OUR CONNECTION IS NOT PRIVATE

Monday, November 4, 2019 

    You should have been able to read this on Tuesday, but guess what? The internet is down. Part of living in the Catskills is putting up with slow and unreliable internet. Politicians have been promising for years to bring high speed broadband to the sticks and here I sit, a day before elections 2019, one tiny step above that annoying sound of dial up. 

    Want cable? Good luck. The cable companies insist YOU pay for their infrastructure, charging by the foot to run cable to your house. Last I checked they wanted about $5000 to hook me up. What a racket! They have to be fucking insane to think I will pay them thousands of dollars to hang wire on existing poles and charge me $150 per month for the privilege. So I’m stuck with a radio, a record player, slow Hughes Net satellite and a rotary phone. The TV blew up years ago. Outside of my guns, the old black, indestructible, bakelite phone is the most dependable machine I own.

   I love and depend on the internet. I’m of the generation of passive receivers, not aggressive transmitters. I became addicted to TV in the mid-1950’s, while that medium was still in its infancy. I couldn’t get enough of it. When my work started to mature in the late 1970’s we still had eight track cassettes, reel to reel video rigs and porn played in movie theaters. There was no power to transmit for the artist. If you wanted people to know about your projects you mailed out invitations or wheat pasted posters around town. Everything cost money and your reach was limited to word of mouth, mailing lists and the odd sighting on a telephone pole. It was expensive, difficult and frustrating to promote your work. So when I finally got hip to the internet (way late) I was hooked. I started a blog the first week I bought a computer. You mean to tell me I can publish images or whatever I write, for free, WORLD WIDE, with the press of a button? It still thrills me.

     I may not have too many followers or a viral footprint, but the democratization of information that the world wide web has provided took a load off of me. Facebook, Instagram and blogspot are so easy to use a five year old can do it. The pressure to publish or have somebody put the seal of approval on my work vanished. I could do it all on my own, build my audience (or not) slowly. Fuck the publishers, gallerists, museum directors and record company execs. I have Instagram, blogspot and Spotify. It’s free for all. Fuck the business plan. Just kidding. I never had one. 

    

   Going back to why you couldn’t read this earlier—these sites all depend on the internet. Without that my ability to transmit songs, words and images and your ability to receive them disappears like the politicians’ promises for rural broadband. The computer is just a machine. Today the internet stopped working and this alarming notice appeared on my machine’s screen—“Your Connection is Not Private. Attackers might be trying to steal your information…”  Suddenly, I was forced offline, simultaneously silenced and vulnerable.

   The machine allows me to write this, but unless you come over to the house and I show it to you, the audience is just me and Cheeky. I may as well drag the IBM Selectric. out of the attic or find a crayon and paper bag. So here I sit. No cell phone. No TV. No email. No CNN. No Al Jazeera. No Instagram. No porn. No wide world. I called Hughes Net and waited 15 minutes to talk to someone. Then, after another fifteen minutes of back and forth, pressing buttons and stroking keys, they dropped the call. I had to call back on the rotary and start from scratch. Try staying calm as you anticipate a cold, lonely night in the Catskills, a pledge drive on local Public Radio, no beer in the fridge and…..did I mention no porn? Elton John is on the record player- “and I think it’s gonna be a long, long time…..”

   

    The good news is that on the second call I was able to schedule an appointment with a service technician for tomorrow (your yesterday). I hope to hunt in the morning. He’s supposed to show up between 11am and 2pm. Hopefully my passwords weren’t hacked or checking account drained as I slept. If all goes well you will be reading this sometime in the not too distant future. 

P.S.

The technician never showed. More calls. More “on hold.” More apologies, promises and pleas for me to keep the obscenities to a minimum. Fuck that! I don’t have time for this shit. Now “Mr. Groom” is set to show up between 2-5pm Wed. “Ken” the nice Indian gentleman in Arizona promises. If he doesn’t show I’m canceling my account. I can sit in the freezing cold day after day waiting for a buck. But waiting for two days for a service technician to show is another story. It is torture. 

    

    The rut is heating up and we’re expecting snow on Friday. I’ve seen one good buck, but have had nothing in close enough for the bow. Right now it’s a waiting game. Duh. I have to put the time in the stand and stay focused. All I want to do is sit in a tree. I love trees as much as the internet. I’m still haunted by the last shot I flubbed on the biggest buck I’d even seen in the woods. Only another hunter would know the feeling. 

   I wrote about that on www.huntingwithsupermodels.blogspot.com. HWS also has plenty of pictures of some of my favorite supermodels, Marianna Rothen, Hollie Witchey and Morgane Dubled, and other sexy pics by great photogs Richard Kern, George Holz and Marianna Rothen. Just thinking about it makes me wish I had internet. Check out the archives. Our connection is public. “Im a Rocketmannnnnnnnn”  Sing it Elton.