Perhaps the internet providers themselves are the new unavoidable force of reality; Verizon as a pivot point for your existence. Or maybe the social networking sites, the triumph of rapid misspelled banality, now control how one virtually moves. A part of me (perhaps the part of me not bothering to wear corrective lenses) has always thought of Facebook as ‘FoodSafing.’ If some sort of apocalypse happens in the 3D resource-based world, like a massive water shortage, what is the most efficient way of rationing those resources? Do you want to provide it to the unknown neighborhood dwellers, or the people with the most partisan-friendly INFO boxes? And what about email addresses? If you have no email, are you like an astronaut floating free in the void, unencumbered, but really, really fucked?

Gravity as an abstract concept is a little weird, I know. But I believe that each representation of a larger system invariably has to represent each part of that system, like scale in architecture. On a 40th scale model, the pool deck on floor 22 is just a blue dot; on a 1/2 scale model, you have to glue together some damn lawn chairs and scatter them convincingly around the simulated tile periphery. If the internet is a scale model of the human universe, what holds the virtual world together? Our faith in humanity? The promise of shiny things?

Or is it being held together at all?

Photo: Phillie Casablanca

A friend of mine from North Carolina maintains that all chiropractors are quacks. Admittedly, I’ve never walked into a chiropractor’s office without feeling like I’m entering the premises of a sketch comedy troupe. Invariably, pictures of context-free smiling children compete with ‘degrees’ from institutions that sound more like yoga poses than legitimate medical facilities. The equipment looks like an elegant corporate art installation: random spirals connect with clunky, thickly padded steel shelving. Once you’re dangling on something like that, you feel like you’ve lost something. Dignity, yes; critical discernment, absolutely.

But during this visit, I realized that chiropractors should really be termed non-invasive physical therapists. It’s a high-intensity, low-impact healing, both mental and physical. You don’t have to talk about your childhood, and you don’t have to stare at warning pictures of inflamed organs while barely warmed metal implements are shoved into your nether regions. The idea that your ailments could somehow be prevented by the proper alignment of your spine is classic. It has a basic, soulful appeal, a return to a pure universe of order. It’s win-win, unless of course you’re bleeding internally. Does it actually help? I’m of the opinion that it certainly doesn’t hurt.

Photo: “American Book Company, 1924″

Entire countries have been known to make the journey. Take Scotland, for example, which is currently debating outlawing a beverage known as “Buckfast Tonic Wine.” A clever combination of caffeine, sugar, and 30 proof alcohol, Buckfast appears to be a causal agent for diabetes, alcoholism, and very fast slurring. It’s kind of a reverse wonder drink, a toxic balm applied to healthy impulses. The Scottish government issues reports on the drinking of its citizenry, saying that “for a large section of the Scottish population, their relationship with alcohol is damaging and harmful.” Will Scotland take the hint and sober up, and start furiously coaching youth sports leagues? Anything could happen in the land that pioneered the deep-fried candy bar.

I know several people who have forever sworn off drink. I know others who have forever sworn off sobriety. And I know a great deal who, in their attempts to deal with a never ending deluge of reality, are once again drinking too much. One of these latter day drinkers is currently headed to an un-insulated mung-bean growing recuperation center in Northern California. It is unclear whether the recuperation benefits the mung beans or those who grow them.

Some people have effectively argued that writers are alcoholics, citing actual writers as examples. However, there is a distinction; alcoholics rarely win the Pulitzer Prize, unless of course they are politicians. Business owners are issued one bottle of Scotch when they pay their first worker’s compensation claim, and must submit to regular drinking exams by the State Board of Equalization, or, failing the availability of an inspector, especially insufferable clientele. Social drinkers would seem to have it right, but their jokes are never very funny. And the newly sober are as fanatic about being sober as they were about being drunk.

Wherever you are on the scale, here’s to your health.

Photo: ㋷㋓ ♥ ½’s

In an age where we have forsaken privacy for unfiltered noise, the Glass House still manages to calm me down. Despite its transparency, it retains the feeling of a private realm. Respect seems to be ingrained in its framework, a quality that makes you feel privileged to be able to glance inside. There’s nothing exhibitionist about the Glass House.

For me, at least, it is a pure emotional experience, beautiful, in part, because it doesn’t appear to give a damn. It’s going to exist on that plot of land whether you’re interested in it or not. It doesn’t need validation from any other structures. It is complete.

In a contemporary society whose mantra is seemingly, “Jittery and Insecure Under a Mask of Professionalism!” places like the Glass House are worth keeping in mind, if only because they evince that old, hard-won attitude that no matter what, everything is going to be just fine.

Before anyone laughs at the idea of Jay Leno as some kind of hard-bitten (yet whiny) general who refuses to lay down his sword, think of the battle in larger generational terms. The Conan generation—the 30 and 40 somethings—have come up through a weird set of times. They are by-and-large the product of the Me generation. The Me generation has never been a big one for responsibility. In their 30’s and 40’s, the Me generation was making movies like The Big Chill. They were obsessed with finding a meaning for their historically unprecedented well-coiffed existence. And since the 80’s failed to really provide any answers, they extended their search well into the 90’s, the oughts, and now the 10’s. They’re not done yet. They don’t know why they’re here. Oliver Stone is making Wall Street 2, for godsakes.

And while this quality is endearing, indicating as it does a deeper quest for meaning and spiritual fulfillment, it also really fucks with the younger generation, who need real jobs now. Like Prince Charles perpetually waiting for Queen Elizabeth, the Conan O’Brien generation is apparently too weak or too polite to assert itself. Which, in realpolitik terms, means they don’t deserve to take the throne.

But shouldn’t the older generation, in the interests of continuity and furthering the overall progress of the human race, allow this younger generation proper passage? Jay Leno, by refusing to gracefully go into that good night, is in a way asserting that he has something more meaningful to say than Conan O’Brien. But what can Leno possibly say now? He’s had twenty years to say it. As far as I can tell, he likes cars.

Whether or not Conan has anything more meaningful to say is debatable, of course. But he seems to represent a larger trend of people who are tired of being manipulated by an older generation of confused, frightened folks who don’t know how to deal with the final curtain, and would prefer to just keep boogey-ing until the disco ball falls down.

And to be honest, I can’t really blame them.