigation

Griffith Observatory here in Los Angeles wanted a video promoting a new parking arrangement at the newly expanded and restored Observatory. I decided to have some fun. This is the result.

World Premiere!

Here it is! The World Premiere of a little animation titled, "Boy in Box."

Johnny Gosch Update II

I wasn't planning on returning to this subject immediately, but a new post appeared just this morning on his mother's website. Please be aware of disturbing imagery if you visit that site.

Status: Gosch Case

I've been resisting adding yet another post on the Johnny Gosch case, but, as the old saying goes, the silence is deafening. His mother's official website, hadn't been updated since September 22nd, and then only with a thank you and current contact information. The media has been silent. There seems to have been no apparent progress in the case. No evidence in either direction - just absolute silence.

Granted,there are more pressing, current crisis in the world that the local police and FBI are working on - but shouldn't justice demand that we discover at the very least whether or not those photos are authentic?

Wickshire School

For some mysterious reason, searches for my elementary school in New York, Wickshire School, have jumped to the top of the list as the most commonly used search term used to find my blog. Either somebody's getting nostalgic, or there's a notorious graduate in the news...

Nukes

North Korea conducted an underground test of a nuclear device, despite warnings and condemnation from around the world, including Russia and China. Now, North Korea is being scolded by the world community once again. Threats and isolation didn't work earlier - I suspect they won't work now. It seems that as we attack easier targets elsewhere, we appease countries that provide a real threat.

I sometimes wonder how history will view this era. We're on a path that began in earnest with 911, and leads to an as yet unknown destination. We lurch from crisis to crisis and react with little long-term impact or long-term strategy. We can only hope that people won't have to look back on these times and ask, "Didn't they see where this was going?"

Changing Times

Tower Records, which has sold music and movies for generations and is nothing less than a Los Angeles institution, will be closing its doors in a few weeks. It's the victim of changing times, in which music is mostly sold digitally online, and movies are coming up right behind. Most major record stores have closed up or cut back dramatically, so it really is no surprise. In fact, though I think there are many who feel a tinge of regret, the closing of these stores are being met with a collective shrug. They were cool places to go, especially for those generations that learned about music by wandering up and down those aisles - but they're not reflective of how we - and especially kids - live today. "Record" stores (true vinyl records went by the wayside a long time ago), when you can find them, will join butcher shops, dry goods stores and blacksmith shops in the category of rare historical throwbacks.

We are still in the infancy of the information ago - and still undergoing the transformations that will make this new era as removed from the recent past as we are from the 1700's.

Big Malls

Today marks the opening of a major expansion to a mall not far from here. Westfield Topanga, formerly known as Topanga Plaza, is doubling in size. It's now a massive complex of high-end stores and eateries. It's also only one of a dozen projects in the immediate area (called Warner Center because it used to be the Warner Brothers movie ranch), creating incredible density and little else. Hundreds of apartments are being built or are being built. Old apartments are being upgraded and rents raised dramatically (I'm being paid to move so mine can be overhauled).

The area's representatives have seemed to have surrendered the area to developers, and abandoned the planned growth idea that once characterized this community (if it can be called that). Moving around the area any time close to rush hours is extremely difficult and time consuming. To make matters even worse, as the City of Los Angeles expands the Metrorail system throughout the city, this area has been given a new bus line along the old train route. I can pick up the bus, take it to the closest train in North Hollywood and take that train downtown. That trip will take me 90 minutes - longer then driving during rush hour traffic! Density issues in Los Angeles, I believe, will contribute to its downfall. It's one of the reasons I'll likely move just out of the City limits - I don't believe City Government is paying much attention - or has much of a vision for the future.

Predators vs. Victims

Mark Foley, the United States Congressman who has just been uncovered as sending inappropriate (i.e. sexual) emails and instant messages to fifteen year old congressional pages, also served in Congress as Co Chair of the Missing and Exploited Childrens Caucus. There are some indications that certain members of Congress may have known about Foley's "issiues" as early as a year ago, and didn't act in order to minimize potential political damage. Foley is being portrayed as a former victim of abuse himself, and a troubled alcoholic. Apparently, some don't see him as a predator.

Meanwhile, the photos in the Johnny Gosch case have yet to be disproved - yet that investigation has fallen off the face of the earth.