Santa Fe, NM
Saturday July 23, 2005
7:36am I woke up around, I don't know, 6:45 or so. I think that dude who sleeps here too, I think his name is Brandon. That punk girl he usually sleeps with, I think they broke up, he said. I've had a good morning. I'm all stoned. I'm going to pack up my stuff now.
8:03am I finally finished packing up all my stuff and I'm all loaded up. I'm taking my time.
8:29am That sucks, I walked all the way to the Salvation Army and it's closed. I should call this girl about my ride to Denver.
I don't know. I kind of want to stay in Santa Fe.
8:57am I am talking to Monique in the plaza. What's your email, Monique? moniquetyndll@yahoo.com
I am leaving the plaza. I'm going to try to go to Walmart. Oh yeah, and Villa Linda Mall too. I'll go get hooked up at Cici's again, like last year(6-29-03, 5:47pm) and the year before(7-27-04, 2:30pm). I need to go buy some supplies. I want to buy a new pack of socks, so I don't have to wash the ones I have and I can throw them away.
10:39am Not only did Crystal who's working at the parking lot right next to the bus stop listen to my whole odyssey, she gave me some Screaming Sour Candy.
I was taking off walking from Crystal, and it just occurred to me to ask her for a cigarette. She gave me four 72's. I appreciate it, Crystal.
10:50am Ray driving Route Two is hooking me up with a courtesy ride. Even a transfer. I appreciate it, brother. Whoa, it's a whole daypass! Everybody gets credit, thanks.
He even told me, "Welcome to Santa Fe." He asked me what my name was again and I told him, "Victor Antonio from San Antonio. I am San Antonio." He was this Hispanic guy.
I really like it here.
11:24am I just got dropped off at the Walmart. That was a cool bus driver. He gave me a daypass. I told him, "Thanks for mobilizing me." He called me Antonio.
11:39am I came to the Walmart and realized I didn't have enough money to buy all the things I wanted. I needed socks, CD's(they're fifteen here and twelve in Socorro) and sleeves. Ahh, I've got a couple clean socks left. I also have a couple bucks back in change, so I'm going to go do my laundry so I don't have to buy socks. CD's are more mission-critical than socks.
Okay, I put all the CD's in sleeves and put them in my bag.
11:58am Oh, I ended up buying some blank CD's meant for music. Like they have a big music note on them. I am almost positive they'll still work to put my webpage on. They were the cheapest they had. I still have a master CD I burned in Socorro. I have fifty blank CD's in my bag. Now all I need is a CD burner.
12:06pm I went in the Conoco and the guy in there was very helpful. He pulled out a phonebook and looked up a laundromat for me.
12:24pm Wanda, at the laundromat was nice enough to give me some change so I can dry my laundry. I appreciate it, Wanda. Everybody gets credit, thanks.
12:35pm I'm standing out here in front of the laundromat waiting for my laundry to dry. I'm going to smoke some weed.
I had gone in the bathroom and put on my swim trunks so I could wash my cargo shorts. The wash cost two dollars, but luckily some lady hooked me up with some money so I could dry my clothes.
Page 226, The Multi-Channel Society. Good section.
THE MULTI-CHANNEL SOCIETY
The basic direction of change in the media since at least 1970, when Future Shock foreshadowed the coming de-massification of the airwaves, has been toward the breakup of mass audiences into segments and subgroups, each receiving a different configuration of programs and messages. Along with this has come a vast expansion of the sheer amount of imagery transmitted by television in the form of both news and entertainment.
There is a reason for this image-explosion.
Humans, of course, have always exchanged symbolic images of reality. That is what language is all about. It is what knowledge is based on. However, different societies require either more or less symbolic exchange. The transition to a knowledge-based economy sharply increases the demand for communication and swamps the old image-delivery systems. Advanced economies require a labor force with high levels of symbolic sophistication. This work force needs instant and largely free access to all sorts of information hitherto considered irrelevant to its productivity. It needs workers who can quickly adapt to, and even anticipate, repeated changes in work methods, organization, and daily life.
The very best workers are worldly, alert to new ideas and fashions, customer preferences, economic and political changes, aware of competitive pressures, cultural shifts, and many other things previously regarded as pertinent only to managerial elites. This wide-scan knowledge does not come out of classrooms or from technical manuals alone, but from exposure to a constant barrage of news delivered by TV, newspapers, magazines, and radio. It also comes indirectly from "entertainment"—much of which unintentionally delivers information about new life styles, interpersonal relationships, social problems, and even foreign customs and markets.
Some shows, like Murphy Brown, which stars the actress Candice Bergen, deliberately build drama or comedy around current news. But even when this is not the case, television shows, sometimes despite themselves, convey images of reality. It is true that the intentional content of a television show— the plot and the behavior of the principal characters—often paints a false picture of social reality. However, there is in all television programs and commercials, as well as in movies, an additional layer of what we might call "inadvertent content." This consists of background detail—landscape, cars, street scenes, architecture, telephones, answering machines, as well as barely noticed behavior, like the banter between a waitress and a customer as the hero seats himself at a lunch counter. In contrast with the intended content, the inadvertent detail frequent ly provides a quite accurate picture of quotidian reality. Moreover, even the tritest "cop shows" picture current fads and fashions, and express popular attitudes toward sex, religion, money, and politics.
None of this is ignored or forgotten by the viewer. It is filed away in the mind, forming part of a person's general bank of knowledge about the world. Thus, good and bad alike, it influences the bag of assumptions brought to the workplace. (Ironically, much of the worker's image of the world, which increasingly affects economic productivity, is thus absorbed during "leisure" hours.) For this reason, "mere entertainment" is no longer "mere."
In short, the new economy is tightly tied not only to formal knowledge and technical skills but even to popular culture and the expanding market for imagery. This seething market is not only growing, but is simultaneously being restructured. Its very categories are re-forming. For better or worse, the old lines between show business and politics, leisure and work, news and entertainment, are all crashing, and we are exposed to a hurricane of often fragmented, kaleidoscopic images.
1:27pm Manuel, at the laundromat gave me a dime so I could finish drying my stuff. It was still damp.
Page 383, "Governments will no doubt invent more sophisticated lies with which to rationalize their self-serving actions and manipulate the increasingly systemic media. They will also step up propaganda efforts to improve their global image. But if such efforts fail, they could suffer significant economic penalties for behavior frowned on by the rest of the world."
2:03pm I am all done at the laundromat. Clean clothes. I'm going to go back downtown and tell my story, hehe. Now I don't have any money. I don't minmranthonycurtis@yahoo.comd.
Oh yeah, I'm on the bus. The driver just told me the Cici's at the mall closed down. That sucks.
2:35pm I am back downtown in the plaza.
2:57pm I am telling Tony my story here in the plaza. What's your email, Tony?
3:13pm Tony hooked me up with a cigarette after listening to my story. I appreciate it, Tony. Everybody gets credit, thanks.
4:07pm I am telling Chris my little story in the plaza. What was your email? scott4043@yahoo.com
4:15pm Chris and Tony hooked me up with another cigarette. I appreciate it, brother.
4:54pm I just had this great presentation with this beautiful girl named Elisha. I blew her mind. She was the best listener I've had in a long time. I just loved her reactions. I wish I had a CD to give her. I need to find somewhere with a CD burner. Oh yeah, and some guy kicked me down a nugget after hearing my story. Now I have even more weed.
5:18pm I just ran into Eric, I think his name is. He said I met him in Socorro.
5:29pm I am telling Molly my story here in the plaza. What's your email? mollyismyname@hotmail.com
6:58pm I am talking to Ethan right in front of the Starbucks. What was your email? ethan.marc.stone@gmail.com
7:14pm I'm talking to Danielle, Josh and Andrew. What was your email, Danielle? lellebell@ufl.edu
7:32pm I am talking to Joe Alabama, who works at St. Francis Hotel. What's your email, brother? joe_esmeault@msn.com
8:53pm I never mentioned I've been hanging out with John, who I hung out with in Durango last year. They're going to take me to their camp. With Rosemary, this crazy lady that camps with them. I think John called himself Skitz in Durango. Him and his brother Ghost(9-2-04).
9:09pm Thor's a Nazi. Spread the word. Thor's a Nazi.
9:23pm We came to the Save-On drugs in Rosemary's truck Hidalgo. What did we come here for? Tobacco. Then we'll go to camp.
I am still struggling with the idea of going to Denver tomorrow. If she's taking me all the way to Denver, then shouldn't I stop in Colorado Springs first?
If I go to Denver I just have to go to Boulder.
I don't know what time it is. It's around midnight. We came to this camp. Cool, I'll have a mattress to sleep on. They cooked up some burgers so I'm not hungry anymore. I'm going to go to sleep now. I am tired. Ugh, I can't decided if I want to go to Denver. I kind of want to stay in Santa Fe. It is so cool here.
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