Author: Mark Alexander

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I Miss Tucson







There is a tranquility there, a peacefulness that is sadly absent from the frenetic pace of life in Phoenix, especially on grey, rainy days like yesterday when the smell of wet creosote permeated the air and the sound of gently falling rain drowned out all outside sounds. Perhaps it’s the smaller population, or the slightly higher altitude, or maybe it’s simply because the desert hasn’t been bulldozed and paved over the way it has been in Phoenix.

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The Things I’d Like To Say In An Interview

You know that part of a job interview when the person behind the desk turns to you and asks, “So…do you have any questions?” and you’re supposed to spew forth a bunch of crap to show you’ve done your homework and are interested in the company’s direction and outlook for the future? Questions that you know are bullshit, they know are bullshit, and yet you’re still expected to do that kabuki dance nevertheless?

After having gone through a dozen  interviews over the last four months, at this point this is how I would love to respond:

Y’know, I’ve done my due diligence and have researched the company and really have no questions that haven’t already been answered online or you haven’t addressed during the past half hour. But I would like to add a few further things for your consideration.

I know you’re not going to hire me. Don’t look so surprised. I’ve been to this rodeo often enough to know now that even though you saw my resume and thought, “This guy has great experience and the skill set we’re looking for. Get him in here!” the look on your face when we first met told me all I needed to know. I walked in and you immediately saw, “Old guy who probably won’t be able to lift a printer or crawl under a desk—and certainly won’t have the mental agility to keep up in the constantly changing world of I.T..”

Well I have a response to that. I was lifting printers and crawling under desks as recently as four months ago in my last position. I’ve been keeping up with each new development of personal computing when my passion was ignited the first time I touched a Commodore VIC-20 back in 1983. My newsfeed is tech! I’ve built PCs from scratch. I know how they go together and what to look for when they don’t work. And as far as mental agility is concerned, at my last position we were having multiple issues with Windows 10—including in-house software not installing—and I thought outside the box, did my research, and came up with a solution. I may not know Office 365 or some other piece of software, but that’s only because it wasn’t in use at any of my previous jobs. That doesn’t mean I can’t get up to speed on it in a short amount of time.

I show up to work on time. I do my job. I am reliable and can be counted on to do something if asked and seek better ways of doing things if I see something that needs improvement. I have people skills that only time and experience can impart. And if you’re worried about me retiring, that’s not going happen for at least another decade if I want full benefits—and we both know that these days people seldom stay at any one job for that length of time anyway  No, if I’m happy, treated with respect, and like a company, I’ll be in it for the long haul because I hate interviewing and don’t ever want to have to go through this again.

I’m sorry that my knowledge, experience and people skills do not come in a shiny 22-year old package fresh out of school with a pocket full of certifications that you were hoping could be the forward-thinking face of I.T. to your customers, but if you want someone with my kind of background and skill set, you need to take the years that go along with it.

Thank you for your time. It was a pleasure meeting you. Have a nice day.

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I Call Bullshit

Some thoughts on Social Media, aka “Get off my lawn!”

Sometime back in the Pleistocene (y’know, six, seven years ago) I was on most Social Media, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Facebook was the first to go. Even before the arrival of the Orange Russian Wig Stand I felt it was devolving into a major political and social boxing ring. I was as guilty of fanning the flames as anyone else, and what finally caused me to step aside, do some self-examination and finally close my account was a comment left on my wall by the cute barista who worked at the Starbucks by our apartment that said, “Why don’t you ever post anything positive?”

Facebook was like heroin (or at least what I imagine heroin must be like). I was constantly looking for my next fix, and the withdrawal was just as painful. Zuckerberg knows that. That’s why your account isn’t immediately closed. He knows there’s a better than average chance you’ll relapse and come crawling back for your next high.

It was months before I could honestly say I no longer had the urge to click that icon and reopen my account. I breathed a sigh of relief when the thing had finally been deleted.

I’m now in pretty much the same ready-to-quit mood with Twitter as I was with FaceBook. Twitter (at least when I first joined in 2008) used to be fun, but lately it’s turned into a feculent vat of toxic hell stew thanks to the 2016 election.

Are there still islands of something nice, something fun? Yeah (check out Myrna Tellingheusen and the other residents of the fictitious Vaca Muerta Estates for a good time), but mostly now it’s just two tribes lobbing venomous grenades at each other and an open sewer of nothing but horrific news and outrage.

I’ve reached the point where I can stand to be on it a couple minutes at most every other day (mostly to catch up with Vaca Muerta and some tech news), but after ten years I’m thinking of shuttering my online presence there as well.

The only remaining social media that I still enjoy and spend way too much time on is Instagram. Maybe it’s because I fancy myself an adequately artistic photographer or perhaps it’s just because I’m a visual person. Either way, I still enjoy the platform. Yes, even it is getting politicized to a degree, although at the moment its remaining fairly civil. (Where do you think I find the anti-trump memes, anyway?)

But what’s annoying me about Instagram is how it’s spawned a whole new generation of people who fancy themselves famous for simply being on the platform. “Instagram Models” is apparently a new profession. Along with “influencers.” Influencers of what? Do you think because you’re 20 years old, have six-pack abs and judging from your photos—apparently can’t get your hands on a single shirt anywhere in the world you go—you’re are going to influence…what, exactly? What are you influencing beyond furthering  the rampant narcissism that’s consuming our culture? Do you really think people are going to buy the same brand of jockstrap you’re wearing because you’re posing on a beach in Mykonos?

Someone brought this up the other day by not-so-ironically posting on Instagram, “Public Figure: two words guaranteed to get you removed from my followers. Who decides that they’re a public figure, and why? Sorry, take your self importance somewhere else.”

I responded, “Add to that  “influencer” along with “Instagram Model,” aka I don’t have a real job but I’m (at least temporarily) pretty and whore myself out to rich sugar daddies just enough to travel the world and take (primarily shirtless) selfies.”

But do I follow these men and enjoy looking at their shirtless selfies? Of course I do. They’re pretty. And as long as I can ignore their self-importance I can enjoy that. Do they influence me? Not one whit. Am I being shallow? Possibly, if not probably. As I joke, “My Instagram feed consists of bears, vinyl collectors, drag queens, d-list celebrities, and men who don’t seem to own a single shirt among the lot of them.”

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I Approve Of This Message

For those of you who have been living under a rock (or simply aren’t fans—WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?!) the eleventh season of the “rebooted” Doctor Who had its worldwide premiere yesterday with a new Doctor and a new show runner. I was excited for these changes before I saw last night’s premier, and I’m even more excited now having seen this first episode.

In the interest of transparency, I’m completely unfamiliar with Ms. Whittaker’s previous work, so I don’t know if what we saw last night was her normal acting persona or if she’d been studying David Tenant’s Doctor intensely after landing the role. But OMG…the facial expressions, the vocal inflections…she’s at least initially coming off as a female Tenant, and I’m okay with that because—as Ben pointed out—we need a fun, joyful Doctor again.

I immediately came to care about these characters, and while in seasons past it’s taken me quite a while to warm up to new Doctors, this time I was all in from the get go! She’s—as they say across the pond—brilliant!

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It’s Kind of Sobering

It’s kind of sobering to realize that most—if not all—of the adults I knew as a child (including some beloved teachers) are probably now dead.

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I Hate To Sound So Pessimistic…

…but after the Kavanaugh shit show last week, and the fact that the pussy grabber in the White House actually managed to pull off getting that other  pussy grabber appointed to the Supreme Court, I have very little hope for the future of this country.

Women, be afraid. Be very afraid.

POC, be afraid. Be very afraid.

GLBT, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Muslims, be afraid. Be very afraid.

In fact, if you’re not a rich, white, heterosexual “christian” male, you should probably be looking over your shoulder as well, because they will eventually come for you too. We’ve seen this story play out countless times in the history of our world, and it never ends well.

My question is who will “save” us? Will we be speaking Russian or Chinese when The United States takes its dying breath and the dust settles?

I seriously would like to know what the Orange Wigstand’s response would be if Russian troops landed on the west coast.

I think we all know.

While the number of people who hate Shitler’s guts far outweigh the number of knuckle-draggers in his base, I fear the so called “Blue Wave” expected in November is never going to materialize. Please prove me wrong. Between general voter apathy, the knat-like attention span of the population (the Kavanaugh crap show will be an entire month in the past by the time Election Day rolls around), Republican gerrymandering/voter suppression/dirty tricks and expected-yet-undefended-from Russian interference next month, if the Democrats do make gains, they still won’t be substantial enough to flip the balance of power in Washington.  And at that point WE. ARE. FUCKED.

Please, please, please…women, LGBT, people of color, and the vast majority of whites who are patriotic and care for this country, get off your asses and vote. This may be your last opportunity.  I’m not being hyperbolic here; our country is sliding into fascism much the same way Germany did in the 30s, and apparently a sizable portion of the population is okay with that. There’s a small, angry mob of white-hooded nationalists and tiki-torch sympathizers who have decided that all their woes are because of the “other,” and the Shitgibbon (who they’re too stupid to realize doesn’t give a fuck about them other than they’re useful tools who fawn over him, stroking his narcissistic sociopathy) view him as their holy savior. It seems that now the main goal of republicans is not to actually govern or reach compromise; their singular focus has become “owning the libs,” even if it means burning everything this country was founded on to the ground.

With Twitler today spewing garbage that is a hair’s breadth away from labeling Democrats Enemy of the People, I have very little hope that we are in for anything other than VERY dark times ahead. Mexican kids in cages? You ain’t seen nothing yet—especially if you’re not a rich, white, heterosexual “christian” male.

Fleeing the country is not an option for Ben and I or the vast majority of our friends, and I’m sure that when the shit really hits the fan, our borders will be closed tighter than Melania’s coach. (Has anyone considered that Agent Orange’s border wall is more to keep us in than to keep anyone else out?)

So please, if you care one whit about this country, if you’re not ready for “Trump Youth” or jackbooted thugs marching in formation down your city streets—or simply about staying alive and not ending up in a camp—get off your ass and vote November 6th because you know the Shitgibbon’ s minions will.